e-codices Newsletter - Issue N° 34

In this issue

1. 62 New Manuscripts Online
2. Productive networks: Cooperation with Swiss research projects
3. Universitätsbibliothek Basel – Library catalogues from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel
4. New collection: State Archives of Basel-Stadt
5. Critical edition project "Königsfelden"
6. Prayer books on e-codices
7. Free Cultural Object: Manuscripts from the Swiss National Museum in the public domain
8. New facets – bindings, fragments and musical notations

October 2018

Issue N° 34

1. 62 New Manuscripts Online

In the current update, e-codices is publishing 62 new manuscripts. With this increase, we now offer a total of 2,110 manuscripts from 85 different collections.

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Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. lat. 32a, f. 74v – Book of Hours for use in Rome: David with the harp. The Book of Hours was probably created in Geneva.

St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 509, f. 138v – Spiritual Marian breviary: Prayers and meditations in German for the liturgical year

2. Productive networks: Cooperation with Swiss research projects

Ever since the Swiss National Science foundation began to support more digital projects and publications, there has been a marked increase in collaboration between e-codices and various Swiss research projects. New projects tend to contact us early in the planning phase in order to suggest a series of manuscripts for digital publication; we then discuss the selection with the relevant libraries and generally secure their support. In the current update, this kind of collaboration is the norm, as can be seen from the next several news items. e-codices invites research projects not only from within Switzerland, but from across the globe, to suggest project-relevant codices from Swiss collections for publication; financial assistance, while helpful, is not mandatory for participation.

3. Universitätsbibliothek Basel – Library catalogues from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel

With this update, we publish another 13 manuscripts from the Carthusian Monastery of St. Margarethental in Basel. The monastery was founded in Lesser Basel in 1401; until the Reformation, it was an important spiritual and intellectual center, whose influence extended far beyond the city of Basel. At the beginning of the 16th century, its library contained about 2,000 books, almost all of which became the property of the university after the dissolution of the monastery; these books constituted the substantive base of the early university library. Among them are more than 600 manuscripts which are currently in the process of being catalogued and made accessible by the University Library Basel.
We would like to highlight four library catalogs:

1. The ‘Ausleihbuch’ (loans register) begun by Jakob Lauber around 1482 and continued until 1527 (Basel, UB, AR I 4).
2. Urban Moser’s ‘Repertorium’ (Basel, UB, AR I 4a) from around 1515, alphabetically arranged by authors, titles and topics.
3. Two shelf lists from 1520 by Georg Carpentarius, for the Bibliotheca antiqua (Basel, UB, AR I 2, including the choir library) and the Bibliotheca nova (Basel, UB, AR I 3).

Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, A X 92, f. 41r – Composite manuscript Devotio Moderna: listed in the old library catalogue of Georg Carpentarius, UB Basel, AR I 2

Basel, Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Klosterarchiv, Kartaus L, f. 86r – Liber benefactorum

4. New collection: State Archives of Basel-Stadt

Related to the Basel University Library’s project on the Carthusian Monastery is the publication of the Liber benefactorum, the monastery’s book of benefactors. This calendar, begun in the early 15th century, contains the names of over 800 benefactors. The state archives of the Canton of Basel-Stadt becomes the 12th state archive to publish selected treasures from its collection on e-codices.

5. Critical edition project "Königsfelden"

Throughout its existence, the double monastery of Königsfelden (1308-1528) counted among the central clerical institutions of Aargau. The project "Charters and Records of Königsfelden Abbey and Bailiwick (1308–1662)" at the University of Zurich (principal investigator: Prof. Dr. Simon Teuscher) is currently preparing a digital critical edition in order to provide access to this rich collection of medieval and early modern texts for scholars as well as for the interested public. This project is cooperating closely with the Aargau memory institutions (Aarau, Kantonsbibliothek und Staatsarchiv Aargau, Museum Aargau). e-codices is collaborating with the project by jointly publishing various material. Individually listed pieces (documents and records) will be published as part of the finding aids of the Aargau state archives, while bound documents can be found and viewed via e-codices.

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Aarau, Staatsarchiv Aargau, AA/0446, f. 6r – Cartulary of Königsfelden Abbey concerning the abbey’s Waldshut properties.

St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 509, View front cover – Spiritual Marian breviary: Prayers and meditations in German for the liturgical year

6. Prayer books on e-codices

The research project "German Vernacular Prayer Books. Transmission, Form and Function", led by PD Dr. Stefan Matter (University of Fribourg), is undertaking, for the first time, a fundamental study of by far the most widely-preserved literary texts of the Middle Ages in German - spiritual short texts for prayer and worship. To support this project, we will begin with two prayer books from the Abbey Library of Saint Gall: a spiritual Marian breviary (Cod. Sang. 509) and German prayers (Cod. Sang. 510), both probably from the Convent of Dominican nuns of St. Katharina in St. Gall (later Wil / SG).

7. Free Cultural Object: Manuscripts from the Swiss National Museum in the public domain

Open access is not the same as Open access. Open in the proper meaning of the word are only those publications in the public domain with the Creative Commons licenses CC-0, CC-by and CC-by-sa, since only works or expressions with these licenses can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any purpose (including commercial purposes). In principle, e-codices recommends the "Definition of Free Cultural Works" because this clearly regulates the subsequent use of digital content. However, we allow each individual partner library to decide whether to prohibit or to allow commercial use. We are pleased that the National Museum, which holds precious manuscripts, has decided to place images in the public domain.

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8. New facets – bindings, fragments and musical notations

Three new facets improve the search function. Types of bindings are organized by century and by luxury bindings. Thus one can determine at a glance how many 9th century Carolingian bindings there are in the St. Gall Abbey library: no fewer than 61!

In addition to detached fragments, of which we have so far been able to publish 81 documents (searchable by means of the facet "document type\fragment"), there are also numerous fragments still in-situ. In order to find these fragments more easily, we have created the facet "with in situ fragment." This shows that 140 book covers contain an offset of a detached fragment.

In collaboration with the associated project "Fragmentarium", we also added the facet "musical notation", which can be used to search for various musical notations. St. Gall is one of the cradles of European musical notation, which was invented around 800.