Re-cataloguing of the Latin manuscripts from St. Emmeram in Regensburg (Clm 14691 – 14850)

Due to its intellectual-historical importance, its age and its size, the manuscript collection from the former Benedictine monastery St. Emmeram in Regensburg constitutes one of the core collections among the holdings of manuscripts of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. After the secularization in 1811/ 1812 more than 1,000 manuscripts from this monastery were acquired by the Munich court library. In the collection of Codices latini monacenses, 943 Latin manuscripts from St. Emmeram are listed today under numbers 14000 – 15028. Further Emmeram manuscripts form part of the collection of German medieval manuscripts (Cgm), the cataloguing of which has almost been concluded, some individual codices form part of the Greek manuscript collection (Cod.graec.) and of the Hebrew manuscript collection (Cod.hebr.).

The St. Emmeram fund is the collection of a Benedictine monastery library which grew for almost 1000 years and survived almost comprehensively in a good state. In addition to such priceless items as the Codex Aureus from the court school of Charles the Bald (Clm 14000) and the only copy of the works of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (Clm 14485) surviving in its entirety, the collection comprises the theological and juridical standard literature of the middle ages, but also classical and historical source texts as well as scientific, astronomical and medical technical literature, which is rarely found covering a similar scope and having a comparable quality. The foundation of the monastery library and of the scriptorium goes back to the 9th century. In addition to manuscripts written in the monastery's scriptorium or crafted by conventuals, also manuscripts from France, Italy and Bohemia were acquired by the monastery. The monastery played an important role in the spiritual and intellectual life of the free city of Regensburg and the Duchy of Bavaria up to early modern times. Prior to the secularisation in 1803, the book collection ranked among the most important monastery libraries regarding both volume and content, surpassing most German university libraries. The manuscripts belonging to the collection group are categorized according to the 18th-century shelf classification.

So far, the holdings can be found only in catalogues of the 19th century, which were compiled by Colomann Sanftl even before the secularisation, and later by the Munich court library. The re-cataloguing has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since 1988. Since then, five catalogue volumes have been published.

Catalogue volumes on St. Emmeram

Overview of already digitized manuscripts from St. Emmeram