Occidental manuscripts

The collection of Occidental manuscripts of the time from the 6th to the 20th century includes around 38,000 codices, among them predominantly 17,000 Latin and 13,000 German manuscripts, but also more than 1,000 French ones, 950 Italian ones, 650 Greek ones, 145 Spanish and Portuguese ones and 124 Slavic ones. In addition, there are over 1,250 pictorial manuscripts (Codices iconographici), a small portion of the music manuscripts, over 2,600 hand-written library catalogues and a large collection of printed books with handwritten remarks of persons known by name (Libri impressi cum notis manuscriptis). About 3,600 medieval fragments detached from their supporting volumes are not included in this figure as they are counted separately. With more than 16,000 specimens, over 40 percent of all Occidental manuscripts are from the Middle Ages. All of them can be searched in BSB DISCOVER! now.

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Provenances

The most important provenances are formed by the manuscripts from the two princely libraries of the house of Wittelsbach in Munich and Mannheim on the one hand, and by the manuscripts from formerly ecclesiastic ownership on the other hand. Thus, around 1,100 codices are from Mannheim, among them the most numerous and valuable French manuscripts. In the course of the secularisation, a large number of works were added from Old Bavarian monasteries. The Tegernsee monastery tops the list with 1,680 manuscripts, followed by Benediktbeuern with 600, the cathedral libraries of Freising (400), Passau and Salzburg, as well as holdings from the mediatised imperial city of Regensburg with the city library and several monastery libraries, led by St. Emmeram with 1,110 Latin and German manuscripts. The different provenances of the manuscripts can largely still be seen in their classification marks, thanks to their organisation by Johann Andreas Schmeller (1785 – 1852).

With approximately 17,300 volumes, the collection of Latin manuscripts (Codices latini monacenses – Clm) is the most extensive with respect to numbers and also the most important collection alongside the German and Greek manuscripts. Around 11,000 are from the Middle Ages, thus almost two thirds. The organisation of the manuscripts and the associated sequence of classification marks goes back to the work of the librarian Johann Andreas Schmeller.

Classification of the manuscripts

Outstanding pieces

Among the outstanding pieces of the collection are the "Breviarium Alarici" (Clm 22501) dating back to the 6th century, a "purple gospel book" from the first quarter of the 9th century (Clm 23631), the "codex aureus of St. Emmeram“ (Clm 14000) crafted in the court school of Charles the Bald around 870, the "gospel book of Emperor Otto III" from the time around 1000 (Clm 4453) and the "evangeliary of Emperor Henry II" produced only little later (Clm 4452), as well as the "sacramentary" (Clm 4456) produced for him; moreover, there is the "Uta codex" dating back to around 1025 (Clm 13601), the "Scheyern book of matins" (Clm 17401), the world-famous manuscript of the "Carmina Burana" (Clm 4660) or – as an example of a modern Latin manuscript – the so-called "prayer book of Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria" (Clm 23640).

Breviarium Alarici  (Clm 22501)
Purple gospel book  (Clm 23631)
Codex aureus of St. Emmeram  (Clm 14000)
Gospel book of Otto III  (Clm 4453)
Evangeliary of Emperor Henry II  (Clm 4452)
Sacramentary  (Clm 4456)  (cover available in 3D at "bavarikon – Culture and gems of knowledge of Bavaria")
Uta codex  (Clm 13601)
Scheyern book of matins  (Clm 17401(1)
Carmina Burana  (Clm 4660)

UNESCO Memory of the World Register

In addition to the three manuscripts from Reichenau, also the six Latin (and two Greek) manuscripts of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek merit special mention which were incorporated in the Memory of the World Register of UNESCO due to their formerly forming part of the "Bibliotheca Corviniana".

UNESCO Memory of the World Register
Reichenau manuscripts
Munich Corvinus Collection

Overview of digitized manuscripts   |   Overview of collection  (PDF, 197 KB)   |   Catalogues

The group of the Codices germanici monacenses (Cgm) includes more than 13,000 manuscripts from the 9th century up to the present. It represents the second-largest collection group following the Latin manuscripts.

Medieval manuscripts

The around 1,460 medieval manuscripts (and nearly 670 medieval manuscript fragments) convey an important insight into the range of literature of this time. The Old High German texts form a focal point. As one outstanding example, the "gospel harmony" by Ottfried von Weißenburg should be mentioned (Cgm 14, written in Freising at the start of the 10th century). An important work from the Old High German or Old Saxon linguistic field is the Bible epic "Heliand" written in alliterative verses (Cgm 25, written in Corvey in the middle of the 9th century).

However, important German texts of this time are more frequently found as addenda or similar in Latin manuscripts, for example the "Wessobrunn prayer" (Clm 22053) and the "Muspili" (Clm 14098). Middle High German courtly epic poetry forms the other focal point. In this respect the manuscripts of the "Parzival" (Cgm 19, around 1240 – 1250) and of the "Tristan" by Gottfried von Straßburg (Cgm 51, around 1240 – 1250) merit special mention. Also the manuscript A of the "Song of the Nibelungs" (Cgm 34, last quarter of the 13th century) and the "Ottheinrich Bible" (Cgm 8010) dating back to the 15th century are famous.

Ottfried von Weißenburg: Gospel harmony  (Cgm 14)
Heliand  (Cgm 25)
Wessobrunn prayer  (Clm 22053)
Muspili  (Clm 14098)
Wolfram von Eschenbach: Parzival  (Cgm 19)
Gottfried von Straßburg: Tristan and Isolde (Cgm 51)
Song of the Nibelungs  (Cgm 34)
Ottheinrich Bible  (Cgm 8010)

Modern-age manuscripts

Among the modern-age manuscripts, there are autographs of famous persons such as Martin Luther ("Ermahnung zum Frieden", Admonition to peace, April 1525, Cgm 4101), Adalbert Stifter ("Der Nachsommer", Indian Summer, Cgm 8072) and Richard Wagner ("Die hohe Braut", The High Bride, draft of an opera libretto; Cgm 9366 a and Cgm 9366 b). In addition to such work manuscripts, predominantly also convolutes of letters – for example by Richard Wagner (i.a. Cgm 7367, 8839 and 9425) – were classified into the group of Cgm classification marks.

Martin Luther: Ermanunge zum fride  (Admonition to peace, Cgm 4101)
Adalbert Stifter: Der Nachsommer  (Indian Summer, Cgm 8072)
Richard Wagner: Prose draft of the opera libretto "Die hohe Braut"  (The High Bride, Cgm 9366 a)
Richard Wagner: 127 letters and 1 card to Mathilde Maier  (Cgm 8839)

Autographs and modern papers

Autographs and parts of personal papers are classified into the group of the Cgm marks, but can also bear "Ana", "Autogr." or "Fasc.germ." classification marks.
Further information and overview of modern papers

Overview of digitized manuscripts   |   Overview of collection  (PDF, 33 KB)   |   Catalogues

With 680 items (including 21 fragments) the Greek manuscripts (Codices graeci 1 – 651) represent the largest collection of its kind in Germany. They are predominantly of religious content, but also most of the classical authors are present. Created between the 10th and the 19th century, many of the manuscripts going back to the Byzantine era, before the conquest of Constantinople in the year 1453.

Outstanding pieces

Among the outstanding pieces of the collection there are, among other things, a copy of the "History of the Peloponnesian war" by Thucydides, written in the 10th or 11th century (Cod.graec. 430) and the manuscript Cod.graec. 85, which is very important for the tradition of Demosthenes. Also the Psalm homilies of Origen, which were discovered only in the year 2012, should be mentioned in this context Cod.graec. 314).

Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War  (Cod.graec. 430)
Psalm homilies of Origen  (Cod.graec. 314)

Provenances

The collection, which is usually classified separately according to format, is divided into five parts:

1. Cod.graec. 1 – 320: Manuscripts from various larger and smaller collections (acquired up to 1783 at the latest), among them 186 from the library of Johann Jakob Fugger and 14 from the collection of Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter. 25 had been owned by Petrus Victorius previously.
2. Cod.graec. 321 – 323: Time of acquisition cannot be determined exactly.
3. Cod.graec. 324 – 347: These volumes came to the Munich court library only after 1803, predominantly from the Mannheim court library and the secularized monasteries.
4. Cod.graec. 348 – 574: Were held by the city library of Augsburg, from where they were transferred to the then Munich court library in the year 1806 in the wake of the mediatisation of Augsburg.
5. From Cod.graec. 575 onwards: New acquisitions after the publication of the last volume of the catalogue compiled by Ignaz Hardt (1812). These were classified independently of their formats in the chronological order of times of acquisition and are described in the catalogue compiled by Friederike Berger published in print in 2014.

Overview of digitized manuscripts   |   Overview of collection  (PDF, 14 KB)   |   Catalogues

The collection of Codices slavici (Cod.slav. 1 – 110) includes over 120 Slavonic manuscripts from the 14th to the 20th century. The proportion of liturgical manuscripts is particularly high. Among the languages represented in this collection there are Russian-Church Slavonic (i.a. Cod.slav. 21 – 28, 31, 33, 36), Serbian-Church Slavonic, Russian (i.a. Cod.slav. 13), Bulgarian, Polish (i.a. Cod.slav. 2, 10, 34) and Czech (i.a. Cod.slav. 3, 11 – 12, 15, 17, 30, 35).

Important pieces

Among the particularly important pieces there are, for example, the oldest illuminated "Serbian Psalter" of the late 14th century (Cod.slav. 4) and a "Bulgarian gospel book" of the year 1492 (Cod.slav. 1).

Serbian Psalter  (Cod.slav. 4)
Cosmography  (Cod.slav. 13)
Prayer book of Maria Kazimiera Sobieska  (Cod.slav. 10)

Important phenomena with respect to the history of language and writing

One of the most outstanding Slavonic texts held by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek forms part of a predominantly Latin manuscript: The texts of the 10th century known under the name "Freisinger Denkmäler" (Clm 6426), which were intended for missionary work, do not only represent the earliest evidence of the Slovenian language by far, but also of any Slavonic language in the Latin script.

A further important Latin manuscript of the 10th century, Clm 14486, which was created in Gandersheim and owned by the Benedictine monastery St. Emmeram in Regensburg, contains the works of the poet Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim. Its supplements of the 11th/ 12th century with a Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet are of particular palaeographic interest.
Page with Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet  (Clm 14486)

Likewise from the monastery library of St. Emmeram, there is a Roman canon law collection of the 9th century, which was presumably originally used for evangelising the Moravians. In glosses, which were carved into the parchment with the stylus, individual words are translated from Latin into Old Slavonic in this codex.
Image of the carvings

Provenances

A large part of the Slavonic manuscripts is from the court libraries of Munich and Mannheim and the monastery library of Polling. The classification numbers starting with Cod.slav. 17 are new acquisitions since the year 1928.

Catalogues   |   Eastern Europe collection

With 29 volumes, the English-language manuscripts, the Codices anglici (Cod.angl.) represent a small collection. Chronologically, they date back to between the 15th and the 19th century, with one medieval manuscript (Cod.angl. 5).

Important pieces

Among the most important pieces, there is i.a. the "Logbook of a ship of Sir Francis Drake's last expedition 1595/ 1596" (Cod.angl. 2). One important manuscript, while not written in English, but crafted in the Latin language in England, is the so-called "Golden Munich Psalter" – formerly also known as Gloucester Psalter – of the first quarter of the 13th century (Clm 835).

Golden Munich Psalter  (Clm 835)

Provenances

Some of the provenances are known. Among them are the Mannheim court library in particular (Cod.angl. 1 and 8), the monastery library of Polling (Cod.angl. 7) and the library of the Privy Councillor Karl Maria Ehrenbert von Moll (Cod.angl. 15 and 16).

Catalogues

For further European languages (Germanic, Romanic and Finno-Ugric ones), respective manuscript groups of their own have been established.

• Danish  (Codex danicus = Cod.dan.):  1 manuscript of the 19th century
• Estonian  (Codex livo-esthonicus = Cod.livo-esthon.):  1 manuscript of the 17th century
• Icelandic  (Codices islandici = Cod.isl.):  3 manuscripts of the 19th century
• Norwegian  (Codex norwegicus = Cod.norweg.):  1 manuscript of the 14th century
• Rhaeto-Romanic  (Codices raetoromanici = Cod.raetoroman.):  2 manuscripts of the 18th century
• Romanian  (Codex walachicus = Cod.walach.):  1 German-Romanian omnibus manuscript of the 18th century
  Eastern Europe collection: Romania
• Swedish  (Codices suecici = Cod.suec.):  7 manuscripts of the 18th century
• Hungarian  (Codices hungarici = Cod.hung.):  5 manuscripts from the 15th to the 20th century, among them a late-medieval gospel book representing an important linguistic monument (Cod.hung. 1)
  Gospel book  (Cod.hung. 1)
  Eastern Europe collection: Hungary

Overview of digitized manuscripts   |   Overview of collection  (PDF, 37 KB)   |   Catalogues

The Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books preserves also the music manuscripts with predominantly unisonous music up to the year 1500, as well as a small number of codices with music for several voices, bearing the classification marks Mus.ms. (letter series A to C and the individual classification mark Mus.ms. 3725), Clm and Cgm.

Widely known music manuscripts

Widely known music manuscripts from the collection of the Department of Manuscripts are the "Mensural codex of St. Emmeram" (Clm 14274), the "Buxheim organ book" (Mus.ms. 3725), the splendid manuscripts crafted by Hans Mielich of the "Penitential psalms" of Orlando di Lasso (Mus.ms. A I and II plus explanatory volumes) and of the "Motets" of Cipriano de Rore (Mus.ms. B plus explanatory volume). Another important work is the codex Mus.ms. C, a choir book with masses from the time of Josquin.

St. Emmeram mensural codex  (Clm 14274)
Orlando di Lasso: Penitential psalms  (Mus.ms. A I(1 and Mus.ms. A II(1)
Cipriano de Rore: Motets  (Mus.ms. B(1)
Choir book with masses from Josquin's time  (Mus.ms. C)

All other manuscripts with music for several voices form part of the collection of the Department of Music.

Catalogues   |   Music collection

Fragments are parts of manuscripts which were used retrospectively for binding books (after the invention of book printing). From these books, the fragments were frequently detached and have been preserved separately.

Groups of classification marks

In the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, extra groups of classification marks have usually been defined for this purpose, thus for the Latin fragments Clm 29202 – 29990 and for the German-language fragments Cgm 5248 – 5251 a. However, fragments can additionally also still be found in the regular series of classification marks of complete codices.

Importance of the fragments

What makes fragments so important is their value as a source. Each of them is the last remaining piece of evidence of a no longer existing book, thereby complementing our knowledge about the production of literature in late antiquity and the middle ages, which is patchy due to the history of transmission. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has collected fragments in a targeted manner already since the start of the 19th century. The collection includes somewhat over 3,000 Latin and over 760 German-language fragments, which date back to the period between the 5th and the 15th century. They have been indexed largely in modern catalogues for research.

Undetached fragments

In addition, the collection still contains several thousand fragments which, in contrast, have not been detached, and are accordingly still located on or in their carrier volumes. Out of these fragments, a good 1,800 could already be identified and entered in list form in the printed catalogue by H. Hauke and W.-V. Ikas (2013).

In the past, even an extra classification group was established for parchment fragments which were reused as book bindings for printed works: the Libri impressi cum tegumentis manuscriptis (L.impr.c.teg.mss.). The fragments in question can be searched in BSB DISCOVER!.

Important pieces

The collection includes important pieces, such as the "Willehalm" by Wolfram von Eschenbach (Cgm 193,III, around 1270 – 1275), the novel "Ruodlieb" written around 1050 in predominantly leonine hexameters (Clm 19486) or also, for example, the so-called "Bamberg table" (Clm 29880(6, after 1014) and – to mention only the newer acquisitions and discoveries – fragments of the Old Saxon "Heliand" of the time around 850 (Cgm 8840), of the "Parzival" by Wolfram von Eschenbach of the mid-13th century (Cgm 9342), as well as a fragment of the so-called "Old High German collection of sermons" (Cgm 5248(3,XII).

Heliand  (Cgm 8840)
Wolfram von Eschenbach: Willehalm  (Cgm 193,III)
Ruodlieb  (Clm 19486)
Bamberg table  (Clm 29880(6)

Overview of digitized fragments
Catalogues of German fragments
Catalogues of Latin fragments
Classification of the Latin fragments  (PDF, 46 KB)
Concordance of classification marks of the Latin fragments  (PDF, 59 KB)

The term Codices iconographici refers to "illuminated manuscripts with no text or merely explanatory text". The extra collection group goes back to Johann Andreas Schmeller, who started it during the first half of the 19th century. Since the pictorial portion is in the foreground instead of the text, numerous Codices iconographici which had previously been classified according to the languages German, Italian, French and Latin had to be reclassified correspondingly. The previous classification marks Cgm, Cod.ital., Cod.gall. and Clm, which are mentioned in the earlier literature, have been added to the short-title entries and can be searched using BSB DISCOVER!.

Further information: Manuscripts with prevailing images

In the classification group of Codices bavarici monacenses Catalogi (Cbm Cat.), numerous historical library catalogues are preserved. The collection is subdivided into several groups:

1. Early catalogues of the royal court and state library, starting with the oldest preserved catalogues of the time around 1575. Important library-historical information is conveyed by the catalogues compiled at the outset of the 19th century in the course of the new cataloguing in the wake of the collection growth due to the secularisation. A number of handwritten catalogues were continued until the start of the 21st century.
2. Library catalogues of secularised ecclesiastic institutions. The earliest catalogues of Bavarian monastery libraries were started around 1600 upon order by Duke Maximilian I (Cbm Cat. 1 – 3). They were complemented by numerous individual catalogues during the 17th and 18th century.
3. The group also includes catalogues of various other libraries, which were incorporated in the court and state library predominantly around the year 1800, among others the Mannheim court library, the parliamentary library (Landschaftsbibliothek) of Munich or that of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
4. Catalogues of private libraries, which came to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in the course of donations or purchases (various Bavarian rulers, Franz von Krenner, Maximilian von Montgelas).

This group is still complemented today by adding handwritten or unique catalogues of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, provided that these have been archived.

These catalogues – a total of around 2,600 – are of great importance with respect to the history of libraries and their holdings, such as the oldest superregional catalogues (Cbm Cat. 1 – 3). One catalogue that is still used frequently today is the catalogue of manuscripts from St. Emmeram in four volumes (Cbm Cat. 14) compiled by Koloman Sanftl in 1808/ 1809.

Overview of digitized handwritten library catalogues   |   Catalogues

This collection group includes printed books which are unique like manuscripts, due to the numerous handwritten annotations by well-known persons of the 16th to the 20th century.

One emphasis of the collection is on the 16th century. Among the authors of the annotations, there are i.a.: Johannes Aventinus, Franz Xaver von Baader, Albrecht Dürer (4 L.impr.c.n.mss. 119), Johannes Eck, Ulrich von Hutten, Henrik Ibsen, Jakob Locher, Karl Meichelbeck, Andreas Felix von Oefele, Conrad Peutinger, Hartmann Schedel, Johann Andreas Schmeller and Petrus Victorius.

Albrecht Dürer: Underweysung der messung mit dem zirckel  (4 L.impr.c.n.mss. 119)