Western European Manuscripts

HMML began its manuscript preservation work in Europe in 1965, microfilming approximately 53,000 pre-modern manuscripts in monastic, ecclesiastical, and national libraries (with some illustrations imaged in color microfilm). These include manuscripts located in Austria, Spain, Germany, and Switzerland (49,000), Portugal (2,000), England (c. 700), Sweden (680), South Africa, and Italy (c. 370) and purchased microfilms from England (Trinity College Cambridge, Hereford Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Winchester, etc.), Hungary (Pannonhalma, Esztergom, Budapest), Germany (Cusanus-Bibliothek), and Ireland (Trinity College, Dublin). The collections, in Latin and vernacular languages, provide a deep resource for any study of pre-modern European history and culture, as well as science, medicine, music, and law, etc. The Austrian, German, and Spanish holdings are rich in music, monastic, church, and economic history. Reformation history is well-represented by collections from northern and eastern Germany. Born-digital material includes the rich collections of European manuscripts in the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani (AGOC) and Mount Angel Abbey (MAA) in the United States.

Highlights

• Cistercian manuscripts from medieval France in the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani collection (AGOC)
• Copies of the medieval Speculum Humanae Salvationis in Kremsmuenster, Austria (389), Sankt Florian (2410), Cologne/Historical Archives (36854)
• 10th-century Codex Gerundensis—a Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liebana, Cathedral of Gerona, Spain (31022)
• Durham Cathedral Library Collection
• Oldest complete manuscript in the Western European collections, a theological miscellany with two main texts: the Eusebian canon tables in Greek and a work in Latin by Rufinus of Aquileia dating to the early 6th century in the Austrian National Library (Codex 847; 14174; manuscript now digitized by the Austrian National Library)
• Oldest manuscript fragment in the Western European collections—a fragment from a Bible in the Durham Cathedral Library, Great Britain, parts of which date to the 6th century (England 237)