Add MS 11852

The so-called ‘Codex Ulmensis’ (so-called in reference to its 17th- and 18th-century German owners from Ulm) contains the New Testament (except the Four Gospels) and shows strong evidence of having been made at St Gall Abbey, Switzerland. Its textual recension is specific to manuscripts from the Lake Constance area of modern Swtizerland, Germany, and Austria (see Houghton, Latin New Testament (2016), p. 278). Moreover, the hand of a preface to the Pauline Epistles (f. 8v) and the rarely attested and contested Epistle to the Laodiceans (f. 118r-v) has been suggested to be that of Hartmut, abbot of St Gall (872-883), who is also named in the preface on f. 8v.

It consists of two parts, both written at St Gall. The first part (ff. 5-118) contains Hartmut’s presumed hand, dating it to his abbacy, and the second part (ff. 119-215) was seemingly written and added shortly afterwards, in the late-9th century or very early-10th century (see Bischoff, Katalog (2004), p. 95).

It is considered one part of a multi-volume St Gall Bible known as the ‘Small Hartmut-Bibel’, the other volumes of which are: Stuttgart, Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, HB II 20, and St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MSs 7, 19, 42, 46, 68 (see von Euw, St Galler Buchkunst (2008), p. 104). There are marginal and interlinear glosses and corrections in 9th-century hands, as well as marginal glosses and numbering of the verses in an 11th-century hand, throughout.

Contents:

f. 1r: Added early modern ownership inscriptions, 16th and 17th century.

ff. 2r-4r: Early modern paper leaves (now pasted on the rectos of separate paper leaves) containing earlier owners’ manuscript descriptions and list of contents.

ff. 5r-117v: The Pauline Epistles, with prefaces and capitula, with preface possibly in the hand of Abbot Hartmut (f. 8v), and an added note on the specific days corresponding to the pericopes on ff. 9r-36v in a late 12th- or early 13th-century hand (f. 8v).

f. 118r-v: The Epistle to the Laodiceans, possibly in the hand of Abbot Hartmut of St Gall (872-883).

ff. 119v-167r: The Acts of the Apostles, with prefaces.

f. 168v: An added inscription copying the text on the facing recto (the beginning of St Jerome’s prologue to the Catholic Epistles), written in a 10th-century hand.

ff. 169r-192v: The Catholic Epistles, with preface and capitula.

ff. 193r-215r: Revelation.

f. 215v: An added short text glossing words in Revelation, with the header ‘Glosula super quedam verba Apocalypsis’, written in a 10th-century hand.

Decoration:

A large initial ‘A’ in the form of a peacock, in red, at the beginning of Revelation (f. 193r).

7 large initials in red with interlace and/or foliate pen-work decoration also in red (ff. 9r, 85v, 88v, 94r, 98r, 122v, 170v). Two of these initials (ff. 9r, 98r) also includes an animal head in the pen-work decoration.

Large and small plain initials in red throughout, some with pen-work decoration (e.g. f. 66r), and some filled with green (ff. 185v-186r, 188v-191r).

Running headings written in rustic capitals in the upper margins.

Added numerals in red. Rubrics in red, or sometimes in black.