List of manuscripts

Content

This site documents all known manuscripts of all collections covered in the Clavis Wiki. It is still mainly a list of copies of pre-Gratian medieval collections, but at least for the early period is it is complete in the sense that all manuscripts mentioned in any of the following works are included:

• Fowler-Magerl, Clavis canonum (2005) as found here. To integrate these manuscripts, a list was compiled semi-automatically from the manuscript index of that book. See List of manuscripts in Fowler-Magerl for the resulting list.
• Kéry, Canonical collection (1999) as found here. As with the Clavis handbook, a list was compiled based on the mss index. As the complete list (over 1300 mss) seemed to create issues, it was split into four lists, for which see here (Admont to Huesca, 286 mss), here (Ivrea to Palermo, 324 mss), here (Paris to Valère, 397 mss), and here (Vatican to Zwettl, 303 mss).
• Maassen, Geschichte (1870) as found here. Reading his account of the collections, all manuscripts he mentioned were noted and matched with the manuscripts already mentioned in the Wiki. As of summer 2024, this process is largely finished.
• We have also taken into account the manuscripts mentioned by Green, Innocent (1973), the Carolingian Canon Law project, and those which Elliot based his transcriptions on (as found here); for the list, see here

Note that the individual lists may differ in how they cite some manuscripts; only the complete list has been standardized (spelling of place names, library names, shelfmarks). Considerable efforts have been taken to delete doublets. As far as possible, erroneous references have been corrected. In the case of Maassen in particular, the modern home and shelf-mark of the respective manuscripts was identified, not always an easy task.

Our aim is that every single one of these manuscripts will have its own description as part of this Clavis Wiki. In the long run, therefore, the Category:Manuscript effectively will replace this list.

Place names and other conventions

Articles on manuscripts have a URLs containing place name, holding institution, and shelf mark. In the long run, identificators (ISLI and/or Wikidata Q-IDs) will be integrated in all articles, so the exact form of the URL is not crucial; however, some effort has been taken to have uniform URLs.

The entries (as visible in their URL) always refer to the current location of the manuscript and the current shelf mark. Olim shelf marks, and in some case previous locations, are sometimes provided in the article. In some cases, redirections are used so that users looking for manuscripts that have moved can easily find the correct article (and the current holding institution). For example, Wien, ÖNB, Cod. 16 redirects to Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale "Vittorio Emanuele III", ex Vind. lat. 2. Where the current location of a manuscript is unknown, the name and shelf mark in the collection the manuscript was kept in last is used for the sake of references, and information on its current whereabouts are provided in the article.

Place names are generally in the local language, which in some multi-language countries can be mildly delicate to determine. Brussels and Luxembourg are treated as francophone for the purpose of this list, so it's Bruxelles (not Brussel) and Luxembourg (not Lëtzebuerg). In almost all cases, the official names (and abbreviations) are used; the only exception from the latter rule is The Hague, which is remdered Den Haag (not 's-Gravenhage).

For libraries and archives, the official names and abbreviations are used, which normally are in the local language. Efforts habe been taken to use the current name, so it's Archivio Apostolico (not Segreto), BnF (not BN), KBR (not Bibliothèque royale), and Leiden University has a universiteitsbibliotheek (but no longer is a rijksuniversiteit). French local libraries, however, are always referred to as BM whatever the current designation may be (they tend to change every now and then).

For shelf marks, sometimes a frustrating variety of spellings can be observed (with or without "MS" and the like, with or without space, Roman vs arab numbers, capitalisation, degree of abbreivations, sometimes choice of language). In all doubtful cases, the currect usage of the holding library was followed. In practice, multiple pages which all redirect to the main entry are used.

Presentation in four separate lists

As lists with more than 1000 items seem to create issues, our complete list was also broken down into four lists. All in all, more than 1500 manuscripts are listed, mostly extant codices but also a small number of lost manuscripts, fragments, and multi-volume manuscripts. The list consists of these four parts:

• List of manuscripts part 1 (place names A to H; 339 manuscripts as of June 2024)
• List of manuscripts part 2 (place names I to O; 347 manuscripts as of June 2024)
• List of manuscripts part 3 (place names P to R; 310 mss)
• List of manuscripts part 4 (place names S to Z; 428 mss)