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), and Rolker, Canon law (2023). Each of them provided a few manuscripts, but most manuscripts were in Kéry‘s book already.
• All entries from all lists were formatted according to the "house style" of Clavis canonum (on which see below) to avoid doublets. In the case of Maassen in particular, the modern home and shelf-mark of the respective manuscripts was identified. As far as possible, erroneous references have been corrected. Erroneous shelf marks or identifications that are found frequently in the literature will be discussed in the individual articles.

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

Lemmata

Every article has a title (the lemma), and in tune with other wikis, the URL is identical with the lemma. In case of manuscripts, the lemma is composed of place name, holding institution, and shelf mark (e.g. Admont, Stiftsbibliothek, 43). Consistency in designating manuscripts is generally a good idea, as it helps find manuscripts, to check arguments, and so on; in the context of a wiki such as the Clavis wiki, uniform lemmata also help to identify doublets, to spot erroneous shelf-marks, to faciliate searches and mass edits, and to make categories easiert to navigate.

What is a manuscript, anyhow?

Every manuscript should have one and only one article. Normally, this means that every book with a shelf mark is seen as a distinct object, and hence can have its own article. Disiecta membra thus have their individual entries; e.g. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, 6/1 and Karlsruhe, BLB, Aug. CIII were but one manuscript in the Middle Ages but today are kept in two collections, and hence have separate articles. Vice versa, volumes composed of two or more medieval manuscripts like Arsenal 713 have only one entry. Occasionally, manuscripts only bound in several volumes in modern times are dealt with in one article even if the volumes have their own shelf marks (e.g. Oxford, Bodleian Library, e Mus. 100-102).

Current and olim shelf-marks

References to manuscripts should always (not only in the lemma) be based on the current location of the manuscript and the current shelf mark. Previous collections and olim shelf marks can and should be mentioned in the article. In some cases, redirects 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

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 rendered Den Haag (not 's-Gravenhage).

Names of holding institutions

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). In the long run, infoboxes will provide ISIL numbers for all holding institutions.

Shelf marks

For shelf marks, sometimes a frustrating variety of spellings can be observed (with or without "MS" and the like, with or without spaces, Roman vs arab numbers, capitalisation, degree of abbreviation, sometimes choice of language). Normally, we follow Kéry. If you are uncertain about the correct shelf mark, look at existing articles and/or the usage of the holding library.

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 1400 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 mss)
• List of manuscripts part 3 (place names P to R; 314 mss)
• List of manuscripts part 4 (place names S to Z; 430 mss)