Yesterday’s post on the Europeana Regia project for the reconstruction with digitized manuscripts of three royal medieval libraries left me with a somewhat unsatisfied feeling. Why not try to provide a list of the legal manuscripts which are at this time present in Europeana Regia? After all it does seem the project faces several difficulties hampering its completion. Why wait until 2012? Indeed not all designated manuscripts have yet been added. Instead of more than a thousand manuscripts the total number of manuscripts is now below two hundred.
Using the English interface I have created a list with thirteen manuscripts with texts of a legal nature. Each signature is linked to the English page for the manuscript in question. Before giving the list I would like to make clear that each of the pages at Europeana does give you a considerable amount of information about a digitized manuscript. Not only links to manuscript catalogues, but sometimes even links have been added to library catalogues holding relevant literature. I have included the text of the Descendentia dominorum regum Sicilie in the belief this treatise on the genealogy of the kings of Sicily no doubt involves also claims of a legal nature or will mention kings or pretenders to the throne taking part in legal conflicts.
More surprising is the fact that the team of Europeana Regia is clearly thinking about a wider scope for the project. To the five original libraries have been added some manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, the Bibliothèque de Genève, the Fondation Martin Bodmer in Cologny, and the Stiftsbibliothek in Sankt Gallen. This expansion focuses on Swiss manuscripts digitized in the e-codices project. Only the cooperation with the Swiss project has been noted in the news section.
The number of digitized legal manuscripts which you can reach at Europeana Regia is decidedly low, especially in the face of the lists given in my earlier post guiding you to the digitized manuscripts at the respective home libraries. If you query for instance the Digitale Sammlungen in Munich for the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana, a canon law collection, you will easily find five digitized manuscripts more, Clm 6244, 6246, 6355, 14407, and 14422.
At Wolfenbüttel the Wolfenbüttler manuscript of the Sachsenspiegel by Eike von Repgow, the famous legal treatise on German customary law, was among the first manuscripts to be digitized (Cod. Guelf. 3.1 Aug.). The list at the Herzog-August-Bibliothek mentions apart from those present in Europeana Regia a few other legal manuscripts, among them a volume with several texts written in 1419 and 1420 (Cod. Guelf. 167 Helmst.), Constitutiones concilii Moguntinensis, canons of a church council at Mainz in 1310 (Cod. Guelf. 478 Helmst.), and fragments from the thirteenth century of the Stadtrecht, the city statutes of Wisby and Novgorod (Cod. Guelf. 404.9 (17) Nov.). Making similar shortlists for the libraries in Paris and Munich is simply not feasible because the number of relevant manuscripts is much larger.
A provisional list of digitized legal manuscripts
Paris, BnF
–ms. latin 12832: Liber de donnibus et redditibus monasterii Sancti Germani a Pratis [Polyptych of Irminon, abbot of St. Germain-des-Prés], around 823-828 – digitized version
Brussels, BR
–ms. II 2572: Liber de diversis questiunculis (et alia opera), 8th-9th century – digitized version
–ms. 1312: Poenitentiale, 9th-10th century – digitized version
Wolfenbüttel, HAB
–Cod. Guelf. 50.2 Aug. 4° : Lex Salica; Capitularia, first half 9th century – digitized version
–Cod. Guelf. 254 Helmst.: Capitulare de villis, second quarter 9th century – digitized version
–Cod. Guelf. 496a Helmst.: Admonitio generalis and other works, 8th-9th century – digitized version
–Cod. Guelf. 513 Helmst. : Lex Alamannorum, late 8th century – digitized version
–Cod. Guelf. 3 Weiss.: [Collectio canonum] Dionysio-Hadriana cum glossis, first half 9th century – digitized version
Munich, BSB
–Clm 6242: Collectio canonum Dionysio-Hadriana, around 815-825 – digitized version
–Clm 14468: Documents concerning adoptianism, capitularies, etc., 821 – digitized version
–Clm 28135: Synod resolutions. Sermones, early 9th century – digitized version
Valencia, BU
–ms. 394: Paulus Rossellus, Descendentia dominorum regum Sicilie, after 1438 – digitized version
Bibliothèque de Genève
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Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève
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Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer
–Cod. Bodmer 68: [Amalarius of Lyon], Institutio canonum Aquisgranensis; Regula canonicorum, first half 9th century – digitized version
Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek
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A postscript
In January 2012 the Europeana Regia team announced the addition of manuscripts held at Amiens, Rheims and Valenciennes. When I asked about the actual appearance of the manuscripts to be included in 2012, Elizabeth MacDonald kindly answered my inquiry. The manuscripts will be added during the first half of this year. On May 21, 2012 I published a new post with an additional list of digitized legal manuscripts.
Rechtsgeschiedenis Blog 