Although the Abbey of St. Gall was dissolved in 1805, its library, or Stiftsbibliothek is today still open to scholars and visitors from around the world. It ranks among the top 20 most important repositories of handwritten manuscripts with c.2,100 volumes, 400 of them dating before the year 1000. As of 2020, the number of digitized manuscripts is 650. In addition, it also houses 1,650 incunabula and 170,000 printed books. In honor of its prestigious holdings, the Stiftsbibliothek was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
We are extremely well informed about the St. Gall Abbey’s history and the accomplishments of its monks, both political and cultural. One of the oldest sources is the monk Ratpert’s Casus St. Galli, written c.884 and extending to the imperial visit of 883. Ekkehard IV (writing c.1050) continued the work up until 972. Thereafter follow five separate Latin continuations up until 1232, and a German history by Christian Kuchimaister written in 1335 and covering the years to 1329. Ekkehard’s Casus is the most animated of the group, full of anecdotes and colorful descriptions that bring to life the daily existence of the monks. A further interesting source is the “Plan of St. Gall,” the oldest architectural document of its kind preserved in Europe. It may have been used as a guide in reconstructing St. Gall in the early ninth century, although only in a broad sense. It is more probable that the plan represents an ideal model for a Carolingian monastery. It was probably copied in Aachen in 817/818, based upon a now lost archetype and soon thereafter brought to the Reichenau; the librarian Reginbert gifted it to St. Gall’s Abbot Gozbert in 819 and today it is preserved in CSang 1092. More information on the plan and related ninth-century material culture can be found online at “Carolingian Culture at Reichenau and St. Gall” (http://www.stgallplan.org/en/index_plan.html).
The history of the St. Gall Abbey begins in 612, when, in the dense, wild Arbon woods of Alemannia in present-day Switzerland, Gallus retreated as a hermit. According to tradition, Gallus had been en route to Italy with his master, the Irish monk Columban, who eventually went on to found the Abbey of Bobbio. Although in his vitae Gallus is associated with Irish descent, recent studies suggest that he actually may have come from the area between Lorraine and Alemannia (Tremp 2007). After Gallus’ death, the site of his hermitage was made a pilgrimage and, in 719, a monastery which in 747 accepted the Benedictine Rule. Its first abbot Otmar (719–59) was of local Alemannic heritage and had been trained at the Rhaetian Abbey of Chur. The St. Gall Abbey experienced its first cultural highpoint under Abbot Gozbert (816–37), who had a new church and perhaps monastery built. Gozbert was succeeded by several politically influential abbots who were able to promote the abbey and its interests. The abbey’s political and economic position and stability were also strengthened by the fact that it was subject only to the king or emperor and enjoyed independence from local bishops and landowners. Grimald (ruled 841–72) was Grand Chancellor for Louis the German and because of his responsibilities often absent from the abbey. He left in charge his dean Hartmut, who was closely involved with the scriptorium and was eventually made abbot from 872–83. In 883, Emperor Charles III visited St. Gall. Salomon, who was abbot from 890–920, had studied at St. Gall in the external school; he concurrently held the title of Bishop of Constance and was an important advisor to and chancellor for the East Frankish kings Arnulf, Louis IV, and Konrad I. The latter half of the ninth century extending into the abbacy of Solomon is often referred to as St. Gall’s “Golden Age,” a period in which book production, art, music, and sacred and patristic literature flourished. It was also at this time that St. Gall became an important source for literate administrators and scribes.
The second and third quarters of the tenth century were a difficult time in St. Gall’s history. In 926 the abbey was invaded by Hungarians and in 937 ravaged by fire. The library luckily remained intact through both disasters. Upon hearing of the approaching Hungarians, the recluse Wiborada advised the monks to move the library to neighboring Reichenau. She herself remained in her cell and was subsequently murdered by the intruders; later in 1047 she became the first woman to be canonized by the pope and is today the patron saint of libraries and bibliophiles.
The late tenth century through the eleventh century marks another highpoint in St. Gall’s cultural output and is often referred to as its “Silver Age.” The abbey enjoyed the strong support of the Ottonians with a visit by Emperors Otto I and II in 972. Along with immunity, however, came service to the empire, which included taking part in the Gorze or Lotharingian monastic reform; a commission to undertake this task was sent to St. Gall in 964/66. Key leaders during the “Silver Age” were the abbots Ymmo (976–84), Purchart II (1001–22), and Norpert (1034–72). Many others were either trained at St. Gall or took their vows there and then went on to politically influential positions throughout the kingdom, including those of bishops, cathedral provosts, court chaplains, and royal tutors. It was during this period that the scriptorium produced a large number of liturgical manuscripts, many of them for export. The period after Abbot Norpert’s death is commonly referred to as the abbey’s “Iron Age,” during which St. Gall became embroiled in the contemporary Investiture Controversy. Nonetheless, the scriptorium produced c.35 manuscripts in the twelfth century, among them important musical books such as CSang 375 containing an antiphonal with neume notation and the Processionale contained in CSang 360.
When the monastery was dispersed in 1805, the library fortunately remained intact and in situ, and came under the administration of the Catholic diocese of St. Gall. The monastery’s archive passed into the control of the state of St. Gall; today the Stiftsarchiv houses the monastery’s collection of hundreds of charters (mostly originals) as well as a small collection of medieval manuscripts. On the ideal “Plan of St. Gall” the library is situated above the scriptorium next to the church with access to its eastern choir. In the late ninth century, the “Hartmut tower” was built to house the books and remained in place until 1666. A new Renaissance library was eventually built by Abbot Diethelm Blarer, but was soon replaced by the present baroque library hall, which was constructed by Abbot Cölestin and completed in 1766. Today c.10,000 visitors a year pass through the ornate entrance marked with the plaque “Sanatorium for the Soul.”
The oldest library catalogue, the Breviarium librorum, is preserved in CSang 728, pp. 4–21 and dates from c.884–8 with 294 entries and 426 separate book titles; the list also contains informative and candid comments, e.g., “ad scolam” (“for school use”) and “totum mendacium et inutile” (“full of lies and useless”); some of the comments are by the late ninth-century librarian, historian, and composer, Notker Balbulus (c.840–912; Rankin 1991). Four additional book lists from the ninth century also survive in CSang 267 and CSang 614: a catalogue of 53 addenda titles with at least 67 volumes, a list of books copied by order of Hartmut (22 entries with 28 volumes), and lists of books donated by the Abbots Grimald and Hartmut, the latter providing important insight into the collections of private scholars (Lehmann 1918, 66–89).
The Stiftsbibliothek’s oldest volume, CSang 1394, was written not at St Gall, but in Rome in the fourth or early fifth century and contains fragments of Vergil’s works. CSang 908 contains a palimpsest of poetry and prose by Flavius Merobaudes as well as the only extant copy of Vegetius’ guide to veterinary medicine. CSang 730 contains Rothar’s Edicts, copied in northern Italy in the late seventh century. Fragments of the Vetus Latina version of the Bible copied in Rome are preserved in CSang 1394, and in CSang 1395 fragments of the oldest manuscript of the Vulgate Gospels, probably written in Verona c.410–20. The abbey’s collection of Irish manuscripts is famous, among them an eighth-century Irish copy of Priscian’s Grammar with Irish glosses preserved in CSang 904. Thirty other books written in Irish or Anglo-Saxon script are listed on the first page of the CSang 728 catalogue under a section titled “libri scottice scripti.” Other manuscripts of Irish cultural importance are the oldest Vita Columbani in CSang 553 and the oldest capitulary of Columban’s monastic rules in CSang 915. Some of the library’s precious volumes were acquired in the early modern and baroque periods, either as gifts by the abbey’s benefactors or by purchase. CSang 857, which preserves an important copy of the Middle High German epics, the Nibelungenlied and Lament, along with Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival and Willehalm, was acquired in 1768 as part of the Aegidius Tschudi collection purchased by the Prince-Abbot Beda Angehrn (1767–96). The same collection contained Walahfrid Strabo’s “Vade mecum” (CSang 878) and a compendium of Carolingian laws dating from the beginning of the ninth century (CSang 729). In addition to its manuscripts, the Stiftsbibliothek also houses hundreds of incunabula and early printed books. Some of the highlights are the first colored edition of Hartmann Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle and an early “Ptolemy Atlas” which dates from 1486.
Several hundred books originally copied at St. Gall have found their way into libraries and collections throughout the world. On the occasion of attending the Council of Constance in 1416, the humanist Poggio Bracciolini visited St. Gall and absconded with some very important early copies of classical works, including Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory and Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. During the War of Toggenburg in 1712 a large number of manuscripts was removed as booty by Zurchoise and Bernese troops; c.100 still remain in the Zurich Zentralbibliothek. Other codices dispersi are on deposit in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome, in Cracow, the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York, and elsewhere.
It is unclear how many scribes were active in the scriptorium at any one time, and the number clearly fluctuated; during Hartmut’s abbacy at least 20 scribes can be named; Bruckner (1938, 23) estimated c.100 active scribes at the turn of the century, although this number may be a bit high. An overview of various scripts used in the St. Gall scriptorium is found in Chapter 14 of this volume. Books of the highest grade of script were often produced for liturgical use and contain magnificent illuminated initials. This art reached its high point at St. Gall between 860 and 910, examples being the “Folchart Psalter” (CSang 23) with its c.200 highly crafted initials and the “Evangelium longum” (CSang 53), calligraphed by the monk Sintram and encased in ivory tablets sculpted by Tuotilo. Futher ivory covers are found on CSang 60 and 359, the latter also known as the “St. Gall Cantatorium” and world-renowned in the history of music. The library possesses a total of c.130 original book covers from the Carolingian and Ottonian periods and is an important source for codicologists. The influence of St. Gall book art is also seen on other scriptoria, e.g., in Regensburg, which Abbot Grimald often visited in his role as advisor to the king (Duft 1999, 20).
The St. Gall school was well known in the early Middle Ages. The internal school was designed for oblates and postulants, who lived and would continue on in the monastery and its daily life. The external school, on the other hand, was a type of boarding school and intended for various types of pupils, including future clerics, abbots, politicians, and others. The rosters of famous teachers and pupils is lengthy, especially in the later part of the ninth and the tenth centuries. Lively accounts of their everyday life can be found in Ekkehard’s Casus, especially stories of the three young pupils and later teachers, Notker Balbulus, Ratpert, and Tuotilo (chs. 33–46). Works from the seven liberal arts and classical and medieval school authors are well represented in St. Gall manuscripts, e.g., Alcuin (CSang 62, 64, 268, 273, 276, 855, and 878), Boethius (CSang 844, 845, and 825), Cicero (CSang 818, 820, 830, 831, and 854), Donatus (CSang 855, 876, 877, 878, and 882), Horace (CSang 864), Lucan (CSang 864), Martianus Capella (872), and Sedulius (CSang 877). CSang 556 preserves form letters for practice in the ars dictaminis; Notker Balbulus’ “Formelbuch” may also have been written for this purpose. Examples of metrical compositions assigned to advanced pupils can be found in the Liber benedictionum of Ekkehard IV in CSang 393. Ekkehard himself taught at St. Gall and from 1022–31 led the Cathedral School at Mainz. Classroom books from the later part of the tenth and early eleventh century are especially numerous and reflect the new curriculum at this time with its focus on dialectic and practical rhetoric. Noteworthy are the charts and other visual aids found in some of these classroom texts, e.g., CSang 817, 820, and 877, which demonstrate new methods in teaching the curriculum.
St. Gall holds a special place in the history of the German language and its oldest recorded stage, Old High German (OHG). Many St. Gall manuscripts contain lexical glosses in German; a few offer extensive glossing between the lines, called ‘interlinear versions’. CSang. 916 contains a ninth-century copy of the Rule of St. Benedict with a nearly complete OHG interlinear version up until chapter 67. Another extremely important OHG text preserved in CSang 56 is a bilingual version of the Diatessaron, or Gospel Harmony, attributed to the Syrian Tatian. The Latin text appears in the left column, the German translation of over 2,000 words, here written in an East Franconian dialect, in the right column. Scholars believe that the translation, which very closely follows the Latin, was carried out at Fulda under the guidance of Rabanus Maurus, sometime in the second quarter of the ninth century. CSang 911, produced in southwest Germany, contains the oldest German book, an alphabetically organized Latin synonym dictionary with Old High German words and the oldest German version of the pater noster. The “Vocabularius Sancti Galli,” a missionary’s dictionary produced in Germany c.790, is today preserved in CSang 913. The most prolific contributor to vernacular writing was the teacher and scholar Notker Labeo (950–1022), who translated several standard Latin classroom texts into his native Alemannic dialect. Notker’s corpus covers the whole range of the seven liberal arts: the Psalter (together with the Cantica and three catechetical texts; CSang 21), Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae (CSang 825), Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (CSang 872), and Boethius’s translations of Aristotle’s De categoriis (CSang 818 and 825) and De interpretatione (CSang. 818, pp. 143–246). Notker also compiled several short Latin treatises on dialectic and rhetoric, some of which are sprinkled with OHG vocabulary, a Latin “Computus,” and a small treatise on music entirely in OHG (CSang 242).
The St. Gall scriptorium created texts for various purposes that served the political, economic, spiritual, and intellectual needs of the religious community. The most important documents were religious in nature, as decreed in the Rule of St. Benedict. Indeed, CSang 914, copied c.820, most likely at St. Gall, contains the textually most important copy of the Rule. It represents a copy of the Reichenau text produced in 817 and based on Charlemagne’s exemplar; the last two texts are now lost. Nearly half of the c.500 oldest St. Gall manuscripts contain biblical texts and commentary. Works of the Church Fathers are well represented at St. Gall, particularly the corpus of Augustine’s and Jerome’s works. Likewise, one finds numerous copies of early Christian writers and early medieval school authors. Hagiographic texts are also found in abundance at St. Gall, and many of the copies here have served as key witnesses in the stemmata of standard editions. Particularly noteworthy are the lives of local saints such as Gallus, Otmar, and Wiborada (cf. CSang 562); on deposit in CSang 553 is also the unique life of St. Ambrose, and in CSang 567 the oldest life of Pope Gregory the Great. The patristic collection at St. Gall is extremely large and contains biblical commentaries, collections of homilies, letters, and excerpts as well as collections of all these. CSang 430, 431, 432, and 434, produced in the mid-ninth century contain homiliaries with readings ordered according to the liturgical year; another ambitious project from approximately the same period is the groups CSang 162, 163, 164, 165, and 166, with a copy of Augustine’s In psalmos and CSang 200, 201, and 202 with Cassiodorus’ Expositio Psalmorum.
The abbey also preserves important original Latin compositions from the early Middle Ages, produced either at St. Gall or at neighboring houses. The late eighth-century literary triumvirate Notker, Tuotilo, and Ratpert were particularly productive; all were trained and active at St. Gall. Notker Balbulus (c.840–912) was a prolific writer and composer and penned at St. Gall his Gesta Karoli magni c.884–7, a collection of musical sequences known as the Liber ymnorum (dedicated in 884 and preserved in hundreds of medieval manuscripts and early printed missals throughout Europe), a metrical life of St. Gall (together with the monk Hartmann), a martyrology, and, c.890, a memorial book, the so-called “Formelbuch” written in honor of the consecration of former pupil Solomo as abbot of St. Gall and bishop of Constance. Finally, he also composed the Notatio de illustribus viris written in the tradition of Jerome’s De viris illustribus and containing a survey of early Christian and medieval literature. Tuotilo is well known for his tropes, a recently new genre at this time; he is also named as the artist of ivory carvings and musical tutor to young noble boys. Ratpert is known for his chronicle of the abbey to 883 and the now lost vernacular version of the Song of St. Gall which Ekkehard IV later translated into Latin; he also authored several hymns. Local literature from the “Silver Age” includes the “Life of St. Wiborada” by Ekkehard I (soon reworked by Ekkehard IV), and a later version by Herimannus c.1072–6 containing impressive amounts of classical imagery and theological learning; the last-mentioned monk also probably authored glosses to Epistles of St. Paul. Ekkehard IV was a prolific author, penning several works, including the first continuation of the abbey’s history up until 972 (CSang 615), and a collection of occasional and school poetry known as the Liber benedictionum. The latter survives in an autograph copy in CSang 393; the space in the margins and interlinearly is literally crammed full of Ekkehard’s corrections, glosses, and comments and thus preserves for us a unique example of an early medieval “work in progress.” Ekkehard also copiously glossed other manuscripts in the library’s collection, including the CSang copy of Orosius’s History in CSang 621. The works of the medieval poet and scholar Walahfrid Strabo are well represented at St. Gall, many in very old and even near contemporary copies, including his “Vita S. Galli” (CSang 562), his “Vita Othmari” (CSang 572), “Visio Wettini” (CSang 573), “De imagine Tetrici” (CSang 869, containing many other poems as well), and various individual poems and other shorter texts and commentaries (CSang 446, 459, and 899), and his Commentary to the Psalms (CSang 167, 313, and 317). CSang 878 may contain Walahfrid’s own “Vademecum” written in his own hand.
The early St. Gall manuscripts devoted to music are extremely important for musicologists. The St. Gall Cantatorium in CSang 359 preserves the oldest and most complete copy of neumes for the solo parts of the liturgy in the Gregorian tradition. A high point was reached in the third quarter of the ninth century with the three monks Ratpert, Notker, and Tuotilo, whose accomplishments are often referred to as stemming from a St. Gall “School of Song.” Hartker’s antiphonary preserved in two volumes in CSang 390 and 391 was written c.1000 in an elegant script with miniatures, illuminated capitals, and neumes and notations. Also produced at the beginning of the eleventh century is Sang 339, which contains an extensive complete missal. Production of liturgical manuscripts increased again under the rule of Abbot Nortpert of Stablo (1034–72). Important texts from this time are CSang 338, 340, 341, and 376. The liturgical influence of St. Gall reached also to St. Albans in Mainz, whence it emanated to other centers throughout Europe.