Medieval Manuscripts from the National Library of the Czech Republic

The Olomouc Research Library has digitised a collective volume from the first half of the 15th century (shelf mark M II 55). It contains the speeches of an envoy of the Council of Basel, Juan de Palomar, and other anti-Hussite works as well as writings of the Chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Charlier de Gerson, and shorter texts, including the bulls of Pope Martin V.

Three illuminated manuscripts from the collections of the library of the Premonstratensian Canonry in Nová Říše have been digitised. The oldest of them (shelf mark NR 79), coming from the beginning of the 13th century, contains Macrobius’ commentary of Scipio’s dream and glosses on this text; in the Middle Ages, it belonged to the library of the Benedictine monastery Michaelsberg in Siegburg. The other two manuscripts are books of hours of French origin. The earlier codex (NR 87) was written at the end of the 14th century and its illuminations are attributed to the circle of the painter Jacob Coën, whereas the later one (NR 86) originated in the last third of the 15th century.

In 2022, the Museum of the Brno Region digitised four more manuscripts from the second half of the 14th century and the first half of the 15th century from the library of the Benedictine Abbey in Rajhrad. All the codices contain mostly writings attributed to the Church Fathers and sermons; for instance, the author of the collection in manuscript R 405 is Matthew of Kraków. A linguistically significant codex, containing i.a. Czech Gospel readings, is kept under the shelf mark R 364.

In 2022, the Military History Institute Prague digitised another 31 items, including manuscripts mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries and Emil Kaňovský’s notebook of lectures at the NCO school in Great Britain from 1942. Most of the manuscripts made available are treatises on training, military and fortification theory, lecture notes and textbooks in various fields. Nevertheless, they also include, for example, overviews of the state of the army and its structure (shelf marks IIR A 360 and IIR A 489) or a drawn set of nautical flags and other symbols (IIR B 1343).

The Slavic Library has digitised two manuscripts from the collection of the Ragusiana of Milan Rešetar: a manuscript collection of poems (shelf mark T 342) and an incomplete collection with excerpts from various texts by several authors (shelf mark T 399). Both volumes come from the end of the 17th century and are accompanied by drawings.

The Museum of the Jindřichův Hradec Region digitised one manuscript and two early printed books in 2022. The manuscript Rk 110 – a Czech prayer book – was written in the second half of the 18th century. The early printed books contain various editions of the prayers of the Capuchin Martin of Cochem. The collection Der grosse Myrrhen-Garten (shelf mark S 109) was printed in Cologne in 1694; the Czech collection Zlatý nebeský klíč [The Golden Key of Heaven] (JK 2498) was published in Jindřichův Hradec around 1760.

An important educational institution founded in the 16th century – the Latin town school in Jáchymov – has provided access to a manuscript of a sheet-music antiphonary with additional texts (shelf mark LC 3). The scribe and perhaps also the compiler of the codex was the teacher and composer Nikolaus Herman, who worked in Jáchymov for more than 40 years. Most of the manuscript was probably written in 1553.

The digitisation of the collections of the National Museum Library in Prague continued in 2022 with another five manuscripts. Medieval codices are represented by a set of patristic homilies and treatises from the end of the 14th century, which used to belong to the library of the house of Augustinian canons in Roudnice nad Labem (shelf mark XIV A 2), a homiliary of the School of Auxerre from the first third of the 15th century (XVIII A 8), and a part of the Old Testament from the first half of the 15th century (XVIII A 19). A large collection of texts of Bohemian land law (II C 2) comes from the early 16th century. The hymnal that contains hymns for the Advent season and the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord and is referred to as the Rychnov Hymnal (I A 34), according to its documented place of use in the 19th century, was written around the middle of the 16th century.

The Regional Museum in Teplice has provided access to another two modern manuscripts from its collections in 2022. The older one is a hymnary, supplemented by other parts of the Liturgy of the Hours; it was written in the Cistercian monastery in Plasy in 1684 (shelf mark Or I 18). The later manuscript contains a summary of a part of Aristotelian philosophy and was created in 1701 by Hyacint Erbstein, a professed monk at the monastery in Osek (shelf mark R 2020/26).

In 2022, the Ethnographic Museum and Gallery in Česká Lípa digitised six manuscripts from the period between the late 17th and the early 19th century from its collections. Two volumes contain personal records. These include an account of a trip to Rome undertaken in 1750–1751 by Count Franz Karl Rudolf von Swéerts-Sporck, his wife Anna Kateřina and son Jan Kristián (the account was compiled by their housekeeper and servant Franz Girtler and is recorded in RK 34) and a diary of the surgeon and obstetrician Ignatz Loringer from the turn of the 19th century (RK 78). Liturgical manuscripts are represented by a breviary with the feasts of Bohemian saints (RK 6) and a German book of hours (RK 29). The codex RK 30 contains a handwritten copy of Pantheon Augustinianum and RK 61 is a German collection of recipes, proverbs and various other texts.