Rule of St Benedict

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0103 MS GERM 12
Held at	: University College London   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/special-coll ›
Full title	: Rule of St Benedict
Date(s)	: 14th century
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 1 volume containing 104 leaves
Name of creator(s)	: Unknown scribe

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Order of Saint Benedict comprises the confederated congregations of monks and lay brothers who follow the rule of life of St Benedict (c480-c547), written c535-540 with St Benedict's own abbey of Montecassino in mind. The rule, providing a complete directory for the government and spiritual and material well-being of a monastery, spread slowly in Italy and Gaul. By the late Middle Ages the Benedictine Rule had been translated into many languages owing to the diffusion of the order through many European countries.

The large abbey at Ottobeuren, near Memmingen, Bavaria, was founded in 764 and was among the most important early Benedictine monasteries, famous in the Middle Ages for its large library.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Late 14th century manuscript volume: Benediktinerregel (Rule of St Benedict), divided into 73 chapters (numbered in error as 72), each chapter consisting of a passage in Latin followed by the German translation. There are some ink sketches of monks (ff 6r, 37v, 38r, 82v) and one sketch of an abbot standing before a table (f 71r). The front cover bears a strip of parchment with the inscription: 'Regula Benedictj / Jn Theutunice'. The volume also contains a list of monastic orders with descriptions of the characteristic dress of each order (ff 94r-94v); the text of regulations, in Latin, containing many quotations from the Latin Rule (f 95r-97ra); and the later inscription 'Jste liber p[er]tinet ad mo[na]ste[r]iu[m] ot[e]nbure[n] (this book belongs to the monastery of Ottobeuren) (f 104r).

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
German (Swabian dialect) and Latin. Gothic cursive hand.

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Open.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Normal copyright restrictions apply.

Finding aids:

Dorothy K Coveney, A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of University College London (London, 1935); N R Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, i (London and Oxford, 1969); handlist at University College London Special Collections.

Archival Information

Archival history:

The manuscript belonged to the Benedictine Abbey at Ottobeuren, Bavaria, and may subsequently have been at Bern (Berne), Switzerland. It later belonged to Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), baronet, an antiquary and bibliophile whose collection included c60,000 manuscripts of various kinds, some relating to the administration of Swiss towns. Various manuscripts were sold after Sir Thomas's death, some to the German government, and were dispersed to several libraries. Formerly Phillipps MS 1244, bearing on folio 97r the Phillipps ex libris.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Sold at Sotheby's in 1911 and presented to University College London by Sir Edgar Speyer, through Bernard Quaritch, in that year.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

The manuscript has been published as The London Benedictine Rule: an unpublished middle high German manuscript of the late fourteenth century, edited, with an introduction, by Carl Selmer (Studien und Mitteilungen sur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens und Seiner Zweige, Heruasgegeben von der Bayerischen Benediktinerakademie 11: Ergänzungsheft, Munchen, 1936). See also Franz Simmler, 'Makrostrukturen in Lateinischen und Deuteschen Textüberlieferungen der Regula Benedicti', Sonderdruck aus Regulae Benedicti Studia Annuarium Internationale (1988). Copies of each at University College London Special Collections.

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica online; The London Benedictine Rule: an unpublished middle high German manuscript of the late fourteenth century, ed Carl Selmer (Munchen, 1936). Compiled by Rachel Kemsley as part of the RSLP AIM25 project.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
1999, revised Jul 2001