Manuscripts – Bibliotheca legum

The Bl is growing: two new discoveries and one refinement

By Daniela Schulz | 2025-12-18

Thanks to information provided by Prof. Dr. Matthias M. Tischler (ICREA), we have now been able to add the exact shelfmark to Vic, Arxiu i Biblioteca Episcopal, dipòsit MSG, s.n., which is now “Vic, Arxiu i Biblioteca Episcopal, Fragm. XXVII/48”.

We are grateful to Dr Roman Deutinger (BAdW) for pointing out a Lex Visigothorum manuscript previously unknown to us in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska Krakow with the shelfmark “Przyb. 50/60”. A digital copy is available from the SLUB Dresden.

Through research in the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts, we were able to find a 15th-century paper manuscript containing, among other things, the Lex Salica, various capitularies and the Septinas septem. It belongs to the collection of the Bibliothèque de l’Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and bears the shelfmark “Ms. Mas 31” (SDBM_281164). Digital images of the manuscript are available at ARCA (IRHT Digital Library), and an automatically generated transcription is provided by CoMMA.

Descriptions of the two ‘new additions’ will be added to Bibliotheca legum in the near future.

Until then, the Bibliotheca legum team wishes everyone a restful Christmas and a good start to 2026.

330th manuscript and 10th birthday

By Dominik | 2022-10-13

The latest addition to the Bibliotheca legum is a codex written in Greek, which is now in the National Library in Paris: Grec. 1384. This manuscript contains various Byzantine law collections as well as a fragment of a Greek translation of the Edictus Rothari. We thank Prof. Stefan Esders (FU Berlin) for his hint!

Just in time for the 10th birthday of the Bibliotheca legum, we can thus present the 330th manuscript description! Our website is online since autumn 2012 and has become an established tool in legal history research. We would like to thank all our supporters!

Stemma of the Ansegis collection

By kubl | 2021-04-14

The edition of Ansegis’ capitulary collection is a real treasure trove for anyone interested in the transmission of legal manuscripts in the Carolingian period. With utmost meticulousness Gerhard Schmitz has analyzed the manuscripts of the collection and their textual peculiarities. He convincingly demonstrated that the collection was rapidly disseminated throughout the Frankish Empire and that many early witnesses have been lost. What is missing in Schmitz’s edition, however, is a simplifying stemma that would allow a quick overview of the textual transmission. Such a stemma has now been published for the Capitularia project.

New manuscript

By Dominik | 2021-03-17

Thanks to Dr. Roman Deutinger (Munich), the Bibliotheca legum is now able to present its 327th manuscript: Paris, BN, Lat. 5512. This manuscript from the 12th century offers several historiographical texts and the prologue of the Lex Salica on fol. 59rb.

IMC Leeds 2019

By Dominik | 2019-07-01

New textual witnesses found by R. Deutinger

By Daniela Schulz | 2019-03-11

In the new issue of the Deutsches Archiv (74/1, 2018, pp. 177-191) Roman Deutinger has drawn attention to a hitherto unknown textual witnesses of Leges texts. Deutinger discovered transcriptions of the Lex Baiuvariorum, the Lex Salica and the Lex Francorum Chamavorum in the collections of the scholar Wolfgang Hunger (1511-1555). Especially the transmission of the Lex Francorum Chamavorum is a great asset, since only three manuscripts of this Lex were known so far.

Bibliotheca Update and announcement

By Daniela Schulz | 2018-02-08

As obvious for the recurrent user of the Bibliotheca legum, the previously announced “facelift work” has already begun. We just started updating the English site. As soon as the work is finished there and all functionalities have been restored, the German-speaking site will follow.

Besides constantly working on improving the website, the Bibliotheca legum staff will present the project as part of the poster exhibition of the annual conference of the “Netzwerk Historische Grundwissenschaften” (NHG, “Network Historical Auxiliary Sciences”) that takes place at the LMU Munich (Feb 15/16), together with some of the qualification and dissertation projects that have emerged from the project so far. Dominik Trump, M.A. will talk about marginalia and glosses in some Epitome Aegidii manuscripts (“In margine – Benutzerspuren in Handschriften der Epitome Aegidii“). Daniela Schulz will trace back the history of Cod. Guelf. 97 Weiss., applying digital methods (“Der Baustein, den die Bauleute verworfen haben? Auf den Spuren des Cod. Guelf. 97 Weiss.”). The program can be found here.

Lex Alamannorum and Isaac of Langres

By Dominik | 2017-11-22

As the 325th manuscript of the Bibliotheca legum, it was possible to include Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Lat. 3877. The main content of the manuscript are the capitula of Isaac of Langres, followed by various canonical excerpts. At the end of the codex, various other legal texts follow, including title 19 of the Lex Alamannorum, which was previously unknown. Semih Heinen has studied the Parisian manuscript for the project “Edition of the Frankish Capitularies” and discovered the title. You can find his blog post here.