The Abbey of Saint Gall is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Gallus had erected his hermitage. It became an independent principality between 9th and 13th centuries, and was for many centuries one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe. The library of the Abbey is one of the oldest monastic libraries in the world. The city of St. Gallen originated as an adjoining settlement of the abbey. The abbey was secularized around 1800, and in 1848 its former church became a Cathedral. Since 1983 the abbey precinct has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created in a Columban monastery in either Ireland, Scotland or England, and may have had contributions from various Columban institutions from each of these areas. It is believed to have been created c. 800 AD. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. It is regarded as a masterwork of Western calligraphy and the pinnacle of Insular illumination. The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, County Meath, which was its home for centuries.
Reichenau Island is an island in Lake Constance in Southern Germany. It lies almost due west of the city of Konstanz, between the Gnadensee and the Untersee, two parts of Lake Constance. With a total land surface of 4.3 km2 (1.7 sq mi) and a circumference of 11 km (6.8 mi), the island is 4.5 km (2.8 mi) long and 1.5 km (0.93 mi) wide at its greatest extent. The highest point, the Hochwart, stands some 43 m (141 ft) above the lake surface and 438.7 m (1,439 ft) above mean sea level.
In the Western Church of the Early and High Middle Ages, a sacramentary was a book used for liturgical services and the mass by a bishop or priest. Sacramentaries include only the words spoken or sung by him, unlike the missals of later centuries that include all the texts of the mass whether read by the bishop, priest, or others. Also, sacramentaries, unlike missals, include texts for services other than the mass such as ordinations, the consecration of a church or altar, exorcisms, and blessings, all of which were later included in Pontificals and Rituals instead.
The Georgslied is a set of poems and hymns to Saint George in Old High German.
The Abbey of Kells is a former monastery in Kells, County Meath, Ireland, 64 kilometres (40 mi) north of Dublin. It was founded in the early 9th century, and the Book of Kells was kept there during the later medieval and early modern periods before finally leaving the abbey in the 1650s. Much of the Book of Kells may have been created there, but historians cannot be certain of the exact date and circumstances of its creation.
Pre-Romanesque art and architecture is the period in European art from either the emergence of the Merovingian kingdom in about 500 AD or from the Carolingian Renaissance in the late 8th century, to the beginning of the 11th century Romanesque period. The term is generally used in English only for architecture and monumental sculpture, but here all the arts of the period are briefly described.
Ottonian art is a style in pre-romanesque German art, covering also some works from the Low Countries, northern Italy and eastern France. It was named by the art historian Hubert Janitschek after the Ottonian dynasty which ruled Germany and northern Italy between 919 and 1024 under the kings Henry I, Otto I, Otto II, Otto III and Henry II. With Ottonian architecture, it is a key component of the Ottonian Renaissance. However, the style neither began nor ended to neatly coincide with the rule of the dynasty. It emerged some decades into their rule and persisted past the Ottonian emperors into the reigns of the early Salian dynasty, which lacks an artistic "style label" of its own. In the traditional scheme of art history, Ottonian art follows Carolingian art and precedes Romanesque art, though the transitions at both ends of the period are gradual rather than sudden. Like the former and unlike the latter, it was very largely a style restricted to a few of the small cities of the period, and important monasteries, as well as the court circles of the emperor and his leading vassals.
The Schuttern Gospels is an early 9th century illuminated Gospel Book that was produced at Schuttern Abbey in Baden. According to a colophon on folio 206v, the manuscript was written by the deacon Liutharius, at the order of his abbot, Bertricus.
The Antiphonary of Bangor is an ancient Latin manuscript, supposed to have been originally written at Bangor Abbey in modern-day Northern Ireland.
Codex Sangallensis 878 is a manuscript kept in the library of the Abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland. It dates to the 9th century and probably originates in Fulda monastery. It contains mainly excerpts of grammatical texts, including the Ars minor and Ars maior of Aelius Donatus, the grammar of Priscian, the Etymologiae of Isidore of Sevilla and the grammar of Alcuin. Furthermore, it contains a presentation of the Greek alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet, the Anglo-Saxon runes and the Scandinavian Younger Futhark, the latter in the form of a short rune poem known as the Abecedarium Nordmannicum.
Reichenau Abbey was a Benedictine monastery on Reichenau Island. It was founded in 724 by the itinerant Saint Pirmin, who is said to have fled Spain ahead of the Moorish invaders, with patronage that included Charles Martel, and, more locally, Count Berthold of the Ahalolfinger and the Alemannian Duke Santfrid I (Nebi). Pirmin's conflict with Santfrid resulted in his leaving Reichenau in 727. Under his later successor Haito the monastery began to flourish. It gained influence in the Carolingian dynasty, under Abbot Waldo of Reichenau (740–814), by educating the clerks who staffed Imperial and ducal chanceries. Abbot Reginbert of Reichenau built up the important book collection. Abbot Walahfrid Strabo (842–849), who was educated at Reichenau, was renowned as a poet and Latin scholar.
The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a series of expeditions in the 6th and 7th centuries by Gaelic missionaries originating from Ireland that spread Celtic Christianity in Scotland, Wales, England and Merovingian France. Celtic Christianity spread first within the Kingdom of Dál Riata, within Ireland and the western coast of Scotland. Since the 8th and 9th centuries, these early missions were called 'Celtic Christianity'.
Carolingian architecture is the style of north European Pre-Romanesque architecture belonging to the period of the Carolingian Renaissance of the late 8th and 9th centuries, when the Carolingian dynasty dominated west European politics. It was a conscious attempt to emulate Roman architecture and to that end it borrowed heavily from Early Christian and Byzantine architecture, though there are nonetheless innovations of its own, resulting in a unique character.
Pfäfers Abbey, also known as St. Pirminsberg from its position on a mountain, was a Benedictine monastery in Pfäfers near Bad Ragaz, in the canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
"Pangur Bán" is an Old Irish poem, written in about the 9th century at or near Reichenau Abbey, in what is now Germany, by an Irish monk about his cat. Pangur Bán, 'White Pangur', is the cat's name, Pangur possibly meaning 'a fuller'. Although the poem is anonymous, it bears similarities to the poetry of Sedulius Scottus, prompting speculation that he is the author. In eight verses of four lines each, the author compares the cat's happy hunting with his own scholarly pursuits.
A tonary is a liturgical book in the Western Christian Church which lists by incipit various items of Gregorian chant according to the Gregorian mode (tonus) of their melodies within the eight-mode system. Tonaries often include Office antiphons, the mode of which determines the recitation formula for the accompanying text, but a tonary may also or instead list responsories or Mass chants not associated with formulaic recitation. Although some tonaries are stand-alone works, they were frequently used as an appendix to other liturgical books such as antiphonaries, graduals, tropers, and prosers, and are often included in collections of musical treatises.
The Gospels of Otto III is considered a superb example of Ottonian art because of the scope, planning, and execution of the work. The book has 276 parchment pages and has twelve canon tables, a double page portrait of Otto III, portraits of the four evangelists, and 29 full page miniatures illustrating scenes from the New Testament. The cover is the original, with a tenth-century carved Byzantine ivory inlay representing the Dormition of the Virgin. Produced at the monastery at Reichenau Abbey in about 1000 CE., the manuscript is an example of the highest quality work that was produced over 150 years at the monastery.
The Annales laureshamenses, also called Annals of Lorsch (AL), are a set of Reichsannalen that cover the years from 703 to 803, with a brief prologue. The annals begin where the "Chronica minora" of the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede leaves off—in the fifth year of the Emperor Tiberios III—and may have originally been composed as a continuation of Bede. The annals for the years up to 785 were written at the Abbey of Lorsch, but are dependent on earlier sources. Those for the years from 785 onward form an independent source and provide especially important coverage of the imperial coronation of Charlemagne in 800. The Annales laureshamenses have been translated into English.
The Frankish Table of Nations is a brief early medieval genealogical text in Latin giving the supposed relationship between thirteen nations descended from three brothers. The nations are the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Gepids, Saxons, Burgundians, Thuringians, Lombards, Bavarians, Romans, Bretons, Franks and Alamanni.
