Manuscripts from the National Library of the Czech Republic

The newly digitized codices of the National Library come from three larger provenance sets: the old collection of the NL, manuscripts from the monastery in Teplá and the former Prague Lobkowicz Library. In terms of content, the group is quite varied, with the predominance of theological, liturgical and homiletic codices, but also some hagiographic, medical, grammatical, philosophical and legal works as well as Biblical manuscripts, in some cases with exegeses. Codices with extant ownership records come from important Czech medieval libraries: besides the colleges of the Prague university, they also comprise volumes from the Augustinian canonries in Roudnice nad Labem and Třeboň as well as the Cistercian monastery in Zlatá Koruna. The earliest digitized codices come from the 12th century, the latest from the beginning of the 16th century. The most frequent language is Latin, but the manuscripts digitised also include an important work of Czech literature, the so-called Manuscript from Hradec Králové, containing hymns and satires (shelf mark XXIII G 92), and among German codices some manuscripts with legal texts (Teplá MS. C 5, Teplá MS. D 13). Works interesting for the history of book painting are e.g. the codice Teplá MS. E 46, made in Magdeburg in 1491, the manuscripts of Czech origin Teplá MS. D 16 (the New Testament with a commentary) and Teplá MS. b 15 (a prayer book), and the Italian manuscript Teplá MS. E 8.