Manuscripts from the National Library of the Czech Republic and the Slavonic Library

The continued digitisation of the codices from the National Library of the Czech Republic mainly focused on the medieval parts of the shelf marks IV and V. In terms of content, they are dominated by theological works; the Biblical exegesis is represented e.g. by commentaries by Nicholas of Lyra (IV.G.17, V.B.19, V.C.6, V.C.14), Robert Holcot (V.B.12) and Haimo of Auxerre (V.C.9, V.C.19); several volumes contain various commentaries on the key theological handbook of the Middle Ages, the Sentences of Peter Lombard (IV.H.21, IV.H.23, V.A.22, V.A.26). The codices further comprise works on philosophy (commentaries on Aristotle’s writings, copied or taught at the Prague university) or those used in pastoral and confessional practice (confessional works, summae confessorum, by Thomas of Chobham and Bartholomew of San Concordio). Natural sciences are the subject of e.g. the book on medicine from the turn of the 14th century that belonged to the master of the Prague university Jan Ondřej called Šindel (meaning ‘Shingle’, IV.F.20), volumes on astronomy (IV.G.10 and V.A.11) and a poem on the medicinal effects of plants Macer Floridus, accompanied by a commentary (IV.G.9). Several volumes include liturgical and preaching texts as well. Historiographic works are represented by the chronicle of an unknown monk of Erfurt (IV.H.25); a manuscript from the monastery in Zlatá Koruna contains a popular collection of hagiographies, Legenda Aurea by Jacobus de Voragine (XIII.C.15). The collection of texts by the Humanist Bohuslaus of Lobkowicz and Hassenstein (I.D.3) comes from the turn of the 16th century. Apart from the manuscripts, the digitised works also comprise five fragments from the 14th and 15th centuries, including i.a. instruments of notaries public, concerning legal and property issues (XXIV.A.57, XXIV.A.226), and fragments of judicial acts of the Prague consistory (XXIV.A.6). A separate group is formed by eight manuscripts from the 17th–19th centuries from the collections of the Slavonic Library. They are mostly written in Church Slavonic, but also in Croatian, Italian and Latin. Besides liturgical and religious texts, they include biographies and writings on heraldry as well.