NOTES ET MATERIAUX
A COMPUTUS NOTEBOOK BY SEBASTIAN BRANT (CLM 26618)
During the studies for the edition of the extant medieval library catalogues of the diocese of Regensburg and of the histories of their respective libraries (x) I found in Clm 26618 of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek a hitherto unknown autograph of Sebastian Brant (1457-1521), the famous author of the Narrenschyff. As I have shown previously (2), S. Brant wrote Clm 26618 in 1475, the year in which he entered the University of Basel (Michaelmas term). The notebook consists of a single quire of six bifolios of paper bearing watermill marks from Basel (3) and is bound in carton of the 18th century. It now belongs to a miscellaneous collection of that were brought to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in 1876 as a shipment of odd from the city of Regensburg (4). These manuscripts had remained in the city library after the scrutiny of the secularized monastic holdings by Freiherr von Aretin, the leader of the commission for secularization of monasteries in Bavaria around 1800.
It is uncertain how Clm 26618 came to the city library of Regensburg. However, one must remember that S. Brant was well known among the humanists of Bavaria and that such men as the scholar Hieronymus Streitel of the Augustinian Hermits of Regensburg (5) were well acquainted with the works of Sebastian Brant even during his lifetime (6). The city library of Regensburg existed already in the 15th century ; it acquired many codices from Regensburg monasteries and convents even during the 15th and 16th centuries. After the secularization process it became a depot for manuscripts that had not been selected for the royal library in Munich or had not been thrown away.
Since I am not a specialist for the medieval computus I have not attempted any detailed study of S. Brant's computus, but I have nevertheless tried to identify as many verses as ; through this publication I wish to draw attention to a computus collection that seems to have remained unnoticed. In the text listings I have given the titles and, with a few exceptions (e.g. initia agreeing entirely with those cited by H. Walther) the initia of the verses and prose texts. One to two-line verses, to my knowledge not yet published elsewhere, I have copied Though I have encountered many similar text transmissions in other Regensburg notably from St. Emmeram, not referred to by the standard references I have from mentioning these in order to avoid cluttering the present article and to leave free scope
(1) Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, IV, edit by B. Bischoff ; part I : Bistii- mer Passau und Regensburg, by C. E. Ineighen-Eder (Munchen, 1977).
(2) See my article « Ein neuentdecktes Autograph von Sebastian Brant », in : Bibliotheks forum Bayern 6 (1978) 3, p. 209-214. So many of my manuscript studies have been carried out in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich with the indefatigable help of its staff. Again I wish to express my gratitude for all the help I have received and still receive from the members of the manuscript department.
(3) Neuentdecktes Autograph (n. 2), p. 210.
(4) MBK (n. 1), p. 471 ff. In preparation for this publication I cursorily studied all these manuscripts in search of their origin and provenance. Most of them belong to the various monasteries and convents of Regensburg, e.g. the Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinian Hermits, and can be distinguished quite readily either by the inscriptions of the respective librarians or the patterns of stamps in the leather bindings, by the hands of scribes or the inscriptions of later owners.
(5) MBK (n. 1), p. 465 f.
(6) Ibid., p. 466.
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