Vienna Hispana Codex

Vienna Hispana Codex

The Vienna Hispana Codex is a liturgical manuscript presumably written in eastern France near the Rhineland judging by the script – a beautiful Carolingian minuscule. Further information about its origins can be found in the texts, which correspond with a work written in 788 for Bishop Rachio of Strasbourg and lost by fire in 1870 (C.L.A., VI. 835). As such, it has been an early and important source for similar texts and for historians interested in the medieval church.
The manuscript was rebound in 1527 at the expense of Johannes Marquardus (cf. fol. I) before coming to the library of Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria (1529–95) at Ambras Castle, located in the hills above Innsbruck, later in the 16th century. It bore the number 281 in the Ambras collection which was incorporated in the Vienna Palatine Library in 1665. Today it is numbered among the extensive collection of precious and historic manuscripts that is found in Austrian National Library in Vienna, where it is stored under the shelf mark Cod. Vindob. 411.

The Canon Texts

The largest portion of the manuscript comprising folios 1r-202v consists of the Canones Conciliorum, usque ad Concilium Hispalense secundum or “Canons of the Councils, up to the Second Council of Spain”. It is followed by the Decretalia Pontificum usque ad Hormisdam, Virgilium et Gregorium (fol. 202v-312v) or “Decrees of the Pontiffs as far as Hormisda, Virgil, and Gregory”. The third and final text is a short numerological work called De valore numerico literarum graecarum or “On the Numerical Value of Greek Letters” (fol. 312v-313v).