As Wikipedian in Residence, Rudolf H. Böttcher (user:1rhb/KB) had the opportunity in December 2024 to gain an insight into the historical treasures of the Abbey Library of Saint Gall. This enabled him to make new knowledge about it available on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. In the following, he reports on his journey through time to the monks and manuscript scribes of the Middle Ages who contributed to this invaluable collection of knowledge.
Rudolf H. Böttcher: “Could a monk of the Saint Gall scriptorium imagine a Wikipedian in residence today? A monk who copies a manuscript onto a piece of veal parchment with a quill pen and a scraping knife – for proofreading purposes? From December 2 to 6, 2024, I was Wikipedian in Residence at the Abbey Library of Saint Gall. I was accommodated in a small, elegant guest apartment with shower and toilet in a separate room, located in the old monastery building next to the Türmlihaus, a fortified house with turrets. In practice, I could organize my work freely in the reading room. I was able to copy entire pages of manuscripts in a hundredth of a second onto a recording medium (a storage medium) that holds dozens of medieval codices on a device as small as a fingernail. I had Internet access to the almost entirely digitized Codices Sangallensis and to many others, such as those of the Biblioteca Palatina, via e-Codices.
For the “Did you know?” section on the main Wikipedia page, I contributed to the writing of an article about the composite manuscript featuring the Saint Gall Christmas play. It is the oldest German-language play of its kind, with the original text dating from the last third of the 13th century.
From one month to the next, further articles may follow for this section on island illumination, ceremonial Bibles made on 220 sheepskins, etc. I have also co-authored biographies on princely abbey officials, who inherited their offices from their fathers, or on an upstart like Joseph Leonz Ignaz Sartori von Rabenstein, a personality who does not appear in the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (DHS). In addition to biographies of abbesses, a biography is devoted to Anna Heller, a victim of the witch-hunt.
During the lunch breaks, I took pictures of some houses with bay windows for new articles, such as the House to the Pelican or the Haus zur Hechel. More articles and photos will follow. The list of cultural assets and the list of abbots, among other articles, have been and will be supplemented and expanded.
On Friday we created the new Wikipedia account for the Abbey Library and during the afternoon briefing the first five images were uploaded to Commons. By mid-January 2025, almost 500 more photos had followed.
After a four-day GLAM-on-Tour in May 2023, we were given one day of “re-sitting” in June 2024. This gave rise to the idea of this residency. I am grateful to Abbey Librarian Cornel Dora and his team and Ulrich Lantermann from Wikimedia CH for making it happen. Even as a child, I spent a lot of time with books and the library with my parents. A highlight for me was the exhibition held in 2007, Schätze aus Pergament (Treasures of Parchment) in my home town of Frankenthal (Palatinate), where I was also allowed to guide Bishop Anton Schlembach of Speyer for three hours as an official guide.
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Photo: by Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen, Cod. Sang. 1395, p. 418” , CC-BY-SA-4.0
(Scriptorium of the 8th century: The Evangelist Matthew dips his calamus into the inkhorn, holding the scraping knife in his left hand. The writing desk is replaced by its symbol, the angel, who is holding the tablet and the writing support.