The Bodleian Library is one of the few libraries outside Germany with a substantial number of medieval manuscripts from the German-speaking lands. These manuscripts, most of which were acquired by Archbishop Laud in the 1630s, during the Thirty Years War, mainly consist of major groups of codices from ecclesiastical houses in the Rhine-Main area, that is Würzburg, Mainz, and Eberbach. Their potential contribution to the religious and intellectual history of these foundations and to the study of German medieval culture as a whole is immeasurable.

These volumes contain descriptions of more than one hundred medieval manuscripts, mostly Latin, from the Charterhouse St. Michael at Mainz. Dating from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, they reflect the spirituality and literary interest of the Carthusian order. The first major publication on the Mainz Charterhouse manuscript collection, this two-volume edition provides authoritative and superbly detailed descriptions, including information about the physical characteristics, decoration, binding, and provenance of the manuscripts.
 

The Bodleian Library holds a significant collection of Latin medieval manuscripts from Germany—more specifically from Würzburg, Eberbach, and Mainz. The medieval manuscripts from Würzburg, most of which were acquired by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, during the period of the Thirty Years’ War, constitute an invaluable collection. Most of these codices originally belonged to the cathedral chapter of Würzburg, the Domstift St. Kilian, and date back to the ninth century.
           
Presenting detailed descriptions of more than fifty of manuscripts, Medieval Manuscripts from Würzburg in the Bodleian Library, Oxford provides an authoritative catalog, including many important early copies of the manuscripts of church fathers during the Carolingian period. Daniela Mairhofer examines each from both a textual and paleographic point of view, paying careful attention to the provenance of the manuscript, as well as to physical characteristics like decoration and binding. Entries are accompanied by copious color plates.