The manuscript contains a number of normative texts from the
Cistercian nuns’ convent of Günterstal, written partly in German
and partly in Latin. It begins with a treatise on simony, in Latin
and German, which was written by ‘brůder Johannes’ and
dedicated to ‘der erwurdigen frowen von Mulhein’, presumably
Veronica von Mülheim, who was abbess of the convent from December
1504 until her death in May 1508. Johannes may have been a monk
from Tennenbach, the Cistercian monastery which had responsibility
for the cura animarum of the nuns. The rest of the manuscript
contains a number of translations of normative texts from the
Cistercian order, including the Liber definitionum and the
Ecclesiastica Officia. Their use for nuns is highlighted by the
German translations and the inclusion of only relevant chapters.
Many of these were also transmitted in the Cistercian nuns’
convent of Lichtenthal, near Baden-Baden. Although the convent was
never formally reformed, the manuscript points to reforming
impulses in the early part of the sixteenth century. The manuscript
was bought in 1782 by the St. Gall monk Gall Metzler (1743-1820),
parish priest in Ebringen near Freiburg, which was owned by St.
Gall.
