Law and Liturgy in Twelfth-Century Augsburg

Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 3909 was copied at Augsburg cathedral at some point between 1138 and 1143, under Bishop Walter (1133–52). The bulk of the manuscript is a pontifical, but it also contains liturgical commentaries, lists of popes, kings, and bishops, and a set of canon-legal texts, including the earliest witness to the decretal collection known as Collectio Augustana. There are extensive marginal annotations, which help to make the different parts of the manuscript speak to one another: liturgical texts are accompanied by canon-legal marginalia, and vice versa. Considered against the background of other manuscripts and charters known to have been present or produced at Augsburg under Bishop Walter, the manuscript can provide insights into scribal practice at twelfth-century cathedral chapters, into the connections between canon law and liturgy, and into the relationship between bishops and their cathedrals in the decades after the end of the Investiture Contest.