The Benedictine abbey of St. Paul, located in Sankt Paul im Lavanttal on the southern tip of Austria near Slovenia, was founded in 1091 from the famous German reform abbey of Hirsau. Although of important religious and cultural influence, it was dissolved in 1782 and its manuscript collection largely disseminated in various directions.  In 1807, however, the Benedictine community of Sankt Blasien in Schwarzwald requested permission to resettle in Austria. First moving to the vacant Augustinian monastery of Spital am Pyhrn, they moved again in 1809 to the abandoned buildings of Sankt Paul, bringing with them not only the manuscripts of Sankt Blasien but those of Spital am Pyhrn as well. From this large monastic collection, HMML filmed 1046 manuscripts dating from the 8th to the early 19th centuries—one of the largest projects undertaken by HMML during its Austrian phase (1965-1973).

Thus, the collection at Sankt Paul consists of manuscripts from three monastic communities, although most of them are from Sankt Blasien. Among the Sankt Blasien manuscripts are several from the 8th to 11th centuries (and a couple are earlier), as well as 18th-century works by the monks and records of monastic life at Sankt Blasien.

As there is no published catalog of the collection at Sankt Paul, a major contribution from HMML staff includes the identification of folio numbers, authors, and titles for many of the works listed in the handwritten 19th-century inventory. We hope that this new information will also contribute to the eventual fuller cataloging of the collection. View now