What Does CESG Mean in e-codices and How Do You Find the St. Gall Manuscripts?

CESG stands for Codices Electronici Sangallenses — the digitization project of the Abbey Library of St. Gall (Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen). It was one of the founding digitization efforts that fed into e-codices, the Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland. In practice, when you encounter "CESG" in older literature or project documentation, it refers to the St. Gall manuscript digitization; on e-codices today, those same manuscripts appear as part of the wider virtual library, identified by Cod. Sang. shelfmarks. You can reach them through the same browse and search interface used for all 3,107 manuscripts from 100 collections currently in the library.

CESG and e-codices: how they relate

• CESG (Codices Electronici Sangallenses) was the St. Gall Abbey Library's own digital manuscript project. It focused on digitizing the library's medieval holdings — one of the most important manuscript collections in Switzerland.
• e-codices is the broader virtual library whose stated goal is "to provide free access to all medieval and a selection of modern manuscripts of Switzerland." The St. Gall material is one collection within it, not a separate site you need to visit.
• So CESG is best understood as a historical/project name for the St. Gall digitization, while e-codices is the platform where you now access the results.

The practical consequence: you don't need to know the acronym to find the manuscripts. You need the shelfmark prefix.

What "Cod. Sang." means

Cod. Sang. is the abbreviation for Codex Sangallensis — Latin for "St. Gall codex." It is the shelfmark (call number) format used for manuscripts of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. When you see a reference like Cod. Sang. 265, it points to a specific St. Gall manuscript.

This matters because:

• Shelfmarks are the most reliable way to locate a manuscript, both in e-codices and in print scholarship.
• Searching by shelfmark lets you jump directly to a known manuscript rather than browsing an entire collection.
• The same shelfmark connects the digital reproduction to its scholarly description on the site.

How to find the St. Gall manuscripts

1. Go to the e-codices site (e-codices.unifr.ch) and use Browse & Search.
2. Browse by collection if you want to see the St. Gall holdings as a group. The library organizes manuscripts by their holding institution, so the Abbey Library of St. Gall appears as one collection among the 100.
3. Search by shelfmark if you already have a reference. Entering a Cod. Sang. number is the fastest route to a specific manuscript.
4. Open a manuscript record to get the complete digital reproduction, linked to its scholarly description. This is the core design of e-codices: images and catalog description together.

The interface is available in German, English, French, and Italian, so you can work in whichever language you prefer.

What you get when you open a St. Gall manuscript

• Complete digital reproductions of the manuscript — not selected pages.
• A scholarly description linked to the images, so you can read about date, provenance, contents, and physical characteristics alongside the facsimile.
• Free access. e-codices states its goal as providing free access to the manuscripts; there is no indication in the site material of a paywall or login requirement for viewing the digitized manuscripts.

Common points of confusion

• "Is CESG a different website?" No — treat it as the St. Gall digitization project whose output now lives inside e-codices.
• "Why do I see Cod. Sang. instead of CESG?" Because shelfmarks describe the physical manuscript, while CESG describes the digitization project. The shelfmark is what persists in citations.
• "Are only medieval manuscripts included?" e-codices covers all medieval manuscripts of Switzerland plus a selection of modern ones; the St. Gall holdings follow the same scope.
• "How current is the collection?" The virtual library is continuously updated and extended, so holdings and counts change over time.