Archbishop's Diocesan and Cathedral Library Cologne

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The Archbishopric Diocesan and Cathedral Library of Cologne with the St. Albertus Magnus Library is the central library of the Archdiocese of Cologne and one of the largest special theological libraries in German-speaking countries. Their origins go back to 6/7. Century back. The library is a member of the Cologne Libraries Association . Since June 1, 2016, Marcus Stark has succeeded Heinz Finger as the director of the library, who had previously headed the library of the Philosophical-Theological University of Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main since 2001 .

history

Numerous canons donated manuscripts, for example the canon Hillinus in the 11th century, the Gospels named after him today.
Reading room of the Archbishop's Diocesan and Cathedral Library (2009)

Cathedral library

The Archbishop's Diocesan and Cathedral Library originally goes back to the manuscript collection of Archbishop Hildebald († 818). The oldest catalog dates from 833 and lists 175 books, 35 of which are still in existence today - an important church treasure. The oldest book in the cathedral library dates from 590/604. Archbishop Hildebald appears in 12 manuscripts preserved in Cologne in the ownership and manufacturing note Codex sub Pio Patre Hildebaldo scriptus .

The Cologne cathedral library was the library of the bishop's church and the canons and is considered to be the most important of all the cathedral libraries that have been preserved to this day. In the Middle Ages, the cathedral chapter became the sole sponsor of the library. Numerous canons donated manuscripts, for example, in the 11th century, the canon Hillinus, the Hillinus Gospels, named after him today, with the image of the old cathedral . In 1794, 200 of the most precious manuscripts were saved from the French revolutionary army and brought to Arnsberg together with the Shrine of the Three Kings. Other parts of the library found refuge in different places. Only in 1867 did the cathedral chapter get its library back from the Prussian state.

Diocesan Library

The Archbishop's Diocesan Library emerged from the library of the old Cologne seminary founded in 1615 . After its closure, most of the holdings were lost, and only a remainder remained in the diocesan library, which was re-established in 1738. The basis was the book collection of the founder, the electoral Cologne bailiff Johann Jakob von Broich, which he had acquired from the legacy of Abbé Jean-Paul Bignon , the secretary and librarian of Louis XIV.

The manuscripts in the diocesan library mainly included late medieval manuscripts, but also high medieval works such as an 11th century gospel book from Mariengraden Abbey. The wealth of art-historically significant choir books, such as the “Valkenburg Gradual”, is striking. The library then grew mainly through donations, bequests or the inclusion of dissolved parish libraries. The diocesan library contained primarily theological literature of all times and all directions, historical and political source works from the 18th and 19th centuries and also the other humanities. In 1835, the impressive collection of 14,000 volumes belonging to Archbishop August Ferdinand Graf Spiegel from Cologne was added. It covers all areas of science and is now in its closed order in the Maternushaus .

Archbishop's Diocesan and Cathedral Library

The diocesan library and the cathedral library have been organizationally united since 1930. The cathedral library was integrated into the diocesan library as a permanent loan from the Cologne cathedral chapter . Since then, the official name of the library has been the Archbishop's Diocesan and Cathedral Library . The baroque library building on Marzellestrasse was completely destroyed towards the end of the Second World War , but the holdings were relocated in good time. In 1957 they were brought together again in a new building on Gereonstrasse. In 1983 it was possible to move into spacious rooms in the Maternushaus.

The Archbishop's Diocesan and Cathedral Library in Cologne is today one of the largest special theological libraries in German-speaking countries with a current inventory of 400,000 volumes, 800 manuscripts and 430 incunabula as well as 1,500 current journals. The specialist focus of the book collection is on the areas of Catholic theology , religious education , philosophy as well as Rhenish church history and art history .

Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis

In September 2000, the diocesan library and the professorship for historical and cultural-scientific information processing at the University of Cologne started to create a "Digital Manuscript Library Cologne" as part of the German Research Foundation's Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis CEEC project .

As part of the CEEC project, the medieval codes of the Archbishop's Diocesan and Cathedral Library in Cologne were digitized. This made the Diocesan and Cathedral Library the first library in the world to completely digitize its medieval manuscript holdings and make them accessible to the public as a "digital library". The entire medieval manuscript inventory with 394 codices (140,231 pages) was digitized in high quality and embedded in an indexing system. Secondary literature was also integrated digitally whenever possible.

literature

  • Joachim M. Plotzek: On the history of the Cologne cathedral library. In: Belief and Knowledge in the Middle Ages. Catalog book for the exhibition. Munich 1998, pp. 15-64 online
  • Manfred Thaller (ed.): Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis: A medieval cathedral library in digital form , Göttingen 2001 online
  • Ulrike Wiedenfels: From offline to online: Change of the integrated library system at the Archbishop's Diocesan and Cathedral Library in Cologne , published in: Journal for Library, Information and Technology Online, 6 (2003) No. 3, pp. 258–260 online
  • Heinz Finger : The Cathedral Library in Cologne , lecture given on the occasion of the presentation of the "Digital Manuscript Library Cologne" on Thursday, May 31, 2001 online
  • Notker Schneider: The diocesan library, an incomparable treasure in: Vierteljahresschrift für die Freunde der Stadt Köln, 4.1988, pp. 14-17 online
  • Klaus Gereon Beuckers : The magnificent gospel from Mariengraden. A masterpiece of Salic book illumination. with a foreword by Harald Horst and a contribution by Doris Oltrogge, Quaternio, Lucerne 2018.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Archdiocese of Cologne from January 28, 2016: Marcus Stark new director of the diocesan library , accessed on April 8, 2018
  2. ^ A b c Notker Schneider: The Diocesan Library, pp. 14-17
  3. ↑ Joachim M. Plotzek: The History of Cologne Cathedral Library
  4. ↑ a b Finger, Lecture Cathedral Library
  5. ^ Literature on the history of the Cologne cathedral and diocesan library and its holdings
  6. ^ A b Wiedenfels: Library System, pp. 258–250
  7. ^ Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis

Coordinates: 50 ° 56 '40.8 "  N , 6 ° 57' 7.3"  E