Candid Huber

Father Candid (Mathias) Huber (born February 4, 1747 in Ebersberg ; † June 15, 1813 at Stallwang Castle in Landshut ) was a Benedictine monk and forest botanist. He became known as a naturalist and maker of wooden libraries (herbaria in the form of books).

Life

Candid Huber was born in Ebersberg in 1747 and grew up as a Jesuit pupil in Ebersberg; as a seminarist at the Domus Gregoriana, he graduated from the Jesuit high school in Munich in 1765 (today Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich ); it followed the study of music with the Jesuits in Passau; In 1768 he entered the Benedictine order of Niederaltaich ; 1785 to 1799 vicar in Ebersberg; until 1803 administrator of the Leopold Forest of Niederaltaich Monastery. The natural scientist, who had become homeless due to the dissolution of the monasteries, spent the last ten years of his life with friends in Stallwang near Landshut; In 1813, at the age of 66, the "lord of wood and beetles", as he was called by his contemporaries, died.

Create

During his early years as a priest on the edge of the Bavarian Forest, Huber began his studies of forest and fruit trees, laid out avenues, planted fruit trees, raised silkworms, was at the same time a pastor, economist and forestry development worker. He tried to spread the necessary, but largely lacking, knowledge of native wood species. He advocated teaching natural history publicly in order to break down simple-minded superstitions, prejudices and dangerous errors. He developed into a passionate enlightener.

However, his double existence as a clergyman and natural scientist has repeatedly brought him criticism, he had to justify himself again and again. His critics overlooked the fact that studying natural history had been a monastery tradition for centuries. Candid Huber achieved the breakthrough to scientific recognition during his time as a vicariate in Ebersberg. In 1788, three years after he was transferred to his hometown, Huber began to build his Ebersberg wood library .

In 1799 Candid Huber had to leave his hometown to manage the monastery Leopoldswald von Niederaltaich. During this time he wrote the "Complete Natural History", which as a state textbook experienced a considerable circulation. Candid Huber was given a great honor for this work: the Bavarian King Max I. Josef presented him with the great gold medal of merit “pro Ingenio et Industriae”.

The Ebersberg wood library

Candid Huber's books made of wood, which contain a herbarium inside, were only a marginal phenomenon in the Age of Enlightenment. Because of its relevance as a forest botanical teaching aid, the modernity of its didactic approach and the scientific synopsis, his wooden library is a fascinating compendium then as it is now.

The new forest botanical teaching material should look like a library. The spines of these false books are made from the bark of the respective tree, the herbarium material is housed in the cavity of the book cover: a branch with flowers, leaves, needles, cones, sometimes roots or insect pests. A small compartment inside the spine contains seeds and pollen. The naming in Latin, German, French and English is noted on the marginal strips. Leather hinges and leather straps hold the wooden books together. They are - didactically clever - graded in seven height classes, which correspond to the nature of the growth of the wood species.

The buyers of his wooden libraries were mainly aristocratic forest owners, monasteries and foresters. For academies, the possession of such collections was a matter of prestige; the nobility used them for representative self-presentation. With them one showed connoisseurship of botany. The foresters criticized that the wooden libraries were mere plaything. Candid Huber's research was interrupted several times by transfers and difficult times for a religious like secularization and the outbreak of war. His wooden materials, which he had laboriously collected on expensive mountain trips, had been destroyed and had to be re-procured at great expense.

As an explanatory text for the wood library, Candid Huber wrote the "Brief natural history of the most excellent types of wood".

One of the surviving copies of a xylotheque ( wooden library ) is on display in the Forest and Environment Museum in Ebersberg. Further copies can be found at the Englische Fräulein in Munich-Nymphenburg and in Wood Research Munich ( Technical University of Munich ). Around 130 books from Huber's work are in the library of the Cistercian Abbey of Lilienfeld in Austria.

Works

• Announcement of a natural wood library. Ebersberg 1791.
• Brief natural history of the most excellent types of wood according to their various uses in agriculture. Munich 1793.
• About the way in which fruit tree cultivation in our fatherland can be brought up most easily and in the most charitable manner. Munich 1794.
• Complete natural history of all trees native to Germany and some nationalized trees and trees. Munich 1808.

literature

• Anne Feuchter-Schawelka, Winfried Freitag, Dietger Grosser: Old wood collections. The Ebersberg wood library: predecessor, role model and successor (= The district of Ebersberg. Past and present. Volume 8). Kreissparkasse, Ebersberg 2001, ISBN 3-933859-08-5 .
• Winfried Freitag: Trees in book format: Candid Huber and his wood library. In: Aviso 3 , 2005, pp. 8-10.
• Dietger Grosser: The wooden libraries of the Benedictine monk Candid Huber using the example of the “Waldsassen copy”. In: Manfred Knedlik, Georg Schrott (eds.): Res naturae. The Upper Palatinate Monasteries and the Gifts of Creation. Kallmünz 2006, ISBN 3-7847-1189-8 , pp. 91-104.
• Monika Mündel: The forest as it is in the book: Father Candid Huber from Niederaltaich and other manufacturers of wooden libraries . In: Deggendorfer Geschichtsblätter , publications of the history association for the district of Deggendorf, issue 29/2007.
• Johann Weber: Life and Work of the Benedictine Father Candid Huber Diploma thesis of the LMU Munich, 1978.

Web links

Commons : Xylotheques  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Contribution to Swiss television on the occasion of the exhibition Candid Huber 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ Max Leitschuh: The matriculations of the upper classes of the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich , 4 vol., Munich 1970–1976; Vol. 3, p. 106.