Eiflia illustrata

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Title page of a volume of the Eiflia illustrata by Schannat-Bärsch

The Eiflia illustrata is a historical and geographical description of the Eifel , published by Georg Bärsch (1778–1866) in three volumes between 1824 and 1855. The work is based on a manuscript with the same title by the historiographer Johann Friedrich Schannat (1683–1739), which he prepared on behalf of the Prince Archbishop of Prague in 1738/39.

The full title of the first volume, the original of which is kept in the Koblenz State Main Archive, is:

  • Eiflia illustrata or geographical and historical description of the Eifel by Johann Friedrich Schannat. Translated from the Latin manuscripts; enriched with notes and additions, along with many illustrations of antiquities, sigils and coats of arms, ed. by Georg Bärsch. Cologne on the Rhine printed and available from Johann Peter Bachem. 1824 .

The Eiflia illustrata is the first comprehensive presentation of the history of the Eifel, its rulers, monasteries, towns and villages and an early testimony to systematic historiography. It was reprinted in 1966 by Otto Zeller in Osnabrück.

Schannat's manuscript from 1739

Emergence

The Luxembourg lawyer Johann Friedrich Schannat, who had earned a good reputation as a historian at the Hochstift zu Fulda and in archbishopric services in Mainz, was summoned to the court of the Archbishop of Prague in 1734. There, Count Johann Moritz Gustav von Manderscheid-Blankenheim , himself born on the property of the Princely House in Blankenheim in the Eifel, commissioned him to write a history of the Eifel, the focus of which was to be the history of the Counts of Manderscheid .

Then the manuscript of the Eiflia illustrata was created in 1738/39 . Here Schannat was able to fall back on transcripts of documents that he had made himself during a four-year study trip to Italy (1734–1738) in the Bibliotheca Vaticana in Rome and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan . Before the work could go to press, Schannat died of a sudden death while working in the Bibliotheca Palatina in Heidelberg.

Lore

After Schannat's death, the Archbishop of Prague gave the manuscript with some drawings to the Cologne Jesuit and Regens of the Tricoronatum grammar school, Hermann Joseph Hartzheim , for editing and editing. He worked on Schannat's manuscript and supplemented it mainly with documents that Schannat had not known and many drawings. But since Hartzheim died in 1763 before going to press and his client had died in 1759, Schannat's manuscript remained unprinted and came to the archive of the Counts of Manderfeld-Blankenheim in Blankenheim in the Eifel.

After the French invaded the Rhineland in 1794, the Blankenheim archives, whose value was inestimable for the history of the country, was largely stolen, squandered and destroyed. The Eiflia illustrata was also considered lost, which Rhenish historians very much regretted because they had hoped for "some clarification about the earlier history of the country" from it.

After intensive research, the Prussian government councilor and Prüm district administrator Georg Bärsch (1778–1866) accidentally found a copy of Schannat's Eiflia illustrata with drawings in the grand ducal library in Darmstadt. As Bärsch reports in the preface to the Eiflia illustrata , there were references to Schannat's work in various historical treatises of the time, for example in the epigrammography by the Cologne collector Baron von Hüpsch . With his estate, Schannat's writing seemed to have found its way into the extensive collection of the Cologne collegiate vicar and notary Alfter, parts of which later went to the Darmstadt library, where Bärsch discovered it. Two other copies were later found there.

structure

The Schannat'sche manuscript is divided into five main parts:

  • First part.
The Eifel under the Roman emperors of the first five Christian centuries.
  • Second part.
The history of the Eifel under the first kings of the Franks.
  • Third part.
From the dynasts in the Eifel.
The royal houses of the Eifel from Aare to Wildenburg are described here in 24 sections, with the history of the Counts of Manderscheid-Blankenheim taking on a special scope.
  • Fourth part.
From the knightly families in the Eifel
Schannat describes the aristocratic residences in the Eifel alphabetically sorted by place.
  • Part five.
From the cities of the Eifelgau.
This part is incomplete. Schannat only lists seven cities in the Eifelgau.

The arrangement by Georg Bärsch

Georg Bärsch
photo from 1866

Bärsch had the copy he found translated from Latin into German by his childhood friend, Government Secretary Grack in Trier. About the Latin of the author he remarks that his barbaric constructions and self-created words made the translation work very difficult. Schannat did not write the Latin of German scholars of the 18th century.

In his editing, Bärsch does not touch the original structure of Schannat, but adds detailed notes to each part and each section of the manuscript in which he presents his own, partly corrective, mostly supplementary research results.

He includes historical document collections and writings that only appeared after Schannat and can use these as the basis to correct some of Schannat's information. Bärsch himself mentions the sources Historia Trevirensis von Hontheim (Augsburg 1750) and the Codex diplomaticus Rheno-Mosellanus Koblenz 1822 by the Koblenz archivist Wilhelm Arnold Günther .

Bärsch's remarks on Schannat's Eiflia illustrata represent, according to their scope, the much larger part of the complete work. Especially in the fifth part of the manuscript Von den Stadt der Eifel , which was probably not completed by Schannat's early death, only seven villages in the Eifelgau are described on three printed pages , while Bärsch provides an almost complete historical description of all Eifel locations in over 1000 pages of notes, broken down according to administrative districts. For the time of going to press, Bärsch divides the entire work into three volumes.

1st volume

In the first volume of the Eiflia illustrata , Bärsch summarizes the first three parts of Schannat's manuscript and supplements them with extensive comments. Because of the large volume, Bärsch divided the material into two printed volumes (1st and 2nd section).

The first printed volume of the complete work appeared in 1824 with 576 pages by Johann Peter Bachem in Cologne. It contains the Roman and Franconian history of the Eifel and the first part of the history of the Eifel dynasties (see Schannat's systematics 1st to 3rd part). In addition, an extensive annotation apparatus from Bärsch's hand, as well as additions and corrections. Furthermore an appendix with 22 illustrations and their description. In the "Editor's preface", Bärsch gives information about the genesis of the work and adds some news about Schannat's life and work .

  • Eiflia illustrata, or geographical and historical description of the Eifel. by Johann Friedrich Schannat. Translated from the Latin manuscripts and enriched with notes and additions, along with many images of ancient objects, sigils and coats of arms, edited by Georg Bärsch, Königigl. Prussian. Secret government council ....... First section of the first volume. Cologne on the Rhine. Printed and available from Johann Peter Bachem, 1824.

The second volume with 1122 pages appeared a year later. He was born in 1825 at Fr.H. Schlösser printed in Cologne and published on commission by Jacob Anton Mayer in Aachen and Leipzig. It contains the second part of the history of the Eifel dynasties with Bärsch's additions to 39 family tables of the royal houses and 3 illustrations with detailed descriptions.

  • Eiflia illustrata, or geographical and historical description of the Eifel. by Johann Friedrich Schannat. Translated from the Latin manuscripts and enriched with notes and additions, along with many images of ancient objects, sigils and coats of arms, edited by Georg Bärsch, Königigl. Prussian. Privy Government Council ....... The first volume, second section with 13 lithographs and 39 family tables. Aachen and Leipzig. In commission with JA Mayer. Printed by Fr.H. Castles in Cologne. 1825

2nd volume

The second volume of the Eiflia illustrata is entitled From the knightly families of the Eifel. It contains the historical description of the aristocratic properties in the Eifel as it was handed down by Schannat in the fourth part of his work. Bärsch subjected Schannat's text to a thorough revision, which he added in notes. Because of its large size, this volume has also been divided into two printed volumes.

The former, which contains the aristocratic seats beginning with the letters A to L, was again published by JA Mayer in Aachen and Leipzig in 1829. The other, with the initial letters M to Z, was published 15 years later by a new publisher, the publishing house of Fr. Lintz'schen Buchhandlung in Trier in 1844.

  • Eiflia illustrata, or geographical and historical description of the Eifel. by Johann Friedrich Schannat. Translated from the Latin manuscripts and enriched with comments and additions by Georg Bärsch, Königigl. Prussian. Secret Government Council ....... First section of the second volume. Aachen and Leipzig. Verlag by JA Mayer. 1829
  • Eiflia illustrata, or geographical and historical description of the Eifel. by Johann Friedrich Schannat. Translated from the Latin manuscripts and enriched with comments and additions by Georg Bärsch, Königigl. Prussian. Secret Government Council ....... The second volume, second section. Trier. Publishing house of the Fr. Lintz'schen Buchhandlung. 1844

3rd volume

The third volume of the Eiflia illustrata contains the fifth part of Schanat's manuscript, From the cities in the Eifelgau . This last part of Schannat's writing, which only covers a few pages, only lists seven cities in the Eifelgau.

Thus the volume is almost entirely made up of Bärsch's comments and additions by the editor to the fifth part of Schannat's manuscript. From the cities of the Eifelgau. filled, which are divided into two chapters of over 500 pages each under the title The cities and towns of the Eifel and their surroundings, described topographically and historically by Georg Bärsch. connect. The two parts appeared in a printed volume in 1852 by Jakob Anton Mayer in Aachen and Leipzig.

  • Eiflia illustrata, or geographical and historical description of the Eifel. by Johann Friedrich Schannat. Translated from the Latin manuscripts and enriched with comments and additions by Georg Bärsch, Königigl. Prussian. Secret Government Council ....... First Section of Volume Three. First (or second) section. Jakob Anton Mayer, Aachen and Leipzig 1852.

Eiflia sacra

As a further section of the third volume, Bärsch had planned an Eiflia Sacra , a description of the monasteries and other spiritual foundations in the Eifel. As he himself states, he had extensive source material on this subject, both from Schannat's records and from contemporary researchers.

In 1855 he published part of this material as news about monasteries of the Premonstratensian Order, especially in the Rhineland and Westphalia. in the annals of the historical association for the Lower Rhine . Based on this essay, Bärsch published the monograph The Premonstratensian Monastery of Steinfeld in the Eifel in Schleiden in 1857 . and thus presented a history of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Steinfeld that is still respected today .

Bärsch could not finish the announced, broader Eiflia sacra before his death in 1866.

Carl Schorn, President of the Bonn Regional Court, took over this work after his retirement. However, he found that parts of the existing material no longer met the scientific requirements of the time and obtained new sources, based on which he was able to publish two volumes of an Eiflia sacra in 1888/89 . In addition to general statements on monastic life and its organization, it contained a history of the orders resident in the Eifel and, as the main part, the special history of the individual monasteries and founders of the Eifel .

  • Eiflia sacra or history of the monasteries and spiritual foundations of the Eifel at the same time continuation resp. End of the Eiflia illustrata by Schannat-Bärsch. Edited by Carl Schorn. 2nd volumes, Hanstein, Bonn 1888/89.

expenditure

  • Johann Friedrich Schannat / Georg Bärsch: Eiflia illustrata or geographical and historical description of the Eifel. 8 volumes, Otto Zeller, Osnabrück 1966
(Eiflia illustrata volumes 1 - 6; Eiflia Sacra volumes 7 and 8)

literature

  • Georg Bärsch: Memories from my busy life. Beaufort, Aachen 1857
  • Georg Bärsch: Some news from Schannat's life and work. In: Schannat / Bärsch: Eiflia illustrata. Volume 1, Cologne 1824, pp. XV ff.
  • Herbert Wagner: Eiflia illustrata. For the 300th birthday of Johann Friedrich Schannat. In: Heimatjahrbucharchiv Landkreis Vulkaneifel. Daun 1993
  • A. Ruppel: Schannat's appointment as a Fulda historian From: Fuldaer Geistesleben, Fulda 1928, 40-52

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LHA-Koblenz, inventory 701 manuscripts, No. 98
  2. ^ Johann Friedrich Schannat / Georg Bärsch: Eiflia illustrata or geographical and historical description of the Eifel. Otto Zeller, Osnabrück 1966
  3. ↑ Georg Bärsch: Some news from Schannat's life and work. In: Schannat / Bärsch: Eiflia illustrata. Volume 1, Cologne 1824, pp. XV ff. The biographical data listed by Bärsch come from Schannat's Histoire abregee de la maison Palatine published posthumously in 1740 . The author was the French historiographer Antoine de La Barre de Beaumarchais († 1759).
  4. ^ Herbert Wagner: Eiflia illustrata. For the 300th birthday of Johann Friedrich Schannat. In: Heimatjahrbucharchiv Landkreis Vulkaneifel. Daun 1993, p. 166 ff.
  5. ^ Heinrich Neu: Home chronicle of the Schleiden district. Cologne 1954
  6. ↑ Georg Bärsch: Eiflia illustrata. Volume 1, Cologne 1824, p. VI.
  7. ↑ today Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt
  8. ↑ Eiflia illustrata. Volume 1, SV ff.
  9. ↑ Eiflia illustrata. Volume 1, Cologne 1824, pp. VIIf
  10. ^ Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim (1701–1790), historian and auxiliary bishop in Trier
  11. ^ Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim: Historia Trevirensis diplomatica et pragmatica (Augsburg 1750)
  12. ^ Wilhelm Günther: Codex diplomaticus Rheno -Mosellanus. Koblenz 1822
  13. ↑ Eiflia illustrata. Volume 3, Aachen and Leipzig 1852, p. VII
  14. ^ Georg Bärsch: News about monasteries of the Premonstratensian order, especially in the Rhineland and Westphalia. In: Annals of the Historical Association for the Lower Rhine. Volume 2, 1855, pp. 141-195 and Volume 3, 1856, pp. 63-115
  15. ↑ Bärsch, Georg: The Premonstratensian Monastery of Steinfeld in the Eifel, a contribution to the special history of the Prussian Rhineland, together with an appendix, containing news about some monasteries of the Premonstratensian order. Braselmann Schleiden 1857
  16. ^ Ingrid Joester: Premonstratensian in the Eifel. In: Johannes Mötsch and Martin Schöbel (eds.): Eiflia sacra. Studies on a monastery landscape. Mainz 1994
  17. ↑ see foreword to "Eiflia sacra" first volume. Bonn 1888