Gatterer apparatus

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The " Gatterer-Apparat " is an important collection of historical documents, which is named after the founder of the historical auxiliary sciences , the Göttingen professor Johann Christoph Gatterer and since 1997 in the Landesarchiv Speyer .

The collection today

The collection kept in the Landesarchiv Speyer comprises around 4,500 original documents. Around 1100 documents date from before 1400. The oldest parchment is a document from King Ludwig the Younger from the year 878. The archival material includes 50 royal documents and 29 papal bulls from before 1400.

In addition, there are important documents from the modern age , such as the letters of Friedrich Wilhelm I and Friedrich II of Prussia. In addition to the original documents, the collection also includes transcripts of documents, old writing implements, old copperplate engravings (of documents and seals), 275 original seals, 36 seal stamps, seal traces and 40 manuscripts from the 13th century. There is also a pre-Lutheran translation of the Psalms from 1470. The collection contains 8,600 items.

In addition to German issuers of the documents, there are also foreigners, such as Christina of Sweden or Louis XV. from France. In addition to popes, there are also cardinals, bishops and papal legates among the exhibitors. The recipients of the documents were mostly cathedral chapters, dioceses, monasteries, cities, parishes and nobles.

Significance for the state archive

Due to warlike events in the past centuries in southwest Germany as well as due to the loss of many Palatinate archives due to the relocation of these to Munich, Darmstadt , Wiesbaden or Karlsruhe , the Speyer State Archives had relatively few documents on the rich history of the Upper Rhine region .

With the acquisition of the “Gatterer Apparatus”, the existing stock of around 20,000 documents could not only be increased by another 4,500, in particular the number of documents from the early and high Middle Ages could be increased twentyfold. This is all the more true as the majority of the documents brought together in the “Gatterer Apparat” relate to the history of the Palatinate and Rheinhessen.

History of the apparatus

The collection, the first parts of which were created in the first half of the 18th century as a teaching material collection ("teaching apparatus"), was reduced in size, expanded and sold several times before it was purchased by the Speyer State Archives in 1996.

Gatterer's teaching collection

Gatterer was a professor at the University of Göttingen from 1759 to 1799. During this time he built up his teaching apparatus. The basis was the inheritance he inherited from his teacher and predecessor in Göttingen, Johann David Köhler , which consisted of a collection on numismatics, diplomacy, heraldry and geography. Gatterer wanted to illustrate the lessons for his students by means of specimen copies. At that time, German archives - unlike the French - were hardly accessible to scientists. Gatterer expanded the acquired collection considerably through acquisitions and corresponding gifts from his students as well as dedications from other institutions.

In 1772 the Austrian State Chancellor Wenzel Anton Kaunitz was informed about Gatterer's teaching methods: “... of the rich illustrative material of his diplomatic cabinet with the hundreds of documents in the original and the copperplate engravings, with Chancellor's marks and monograms, with seals and coats of arms, writing materials and alphabets in which everything is laid out and divided according to the best scientific method ... " .

When Johann Stephan Putter is also on the teaching method with the "Diplomatic Cabinet", the origin of today's "Gatterer apparatus", which was received: "... Bey Declaration of diplomacy studied in its particularity of Professor Gatterer be ... pretty full diplomatic Cabinett to make useful to the audience in every way. Not only does he have all the main types of seals, monograms, Canzler's characters, chrisms, alphabets, writings, writing implements, etc., but he also has a sufficient number of documents both in the original and engraved in copper, drawn, and so on his diplomatic lectures from the royal electoral archives were entrusted with some 20 particularly useful and partly very old original documents .... ".

Towards the end of Gatterer's work in Göttingen, there were arguments with younger colleagues. The new professor at the chair for auxiliary sciences, Carl Traugott Gottlob Schönemann (1765–1802), built his own “diplomatic teaching apparatus” for his lectures. The occurrences are probably the reason why the Gatterer collection did not go to the Göttingen University after his death. The “diplomatic apparatus” that still exists at the local institute for historical auxiliary sciences is based on Schönemann's collection.

When Gatterer's death, Pütter estimated the collection to be around 500 original diplomas, along with many other documents. In 1799 the collection was taken over by the sole heir Christoph Wilhelm Gatterer , an important university professor in Heidelberg. The inheritance of the collection as private property to the son was controversial and was later discussed as the "Gatterer problem".

Continuation under Gatterer's son

At the time of the transfer to the Gatterer son, the apparatus consisted of four parts:

  • Original documents from the period from 877 to 1828 from Germany, Austria, Italy, France, England, Sweden, Switzerland and Transylvania,
  • the "teaching apparatus for writing" (palaeography) with script samples, alphabets, copperplate engravings, seal and stamp impressions in wax, bark, tallow and tinfoil, monograms and writing implements,
  • a coin collection and
  • a large specialist library with relevant literature.

Gatterer's son expanded the collection considerably and systematically, benefiting in particular from the secularization of the Rhenish monasteries in the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss. He was able to save important archive material from destruction during the turmoil of the French Revolution.

But there were also plans to sell. It is known that Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein would have liked to purchase the collection for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica , which he co-founded . In a letter dated August 22, 1829, his friend Johann Friedrich Heinrich Schlosser informed him that the collection could be purchased for 3,000 guilders. In a letter dated December 26, 1829, Stein replied that Prussia was not interested in acquiring it. The sale of the entire apparatus did not materialize.

However, part of the apparatus was probably sold to the French Count Charles de Graimberg , who was then living in Heidelberg. After his death, his collection fell to the city of Heidelberg in his will and is now in the Heidelberg city archive. It is assumed that a large part of the Graimberg estate originally came from the "Gatterer apparatus", including the former second oldest document of the apparatus, a document from Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia from 896.

Sale after the death of the son

After the son's death, his widow Amalia (1767–1863) and daughter Clementine (1800–1878) tried to sell the collection. Heidelberg University could not afford the purchase offered. Other interested parties in Germany also did not have sufficient funds (3000 guilders were again requested). As a result, the library and the coin collection were initially separated from the document collection. The library was sold to an antiquarian in 1838 , but nothing is known about the whereabouts of the coin collection.

Since there were no financially strong interested parties in Germany for the core collection, it was offered to the Lucerne state archivist Ludwig Keller, a friend of the late Gatterer's son. The archive itself could not raise the necessary funds to make a purchase either. However, through Keller's mediation with the monastery archivist Father Urban Winistörfer and the abbot Prelate Friedrich Pfluger von Solothurn, the Cistercian Abbey of St. Urban acquired the collection. In return for a cash payment of 2,700 guilders, “Gatterer's teaching apparatus” became the property of the monastery on April 20, 1839.

On April 13, 1848, the monastery was dissolved. Art treasures and the monastery library with the Gatterer collection were transferred to the state. The administrative cantonal library in Lucerne , however, could not do anything with the "Gatterer apparatus" and therefore offered it to the British Museum in London at a price of 12,000 francs . The sale did not go through; a catalog that Gatterer had made and that had been sent to London with the offer never came back. Georg Heinrich Pertz , President of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica at the time , also declined. The Swiss rejected an offer to buy from the co-editor of Monumenta and later professor Philipp Jaffé for 3000 francs as insufficient.

The collection remained in Lucerne and in 1870 the state archivist Theodor von Liebenau succeeded in transferring the valuable documents to the state archive . There he made a complete inventory of the inventory for the first time.

Acquisition by the Speyer Archive

A possible purchase of the collection for the Landesarchiv Speyer was discussed for the first time with the Lucerne archivists in 1986 on the fringes of a conference. The Lucerne experts were ready to sell the archive at a price of 1 million Swiss francs - based on a mixed calculation of a collegial friendship price and a market price based on the antique trade. In 1993, the entire collection was viewed by the archivists from Speyer for the first time. The responsible Rhineland-Palatinate ministry welcomed the acquisition plan, but it quickly became apparent that it was unable to provide the necessary financial resources.

As a result, the main sponsors were the State Cultural Foundation , the Rhineland-Palatinate Foundation for Culture, as well as two company sponsors. In addition, around DM 250,000 were donated by various business associations, churches, municipalities and private individuals for the purchase. On October 10, 1986, the purchase contract was signed by the Rhineland-Palatinate government and on February 18, 1997 the “Gatterer apparatus” was brought to the Speyer State Archives.

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b c according to Demolition of the Patromonia issue No. 119, Der Gatterer-Apparat  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kulturstiftung.de   at the Kulturstiftung der Länder
  2. ↑ 1778 in the context of the relocation of the residence of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken line of the Wittelsbach family from Mannheim to Munich
  3. ↑ Rheinhessen archives were presented at the Congress of Vienna in the Hesse Grand Duchy slammed
  4. ↑ Because of the aforementioned move of the Wittelsbachers from Pfalz-Zweibrück, all documents from before 1400 had been brought to Munich by the end of the 19th century
  5. ↑ a b c according to Heidelberger Geschichtsverein eV ., Willi Morlock and Hansjoachim Räther (responsible), Johann Christoph Gatterer ("father")
  6. ↑ This collection was also older and was originally created by the legal historian and diplomat Johann Heumann von Teutschenbrunn at the University of Altdorf . Gatterer had studied with Heumann in Altdorf from 1747 to 1752
  7. ↑ a b according to Hans Goetting, History of the Diplomatic Apparatus of the University of Göttingen , in: Archivalische Zeitschrift , No. 65, 1969, p. 11 ff., Quoted in Karl Heinz Debus, Der Gatterer-Apparat ..., see LitVerz.
  8. ^ Johann Stephan Pütter, attempt at an academic history of scholars from the Georg-Augustus University in Göttingen . Göttingen, Vandenhoeck 1765
  9. ↑ the Gatterer biographer and genealogist Wolfgang Ollrog puts the number of original documents against 5000 copies, according to Wolfgang Ollrog, Johann Christoph Gatterer , ... see LitVerz., P. 31
  10. ↑ The Lucerne state archivist Theodor von Liebenau stated in 1877 that the collection ... " originally was by no means unrestricted property ... " was Gatterer's, and was not later, as it was donated to the "Royal Historical Institute “Has been expanded
  11. ↑ Publishing Group Medien Union and Fallot Versicherungsmakler GmbH

literature

  • Karl Heinz Debus, The Gatterer Apparatus. Landesarchiv Speyer , Kulturstiftung der Länder in connection with the Landesarchiv Speyer (publisher), ISSN  0941-7036 , Speyer, 1998
  • Wolfgang Ollrog (editing), Johann Christoph Gatterer, the founder of scientific genealogy. An examination of the previously known sources and publications about his origins, his life and work as well as his descendants . On behalf of the Genealogical-Heraldic Society based in Göttingen, Archive for Family Research and All Related Areas with Practical Research Aid, Volume 47, Issue 81/82, February 1981, CA Starke Verlag (Hrsg.), Limburg / Lahn, 1981, P. 30 ff.
  • Mark Mersiowsky, baroque collector's pride, cabinets of rarities, flotsam of secularization or multimedia of the Enlightenment? Diplomatic-palaeographic apparatus in the 18th and early 19th centuries , in: Peter Worm / Erika Eisenlohr (eds.), Works from the Marburg auxiliary scientific institute (elementa diplomatica 8), Marburg 2000, pp. 229–241
  • Mark Mersiowsky, "... to practice your eye as well as to sharpen your judgment through reliable knowledge ...". Enlightenment and collecting around 1800, in Evamaria Blattner / Karlheinz Wiegmann (eds.), Treasures from the Unseen. Collecting and collections in Tübingen, Tübingen 2010, pp. 18–29

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