Manuscript census
The aim of the handwriting census ( HSC ) is to combine information on all German-language manuscripts of the Middle Ages in an Internet database.
It is an inventory of the handwritten tradition of Old and Middle High German texts from the Middle Ages. It contains information on more than 5,600 works from over 23,000 manuscripts , distributed in over 1,400 libraries / archives (December 2012). It has established itself worldwide as a competence center for questions of traditional documentation, inventory, description standardization (works / signatures) and text identification for German-language manuscripts and fragments of the Middle Ages.
From 2017 onwards, the manuscript census will be institutionally supported by the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz. The location of the office will be the Institute for German Philology of the Middle Ages at the Philipps University of Marburg .
Structure and functions
Each manuscript is recorded as a separate data set; the description covers the basic data. In addition to the central indexing of the content, basic codicological data such as number and size of sheets, writing material, time of creation and writing language are recorded. The descriptions are of very different levels and are constantly being expanded. The depth of indexing ranges from simple proof of the signature (with a brief, further bibliographic reference) to the complex recording of codicological, palaeographic, linguistic and literary data with secondary literature and, if necessary, links to other online resources (especially to digitized manuscripts). The greatest deficits are found in the materials of the 15th and early 16th centuries, for which no or only sporadic detection instruments are available.
The user has two options on the start page to get to the descriptions: On the one hand, a complete directory of the manuscripts (sorted according to storage locations) is offered, and on the other hand, the manuscripts are listed in an author / work directory. The manuscript census not only provides a general overview of all German-language works of the Middle Ages, but also compiles a directory of the institutions that are in possession of German-language manuscripts and fragments.
The manuscript index lists all text witnesses recorded so far. Not only current storage locations are recorded, but all relevant owners of the 19th and 20th centuries. Century, which are mentioned in the research literature in order to assign mentions in older works.
The author / work directory, which is based on the names of the 2nd edition of the author's lexicon , summarizes the relevant text witnesses and their current storage locations and signatures. Editions and impressions are listed after the collection of records. Editing projects in preparation are referred to by a link ("See also edition report"). The sub-database 'Research literature on German-language manuscripts of the Middle Ages' offers a searchable, cumulative list of all references cited in the individual descriptions of the manuscript census. The manuscript catalogs can be displayed separately; it is the most extensive list of its kind.
origin
The "Manuscript Census" working group was founded in 2006 as a location-independent association of researchers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Despite the dimensions and the professional anchoring, the project has so far been a 'leisure' project from an institutional point of view. The members of the working group maintain and supplement the database on their own. The HSC emerged from the DFG- funded 'Marburg Repertory of German-Language Manuscripts of the 13th and 14th Centuries'. Since 2007, it has been supplemented by the similarly structured descriptions of the German-language manuscripts up to 1200 in the 'Paderborn Repertorium of the German-Language Text Tradition of the 8th to 12th Century'.
Participation
In order to update and add to the entries as well as for references to manuscripts that have not been considered so far, it is possible to send messages to the working group on individual manuscripts. The corresponding notification function is located below each manuscript description. Almost 470 people took advantage of this opportunity.
literature
- Klaus Klein: Basics on the way to text: www.handschriftencensus.de, in: ways to text. Considerations on the Availability of Medieval Editions in the 21st Century. Graz Colloquium 17th – 19th September 2008, ed. by Wernfried Hofmeister and Andrea Hofmeister-Winter (supplements to editio 30), Tübingen 2009, pp. 113–119.
- Nathanael Busch: www.handschriftencensus.de. A database collects information on German-language manuscripts from Hessen, in: Archiv-Nachrichten aus Hessen 12/1 (2012), pp. 28–30. ( online )