Historical Council Library

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The council library is located in the Ellinger Tor

The Historical Council Library is a historical collection of scripts in the Middle Franconian town of Weißenburg in Bavaria , a major district town in the Bavarian district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen . It served as the library of the council of the imperial city of Weißenburg . The library is assigned to the city ​​archive and is housed in the Ellinger Tor .

The inventory of the library, founded in 1517, comprises around 3,100 volumes and has not been expanded since the loss of imperial freedom in 1802. The Weißenburg Council Library is one of the oldest still preserved council libraries in Bavaria.

history

The library was created in 1517 through the donation of around 200 volumes by the Gunzenhausen pastor and dean Andreas Wurm . This mainly contained legal and theological literature, but also ancient authors such as Aristotle and Italian humanists. Johann Alexander Döderlein reported about this in his chronicle. After Weißenburg became Lutheran shortly afterwards in 1524 , most liturgical parchment manuscripts were used to bind official books and bills. Only 20 fonts were preserved.

At first church servants looked after the library, towards the end of the 16th century the care was transferred to school servants . Supervision was retained by the Nursing Office, which jointly administered all the city's foundations except for the Heilig-Geist-Spital .

At the end of the 16th century, the collection comprised 75 civil law, 40 canonical, 67 theological and 90 philosophical works that Johann Maternus Beringer (died after 1632) recorded in the library's first catalog. The works were on two shelves, which were divided according to their location in the building as north and south sides. The focus on legal and theological works, which is still valid today, was already evident then.

Significant donations were made in 1629, 1634, 1662 and 1763. The library apparently survived the Thirty Years' War unscathed. The director of the library was the Latin school rector Johann Alexander Döderlein until 1745 ; under him there were hardly any new acquisitions. On June 18, 1745, the city council decided that one to three ducats had to be paid for each new election and appointment to buy books. In 1749 Georg Lorenz Miderlein created a new catalog for the library. In 1785 there was a subscription to the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung ; the bound year of 1802 represents the youngest book in the collection. In the same year 8 incunabula were sold to an English envoy. In 1811 the government of the Rezatkreis suggested that the library be sold; prior to this, it had been considered that it would be given to the Erlangen University Library . In 1807 7 manuscripts were delivered to Ansbach , in 1896 the city sold two missals .

After 1802 the library had to move several times. In 1829 the library was reorganized by the rector of the study school, Johann Melchior Günther (1800–1865). For the first time, Günther's directory included all books in a continuous count. It is still valid today as a location catalog. In 1875 the new Weißenburg city library was founded. The library in the vaults of the town hall survived the Second World War unscathed. In 1949 Friedrich Blendinger and Lina Baer created a two-volume author catalog that is still in use today. In 1977 the company moved to Ellinger Tor.

Location

After the Wurm donation in 1507, the library was housed in or near the town church of St. Andreas , then in the premises of the Latin school . In 1739 the imperial city decided to build a library building near the Messnerhaus. In 1806 a new Latin school was built on the site of the library building, which is why the books were first deposited in the archdeaconate house opposite , then brought to the old and then to the new Latin school house. In 1865 they were brought to the floor of the town hall and finally in 1898 to the old meat store. The council library was again kept in the old town hall in 1907.

After the reconstruction of the town hall, the library was installed in a suitable room next to the basement of the town hall in 1965 . On September 25, 1975, the city council decided unanimously, following a motion by the Frankenbund , to relocate the library to the uninhabited Ellinger Tor, where it has been located on the second, third and fourth floors after its renovation since 1977. Thanks to the thick walls of the Ellinger Gate, the temperature in the library remains constant.

Duration

The collection comprises 28 manuscripts and 208 incunabula . The library has 3130 independent works: 465 from the 16th century, 2014 from the 17th century and 276 from the 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, the library contained around 3,200 titles. 1977 Latin, 1183 German and a few Greek works are available. The oldest volumes come from the Andreas Wurms Foundation.

The library is divided into a legal, a philosophical and a theological collection. The legal department with a large collection on Roman law and church law forms the main part of the library; about half of the volumes belong to it. This department includes Justinian I's legal collection and civil law works, including by Adso von Montier-en-Der . In 1746, the Teutsche Reichs-Archiv published by Johann Christian Lünig was purchased for 141 guilders . Politological works are not available except for one work each by Hugo Grotius and Jean Bodin .

The theological section consists of a series of Bibles from several centuries (including the Luther Bible from 1534), Reformation literature and a collection of funeral sermons . This includes works by numerous reformers such as a twelve-volume complete edition of the works of Martin Luther as well as the works of church fathers such as Ambrosius of Milan and Hieronymus , a few “Catholic” works have been preserved, including sermons by Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl .

The philosophical department makes up the smallest part of the library with about a fifth. Although it served as a library for the Latin School and therefore contained works necessary for teaching, the textbook collection in the library is manageable.The inventory includes classical works by Aristotle , Gaius Julius Caesar , Marcus Tullius Cicero , Horace , Ovid and Seneca as well as humanists such as Francesco Petrarca , Enea Silvio Piccolomini and Marsilio Ficino , as well as a pirated print of Schedel's world chronicle as well as Latin grammars, the Cosmographia by Claudius Ptolemy (a print from Ulm from 1634) and a few scientific and medical works such as the Historia naturalis . A collection of 121 calendars from the 17th and 18th centuries comes mostly from the Nuremberg publisher W. Endter. A large number of war reports date from the time of the Thirty Years' War , and there are also plague tracts.

What is striking in the philosophical department is the absence of works of the Enlightenment as well as international literature and German poetry. There are only a few Greek works, only a few Aristotelian works and a few historica . This indicates a more “pragmatic” purpose of the library, tailored to the needs of the small imperial city. The library's holdings were barely expanded, especially in the 17th and early 18th centuries. In addition to the council library, there must have been book collections owned by doctors and teachers in the imperial city to explain the lack of medical works and school books.

use

During the imperial city period, the council library was used by the council, the church and school attendants, by the town councilor and the town clerk and the Latin students. Today it is a reference library and not open to the public. Upon request in the city archives, access and use will be granted.

literature

  • Irmela Holtmeier, Birgit Schaefer: Handbook of the historical book inventory in Germany. Bavaria SZ. , Georg Olms Verlag, 1997, p. 81ff. ( digitized version ).
  • Gustav Wulz: Blätter für Fränkische Familienkunde 12 (1937), pp. 131–148.
  • Rainer A. Müller: Small town and library in early modernity on the genesis and structure of the council library of the Frankish imperial city of Weißenburg , in: Reports on the history of science 15 (1992), pp. 99–117.
  • Ursula Matthäus-Eisenbraun (arrangement): The medieval manuscripts of the Weißenburg City Library , Erlangen [among others], 2007.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ City archive Weißenburg i.Bay. in archives in Bavaria . Retrieved September 10, 2018.
  2. ^ Gier, Helmut in the Historisches Lexikon Bayerns
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Bernhard Fabian (Hrsg.): Handbook of the historical book inventory in Germany, Austria and Europe . (= Fabian manual ). Digitized by Günter Kükenshöner, Hildesheim 2003 ( digitized ).
  4. ^ A b c Rainer A. Müller: Small town and library in the early modern era on the genesis and structure of the council library of the Franconian imperial city of Weißenburg , in: Reports on the history of science 15 (1992), p. 101.
  5. ^ German libraries with more than 100 prints from the 16th century . Retrieved September 10, 2018.
  6. ^ A b c Rainer A. Müller: Small town and library in early modernity on the genesis and structure of the council library of the Franconian imperial city of Weißenburg , in: Reports on the history of science 15 (1992), p. 102.
  7. ^ A b Rainer A. Müller: Small town and library in early modernity on the genesis and structure of the council library of the Frankish imperial city of Weißenburg , in: Reports on the history of science 15 (1992), p. 105.
  8. ^ Rainer A. Müller: Small town and library in early modernity on the genesis and structure of the council library of the Franconian imperial city of Weißenburg , in: Reports on the history of science 15 (1992), p. 107.

Coordinates: 49 ° 1 ′ 57.7 ″  N , 10 ° 58 ′ 17.7 ″  E