Magdalena Morhart

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Magdalena Morhart (* around 1505 as Magdalena Kirschmann ; † 1574) was a German printer in Tübingen . She printed almost 500 titles, including for the University of Tübingen and the Württemberg government.

Life

Magdalena Kirschmann was born as the daughter of Anna Breuning and Oswald Kirschmann. Her first marriage was to Jakob Gruppenbach, with whom she had at least four sons, including Oswald, Jakob and Georg Gruppenbach . After Gruppenbach's death around 1540, she married Ulrich Morhart , who had already opened a print shop in Tübingen in 1523. With Ulrich Morhart they had at least one daughter together, Magdalena the younger.

Ulrich Morhart died in 1554 and Magdalena Morhart continued to run the shop . There were several challenges, such as the argument with her stepson, Ulrich the younger. He laid claim to the dispenser, but Magdalena Morhart was able to prevail, which led to a falling out between the two. In addition, the plague broke out in Tübingen at the end of 1554 , which made it considerably more difficult to complete the print jobs.

A few months after Ulrich Morhart's death, a printer from Ulm came to Tübingen and asked the university for a loan so that he could run his own printing press in Tübingen. He assured that he did not want to harm Ulrich Morhart's heirs, but the university senate, which was in charge of controlling the book trade in Tübingen, nevertheless rejected his request.

Magdalena Mohrhart probably employed several journeymen . It is unclear whether she was allowed to employ apprentices . It is very likely that her four sons and her daughter Magdalena the younger helped in the print shop. Georg Gruppenbach delivered the books to the Stuttgart court and accepted the payments for them. Oswald and Georg Gruppenbach printed themselves and were partly involved in printing by Magdalena Morhart, but until 1572 the widow mostly operated independently of her sons. In 1554, two titles from their printer were confiscated for violating censorship regulations. In 1563 Sebastian Mayr, whose treatise Morhart printed, failed to obtain permission from the censors. The Duke of Württemberg declared that Morhart should be punished as a printer. What punishment this was is unknown.

Despite these obstacles, the print shop ran financially under Magdalena Mohrhart. In the Morhard'schen Offizin important legal works were printed, such as the Württemberg Landrecht (VD16 W4513), which became a model for other territories. She also added a bookbinding shop to the business, which was able to hold its own against the competition in Tübingen even after it was taken over by Georg Gruppenbach .

Trivia

Magdalena Morhart is the protagonist in the historical novel The Lady of Letters .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Saskia Limbach: Life and Production of Magdalena Morhart. A Successful Business Woman in Sixteenth-Century Germany. In: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 94 (2019), p. 151–172 here p. 154.
  2. ↑ Bezzel, Irmgard: Morhard, Ulrich. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 18 (1997), p. 125 f. [Online version]; URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd119767325.html#ndbcontent .
  3. ^ Limbach: Life and Production of Magdalena Morhart , p. 153.
  4. ^ Limbach: Life and Production of Magdalena Morhart , p. 154.
  5. ^ Limbach: Life and Production of Magdalena Morhart , pp. 155f.
  6. ^ Johann Morhart: Haller Haus-Chronik . Eppinger, Schwäbisch Hall 1962.
  7. ↑ The oldest Tübingen Ehebuch: 1553-1614 . 3 vols. Stuttgart 2000, p. 68.
  8. ^ Christoph Reske: The book printers of the 16th and 17th centuries in the German-speaking area. Based on the work of the same name by Josef Benzing . 2., revised. and exp. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 3-44-710416-3 , p. 1005.
  9. ^ Morhart: Haller Haus-Chronik, p. 69.
  10. ↑ Limbach: Life and Production of Magdalena Mohrhart, pp. 160-162.
  11. ^ Limbach: Life and Production of Magdalena Morhart , p. 158.
  12. ^ Limbach: Life and Production of Magdalena Morhart , pp. 159f.
  13. ↑ Limbach: Life and Production of Magdalena Morhart , pp. 160-167.
  14. ↑ Sophia Langner: The mistress of letters . Droemer, Munich 2019. ISBN 978-3-426-30722-9 .
personal data
SURNAME Morhart, Magdalena
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kirschmann, Magdalena (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German printer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1505
DATE OF DEATH 1574