Brotherhood book of Reichenau Abbey

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Entry of Otto I's name as king of his family in the Reichenau fraternity book

The Fraternization Book of Reichenau Abbey (also called Reichenau Fraternity Book) is a bound manuscript written in Latin that was produced in Reichenau Abbey from the 820s . As a fraternity book , it contains a directory in which prayer fraternities are recorded and lists of names of the founders and benefactors of the monastery as well as of people who were in close spiritual contact with it, so that they were remembered in the monastic prayers. These lists of names with more than 38,000 personal names on 164 pages are an outstanding source for name research on a large number of monasteries in southern Germany and northern France, but also Italy, Belgium and southern France, which were connected to Reichenau through the prayer fraternities, as well as for researching family relationships by people on the secular side who supported the monastery financially for their own salvation and are therefore listed as benefactors.

The book

The fraternization book is composed of three parts with a total of 93 sheets of parchment or paper and a wooden cover.

  • Part 1 consists of 9 sheets of paper on which fraternization agreements, obituaries, etc. are reproduced. This relatively young part of the book dates from the 15th to the early 16th centuries.
  • Part 2 is the central part, the actual old fraternity book: It consists of 59 sheets of parchment made of calfskin and 8 sheets of paper from the 17th century, which are a substitute for sheets of parchment that are probably no longer usable, and thus has a total of 134 pages . Apparently five more sheets have been lost. The parchment sheets begin with entries from around 825, which were continued into the late Middle Ages. In the course of time, the order of the arches has been reversed in part during repairs or binding work. However, research has succeeded in reconstructing the original order.
  • Part 3, consisting of 15 sheets of parchment made of sheepskin , i.e. 30 pages, consists of lists of professions , supplements to Part 2 and copies of documents etc .; it essentially dates from the 10th century and was continued into the 12th and 13th centuries.

The binding, which consists of wooden covers covered with leather, also dates from the 17th century or at the latest from the beginning of the 18th century. One of the two clasps has been lost. The individual leaves are almost all between 19.5 and 20.5 cm wide and 26.8 to 28.5 cm long, only one leaf is significantly smaller. The parchment in part 2 is labeled on an area of ​​15.6 to 15.8 by 20.5 to 21 cm in four columns of 39 lines, in part 3 there are predominantly four columns of 27 lines.

The lists

When creating the book, space was reserved for various groups on pages 4 to 85 and the corresponding headings were given. For example, pages 4 and 5 contain the living monks of the Reichenau monastery, pages 6 and 7 the deceased; Pages 8 and 9 were intended as a reserve, but now contain entries that do not correspond to the usual plan. Pages 10 and 11 took up the living monks of the St. Gallen Monastery , page 12 and probably also the lost page 13 the deceased. This is followed by the Pfäfers monastery , then the Disentis monastery etc. - a total of 50 fraternal monasteries are listed here, to which the cathedral chapters of the dioceses of Constance , Basel and Strasbourg have been added. Among the monasteries, the West Franconian ones belong to the oldest part of the fraternities, which probably goes back to the prayer union of Attigny , which was concluded in the year 762 in the royal palace Attigny in the Ardennes, and can thus be seen as the trigger for the creation of the Reichenau fraternization book. After the planned monk lists on pages 4 to 85, a few pages (86 to 92) follow as additional reserves, which at some point were no longer filled according to the initial plan. In the original book, i.e. before the order was changed, the lists of the living and deceased benefactors of the monastery followed (today pages 98 and 99 for more than 200 living, pages 114 to 123 for more than 1200 deceased). The plan, but also the fact that the lists dedicated to the monasteries and dioceses and the list of benefactors of the abbey were probably written by only five different hands (one of which made more than half of the entries), makes it clear that the book is not continued, but that older templates and lists were copied together. Only later did you move on to supplements, with the consequence that you continued to write in the margin or between the columns until you were finally forced to use every free space. Pages 93 to 96, 109 to 112 and 129 to 134 have completely different writings, which originally followed the list of benefactors, but are now interspersed. Listed here are monks who stayed in monasteries in the Lyon and Langres region.

The names

More than 38,000 personal names are contained on the 164 pages of parts 2 and 3, the vast majority without any further addition. Since the entries on the living and deceased monks are sorted by monastery, at least a regional allocation is possible here. The commemoration intended with the book of fraternities and the associated effect on the salvation of the soul was evidently satisfied with the simple entry of the name: further details that would enable identification were not necessary, they were only given sometimes.

The majority of the entries come from the monks of the Reichenau monastery, but it also happened that visitors were allowed to enter themselves, especially if their native script was not the Latin one . It is clear that the fraternization book also contains names from far away regions: from the 11th and 12th centuries there are around 700 names of visitors from Scandinavia , including a group from Iceland ; the Orthodox Patriarchs Basil of Jerusalem (820–838) and Christophorus of Alexandria (817–841), King Stephen of Hungary (997–1038), Bishop Adalbert of Prague (983–997), Odo von Châtillon, who later became Pope Urban II . (1088-1099), who called for the crusade in 1095 .

history

The starting point of the prayer fraternity was the Attigny prayer union from 762, which was followed by a similar agreement for Bavaria at the Synod of Dingolfing around 770. The structure of the Reichenau fraternization book can be seen, following the entries, in the years 822 to 824, a good decade after a similar book was made in the monastery of St. Gallen. Part 3 was added in the 10th century, part 1 finally due to the administration of the abbot Friedrich von Wartenberg (1427-1453), but not necessarily already at his time. At the beginning of the 16th century, the entries in the fraternity book stop. In 1683 the monk and historian Jean Mabillon visited the Reichenau Abbey and studied the fraternization book; He later printed excerpts from the book in his Vetera Analecta . The sheets of paper had probably not yet been inserted at this point, but the sheets were probably already in the wrong order. A little later, at the end of the 17th, or at the latest at the beginning of the 18th century, the book of fraternities got its current cover and, with it, the sheets of paper. Another mention of the book comes from Augustin Calmet , who visited the monastery in 1748 and mentions it in his Diarium Helveticum . When the monastery was closed in 1757, the monks were distributed to other monasteries and the Bishop of Constance sent twelve new monks to Reichenau, the library remained on the island. In 1760, Martin Gerbert , the prince abbot of the St. Blasien monastery, had the library's holdings cataloged, with the fraternization book being mentioned again. Two years later, in 1762, Cardinal Giuseppe Garampi , Prefect of the Vatican Archives, visited the library. During this time Hugo Schmidfeld , a father in St. Blasien, made a copy of the fraternization book, which was in his possession in 1771; this copy is now in the Karlsruhe State Library (Cod. St. Blasien, 41). In 1777 the fraternization book was sent to Martin Gerbert, who returned it to Reichenau in 1780. Philipp Wilhelm Gercken , who visited the abbey in 1779, noted that he could not see the book because it was not there. Seven years later, in 1787, the archivist Mauriz van der Meer , father in the Rheinau monastery near Zurich, was commissioned by Maximilian Christof von Rodt , the bishop of Constance, to revise the monastery manuscript catalog. At the end of the year he was then given permission to borrow the fraternity book in order to work with it; when he died in 1795 the book was still in Rheinau, apparently still in 1803, as the Reichenau library was transferred to Karlsruhe that year, and the fraternization book was missing. Even in 1848, when Ferdinand Keller was working with the fraternization book, it was probably still in Rheinau, in 1862 it was incorporated into the State Archives of the Canton of Zurich in connection with the abolition of this monastery with the monastery archive . Today the fraternization book with the signature Ms. Rh. Hist. 27 is held in the Zurich Central Library .

The fraternity book as a source

“The fraternization book of Reichenau Abbey, with its rich name inventory, is to be understood as a 'book of life' solely because of its liturgical character. It would therefore certainly not be correctly assessed as a testimony to tradition if it were only viewed as a source for the history of writing, onenology or personal research, for example, if it were only used as material for evaluation purposes. "" Research has already made numerous attempts to to interpret the content of the book:

  • Konrad Beyerle suspected that one of the writers of the fraternization book was the monk Walahfrid Strabo (808 / 809-849)
  • In 1966, in an entry from 983 or shortly before, Karl Schmid identified ten people who belonged to the Kuno von Öhningens family; these entries largely correspond to information from the Historia Welforum , which is supported by it. In 1980 Armin Wolf proved Kuno's identity with Duke Konrad I of Swabia and thus brought the entry into relation to a well-known and important personality and into the historical context. Schmid's and Wolf's discoveries are generally recognized today.
  • In 1983 Gerd Althoff referred to a Reichenau monk named Uutuchind, who took his vows in 786 and was still alive in 825. He sees in him the Saxon Duke Widukind , who submitted to Charlemagne in 785 , was baptized and then disappeared from the annals
  • At one point a group of Eastern European pilgrims signed their names in the fraternization book: Methodios, Leon, Ignatios, Ioakin, Symeon, Dragais. Alfons Zettler assumes that the first name is the Slav apostle Methodios .

Editions

literature

  • Dieter Geuenich: The Reichenauer fraternization book. In: Dieter Geuenich, Uwe Ludwig (Ed.): Liber vitae. Remembrance of prayer in early medieval society. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2015, ISBN 3-412-20943-0 , pp. 123-146.
  • Roland Rappmann, Alfons Zettler: The Reichenau monk community and their commemoration of the dead in the early Middle Ages (= archeology and history. Vol. 5). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1998, ISBN 3-7995-7355-0 .

Web links

Footnotes

  1. p. 53 (D4–5)
  2. p. 159 A1–2
  3. P. 103 C1–2
  4. p. 158 C3-D3
  5. p. 153 B1
  6. p. 151 B1-4
  7. ^ Johanne Autenrieth et al .: The fraternization book of the Reichenau Abbey. 1979, pp. LXVII / LXVIII.
  8. ^ Johanne Autenrieth et al .: The fraternization book of the Reichenau Abbey. 1979, p. LXX.
  9. Konrad Beyerle : The Reichenau fraternization book as a source of the monastery history. In: Konrad Beyerle (ed.): The culture of the Reichenau Abbey. Commemorative pamphlet for the twelve hundredth anniversary of the founding year of the island monastery 724–1924. Volume 2. Verlag der Münchner Drucke, Munich 1925, pp. 1107–1217, here p. 1110; we you. a. Rejected by Autenrieth: Johanne Autenrieth et al .: The fraternization book of Reichenau Abbey. 1979, pp. XXXIV / XXXV.
  10. ^ Karl Schmid : Problems about the "Count Kuno von Öhningen". A contribution to the origin of the Guelph house tradition and the beginnings of the Hohenstaufen territorial policy in the Lake Constance area. In: Herbert Berner: Village and Monastery of Öhningen. Kugler, Singen 1966, pp. 43-88; see: Johanne Autenrieth et al .: The fraternity book of Reichenau Abbey. 1979, plate 135: The names are: [1] Cuonradus comes / [2] Liutoldus laicus / [3] Cuonradus laicus / [4] Herimannus / [5] Ita [6] Júdita / [7] Richlint / [8] Ruo - / dolf / [9] Vuelf Heinrich [10] Heinrich; the numbers are inserted for better understanding, a new column begins between [6] and [7] in the same handwriting; for discussion see the article Richlind .
  11. Armin Wolf : Who was Kuno "von Öhningen"? Reflections on the Duchy of Konrad of Swabia († 997) and the election of a king in 1002. In: German archive for research into the Middle Ages . Vol. 36, 1980, pp. 25-83.
  12. Gerd Althoff : The Saxon Duke Widukind as a monk on the Reichenau. A contribution to the criticism of the Widukind myth. In: Frühmittelalterliche Studien 17, 1983, pp. 251–279: “ 1. On pagina 4 (B2) of the Reichenau fraternization book, a Uutuchind appears in a Reichenau convent list, which is cited by Abbot Erlebald and was created in 825, in 48th position. 2. After his death, the same monk was listed on page 7 (B2) under the nomina fratrum gefunctorum insolanensium. "
  13. page 53 (D 4-5); Alfons Zettler: Cyrill and Method in the Reichenau fraternization book. In: Frühmedalterliche Studien 17, 1983, pp. 280-298.