The 1412 inventory of the manuscripts of Amelungsborn Abbey

I reported yesterday on the discovery of two new sermons by St Augustine in a Latin manuscript in a monastery in Poland.  One statement in the press release is also of great interest.  The discoverer, Prof. Christian Tornau, of the University of Würzburg, stated:

“An old catalogue from the monastery mentions a text that bears the same headings and has the same sequence of content as our manuscript. It could have served as a model,” the researcher explains. Tornau cannot confirm this assumption with absolute certainty, however, as the entire library holdings of Amelungsborn Monastery were destroyed by fire during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).

The “old catalogue” in question is the inventory of 1412 of the Cistercian Abbey of Amelungsborn. This takes a little locating.

The inventory is listed in a catalogue of surviving medieval inventories, published by Theodor Gottlieb, Ueber mittelalterliche Bibliotheken (1890 – online here).  Amelungsborn is on p.18-19:

The footnote reads:

Im Anniversarienbuch sind 7 Schenkungen von Büchern aufgeführt; dies wird pg. 18 gesagt. – Ferner ist auf einer Seite des Catal. ein Verzeichniss von Büchern mit der Ueberschr.: Hii de Corbeja, (von woher sie nach Dürres Vermuthung  zur Abschr. entlehnt waren).

The anniversary book lists seven donations of books; this is mentioned on page 18. Furthermore, on one page of the catalogue, there is a list of books with the heading: “Hii de Corbeja” (from where, according to Dürre’s presumption, they were borrowed for copying).

The inventory of 1412 is preserved, then, in a manuscript, once in the Ducal Library in Wolfenbüttel, today in the Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv (NLA) where it has the shelfmark “Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv Wolfenbüttel VII. B. 111.”  A monochrome microfilm is online.  Each image is two pages: the catalogue is right at the end, on pages 101-105, i.e. images 54-56.  Here is the start of it:

The inventory has been printed, but those seeking it may find that it can take a bit of time to locate thanks to a pleasant custom in 19th century German scholarship, whereby the author publishes the article twice under the same title in the same year but with different contents.  So it has been here.

The actual article, that contains a transcription of the inventory of 1412, is this:

H. Dürre, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Cistercienserabtei Amelungsborn”, Programm des herzoglichen Gymnasiums zu Holzminden. Ostern 1876, p. 3-24; esp. 19-24.

This may be downloaded from here, and the inventory starts on page 19 thus:

But the unwary or unlucky researcher will search Google for “Dürre Beiträge zur Geschichte der Cistercienserabtei Amelungsborn” or something of the sort and will be presented with this:

H. Dürre, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der Cistercienserabtei Amelungsborn”, Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen. 1876

In this volume, Dr Dürre’s article is the fourth, begins on p.179, and ends on 212, omitting the transcription of the inventory altogether.  It was only when you start to search for Programm des herzoglichen Gymnasiums zu Holzminden that you will make progress.

Looking at the inventory, the entry for the new sermons is on p.22, line 220 of the printed inventory.

The manuscript:

So there is the reference explained.

I think we will all be very interested to see the text of Dr Tornau’s discovery in full!