Weissenburg, Benedictine Abbey

The approximately 100 medieval manuscripts written in the Benedictine abbey of Weissenburg (Wissembourg) in Alsace are not only an example of an outstanding inventory dating from the 9th century, but the collection also includes several items from the later Middle Ages and was finally incorporated into the repository of the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel in 1689.

Much research has already been done on both library and scriptorium during the Carolingian period, also focusing on Otfrid as an influential teacher and poet in those surroundings. A few years ago, quite a number of these Carolingian manuscripts were digitized in the context of the project Europeana regia – Bibliotheca Carolina.

It is now time to also make the high and late medieval manuscripts from this monastic library digitally available in order to pave the way for future research on the library’s history and its history of education in the later Middle Ages.

• Christian Heitzmann

Further reading:

Hans Butzmann: Die Weissenburger Handschriften (Kataloge der Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel. Die Neue Reihe 10), Frankfurt am Main 1964.

Hans Butzmann: Die Weissenburger Handschriften: Einleitung zum Katalog, in: ibid., Kleine Schriften: Festgabe zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. by Wolfgang Milde, Graz 1973, pp. 48–103.