World libraries: Germany’s oldest church library digitizes its collections

The oldest and largest church library in Germany, located in Freising, a town in Bavaria, is digitizing about 300 thousand books of its collections to make them available on Internet.

A catalogue of all books of this unique library will be too accessible on the Web.

The church library in Freising presently holds over 322 000 books, including 345 rare manuscripts, 3215 music sheets and 224 incunabula. Its collections also include books in different languages: Latin, French, Spanish, English, Greek, Church Slavonic and Russian.

The history of library’s foundation goes back to second half of 8th c., while Bishop Arbeo is believed to be its founder. Bishop Arbeo was the author of a well-known “Codex Abrogans”, which is by some experts considered to be “one of the first German books”, and its author – “the first writer of German origin”.

The church library used to keep “Pentanteuch-Codex” - a Latin manuscript which was created in 5th c. in France. Its another famous manuscript of early 7th c. is “Codex Valerianus” originating from the Northern Italy.

In ancient times on the Domberg was founded a scriptorium, where Freising monks re-wrote holy books. In second half of 8th c. in Freising were created “Letters of Paul the Apostle” (“Paulusbriefe”). A century later, in 860 a handwritten “Gospel” (“Evangeliar”) appeared. The most productive work at the scriptorium was during Bishop Hitto (811/812 – 836) and his successor Erchambert (836–854). Production of manuscripts here flourished in 11th c.

In 1803 on the Domberg was discovered an ancient written monument of Slovenian language – so-called “Freising Manuscripts” (“Brizinski spomeniki”) written in Roman alphabet (Caroline minuscule) between 972 and 1093 in Carinthia. It is one of the oldest survived Slavic manuscripts.

All these manuscripts together with other most valuable manuscripts (around 600), which had been for centuries kept on the Domberg, in early 19th c. during secularization in Bavaria, were sent to Munich, where they became part of a unique collection of the Bavarian State Library.