CATALOGUING OF MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS IN GERMAN LIBRARIES:: THE ROLE OF THE DEUTSCHE FORSCHUNGSGEMEINSCHAFT (DFG) AS A FUNDING AGENCY

Abstract

From the nineteenth century onward, German librarians have devoted considerable effort to the cataloguing of medieval manuscripts,² many of which came into public ownership after the secularization of monasteries at the beginning of the century. The centralization of sources stimulated scholarly interest in the material, to which librarians responded by compiling inventories and catalogues. Due to the size of the collections, which were often augmented by further acquisitions from the antiquarian book market in the second half of the century, the authors of those early catalogues had to restrict themselves to recording only the most essential codicological data and textual . . .