16th Century Holdings

Augsburg State and City Library and Augsburg University Library together own more than 200 hymnological sources dating back to the 16th century: hymnbooks as well as collections of ecclesiastical rules containing hymns, also some mass books and breviaries with notes.

The share of Roman Catholic titles (40%) is relatively high. The DKL records a total of 79 16th century titles in Augsburg libraries, among them 10 unica and 25 extremely rare pieces of which worldwide only two to three duplicates are known. Examples for these unica are: Geystlike leder un Psalmen (Magdeburg after 1539; DKL 1540,3), Geystliche Lieder (Nürnberg before 1564; DKL 1564,1), Nikolaus Herman's Sontags Evangelia (Nürnberg 1570; DKL 1570,7), Gaistliche Lieder und Psalmen D. Mart. Lut. und andern frommen Christen (Augsburg 1580; DKL 1580,1), and Psalmen geystliche Lieder und Gesange (Straßburg 1587; DKL 1587,12).

17th Century Holdings

Augsburg State and City Library and Augsburg University Library together own over 300 hymnological sources from the 17th century: hymnbooks, collections of sacred songs, agendas (as far as they also contain sacred songs), printed sheet music and also some mass books and breviaries with notes.

As in the case of the 16th century, Catholic titles constitute 40 percent of the whole. A few single works could not be included in the Microfiche Edition because of their bad state of preservation but it contains all of the unica recorded by the DKL for Augsburg.

About 60 percent of the titles of the Microfiche Edition are from the State and City Library; coming into question as possible originals sources are in particular the old, predominantly protestant, City Library as well as the libraries of the Protestant College of St. Anne's, the Jesuit College of St. Salvator and the Benedictine Monasteries of St. Ulrich and Afra, these were integrated at the beginning of the 19th century into the, then newly buildt, City and District Library. Of the 102 works from the Augsburg University Library more than half originally come from the library of the Princes of Oettingen-Wallerstein (Fürstlich Oettingen-Wallersteinsche Bibliothek) or rather, more correctly, out of the increase in the library caused by the secularisation, at the beginning of the 19th century, of the Monasteries of St. Mang in Füssen and The Holy Cross in Donauwörth as well as the Monasteries Mönchsdeggingen, Maihingen and Kirchheim in the Ries district; approximately two thirds of the remaining titles were collected by Konrad Amelns.

The DKL lists 130 titles including numerous unica and exceptionally rare pieces (of which only two or three duplicates are known world wide). Exaples for these unica are: the Catholisch Manual oder Handbuch printed by Johann Blanckenberg at Hildesheim in 1619 (DKL 1619,15; Sigel: HR); Alte und Newe Geistliche Catholische außerlesene Gesäng, published by Elias Michael Zinck 1631 by order of the Bishop of Würzburg Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg (DKL 1631,08; Sigel: As); the Augustae Vindelicorum Gratiae of the composer and Town Cantor of Rothenburg Erasmus Widmann (1572-1634), Danckh- und Lobgesang für die Erlösung auß der Päpstischen Trangsal der Hochlöblichen Stadt Augspurg, printed by Jakob Mollyn at Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1633 (DKL 1633,08; Sigel: As); the Andächtige Ubung, Und Geistliche Gesäng deß Heyligen Rosenkrantzes from Eustachius Mayer the General Preacher and Superior of the Vienna Dominicans reprinted by Andreas Aperger 1638 in commission for the Augsburg branch of the Dominicans (DKL 1638,14; Sigel: As); Jakob Baldes S.J. (1604-1668) Wahrheit gesungen von der Eitelkeit der Welt, printed by Georg Haugenhofer 1653 at Amberg (DKL 1653,12; Sigel: As); Alte catholische Teutsch und Lateinische Andächtige Kirchen Gesänger, printed at Cologne ca. 1660 (DKL 1660,01; Sigel: As); Hertzen-Frewd und Seelen-Trost of the poetical Capuchin Father Prokop von Templin (ca. 1609-1680), then Preacher in Passau, and also printed there 1660 by Georg Höller (DKL 1660,14; Sigel: As); Etliche andere Psalmen Davids, die gemeine Psalmen genant … Gerichtet auff die statt St. Gallen wie auch derselbigen benachbarte Evangelische Gemeinden im Land Appenzell der Ussern Rhoden im Rhintal und Thurgau, printed 1674 at Basel and published by Jakob Hochreutiner at St. Gallen (DKL 1674,19; Sigel: LÜDa); Geistliche Gesänge und Psalmen D. Martin Lutheri und anderer frommen Christen - Auffs neue wiederumb zugerichtet, vermehret und mit schönen Hymnis so auff vornehme Festtage zu singen gebräuchlich sind, printed 1678 by Salomon Schadewitz at Kassel (DKL 1678,09; Sigel: SLÜb); as well as the Psalmen Davids translated into German by Ambrosius Lobwasser (1515-1585) and from an unknown author zu vier Stimmen außgesezt published by Jakob Hochreutiner at St. Gallen 1689 (DKL 1689,12; Sigel: LÜDa).

18th Century Holdings

Within the first two sections of this edition the quantity of material remained in reasonable dimensions with 182 works for the 16th century and 283 for the 17th century. The dimensions of the third section however show that the hymnbook became a regular mass product in the 18th century, which was especially due to pietism and the enlightenment in the protestant areas. The smallest principalities all had their own individual hymnbook as a symbol of their sovereignty. In order to keep the hymnbook affordable for the church-goers or for private prayers at home these official territorial hymnbooks were mostly printed without music, as were many private songbooks.

The State and City Library of Augsburg and the Augsburg University Library together possess more than 1,000 hymnbooks and other hymnological sources from the 18th century. Roughly two thirds of them are held by the University Library and mostly go back to the private collecting activities of Konrad Ameln, Walter Blankenburg and Konrad Wölfel. As a result of the strongly growing production of hymnbooks in particular in protestant areas, the catholic contribution to this section is considerably smaller than in the 16th and 17th centuries. It constitutes about 10 percent.

The DKL lists a total of 184 entries for Augsburg from the 18th century. These include about one third unica or extremely rare works with a total of only two or three authenticated copies worldwide. Among the unica are the following: A Franciscan Ordo agendorum et cantandorum in actibus processionalibus (Wien 1702), Johann Ulrich Sulzberger’s Transponiertes Psalmenbuch (Bern 1710), a copy of the Psalmen Davids zum Christlichen Gesang in Reimen gebr. von Ambrosio Lobwassern which was published by Meyer in Lemgo in 1742, Johann Rudolf Ziegler’s Des Singenden Christen fortgesetzte Uebung der Andacht (Zürich 1761), an edition of the Psalmen Davids in Deutscher Poesie from Johann Matthäus Stoll (Hildburghausen 1762), the second part of the Neuverbessertes Kirchen-Gesang-Buch of the Reformed Church of the United Kingdoms of Cleve and Jülich which was published by Breitkopf in Leipzig in 1763, the Neu-eingerichtetes Gesang-Buch with the Psalm of David translated by Lobwasser which was published by Schmidt in Kassel in 1765, and Anton Heinrich Gröne’s Religiöse Lieder historischen Inhalts (Rinteln 1791).

Hymnological Sources

Despite their cultural and historical importance, hymnological sources (hymnbooks, collections of ecclesiastical rules, etc.) have never been collected systematically by academic libraries. Instead, they came more by accident into the possession of these libraries, i.e. through donations or the acquisition of complete scholarly collections. The immense dispersion of books due to secularization and mediatization (the assignment of formerly independent secular territories to new sovereignties) after 1800 also contributed to today's scattered distribution of these sources.

Apart from the few large libraries that are treasure troves for hymnologists because of the exceptional importance of their historical holdings in general, most sources included in this edition are preserved in a number of relatively small institutions. Das deutsche Kirchenlied ( The German Hymn, abbr. DKL), published in 1976 as a volume of the Répertoire international des sources musicales, records about 4,500 printed sources including notes from the period prior to 1800. Today these books are owned by about 1,000 different libraries (among them numerous smaller municipal libraries, private collections, church and monastic libraries); almost 600 of them are located in Germany.

Augsburg as a Location of Hymnological Sources

Against the background of this on the whole rather unfavourable library situation, Augsburg represents one of the most important locations of its kind in Germany in regard to both the quality and the quantity of what has been preserved here. In addition, the holdings of Augsburg State and City Library (with an emphasis on the 16th and 17th centuries) and of Augsburg University Library (with an emphasis on the 17th and particularly on the 18th and early 19th centuries) complement one another fairly well. Thus, when about two years ago the project Gesangbuchbibliographie (Bibliography of Hymnbooks), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and housed at Mainz University, started recording all German hymnbooks from about 1500 onwards, the decision to begin with the holdings of the Augsburg libraries was made in acknowledgement of their importance.

At least ten percent of the titles recorded in Das deutsche Kirchenlied may be found in Augsburg. More than one third of these are unica and exceptionally rare books of which only two or three duplicates are known worldwide. Augsburg State and City Library and Augsburg University Library also own about 4,000 hymnbooks without notes, a type of book not included in Das Deutsche Kirchenlied, but predominant during the 18th century.

Augsburg State and City Library

Augsburg State and City Library counts as one of Germany's largest late medieval and early modern collections. It was founded in 1537 to house the libraries of several Augsburg monasteries that had been dissolved in the course of the Reformation. Later the library flourished even during the Thirty Years' War and eventually rose to one of the most important libraries in Germany. When Augsburg was incorporated into the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806, the court library in Munich appropriated many of the most valuable manuscripts, incunabula and early printed books. (Monastic holdings in Augsburg were dealt with in a similar way.) The books that remained in Augsburg were transferred to a new library that had been founded to serve the needs of the Swabian part of Bavaria and that a few years later was united with the city library. This is how some important collections found their way into the State and City Library, among these the libraries of the Jesuits' College of St. Salvator and the Benedictine Monastery of St. Ulrich and Afra or the library of the Protestant College of St. Anne's. In addition, in 1817 the most valuable parts of the library that had recently been founded for the Altmühl area of Bavaria were transferred from Eichstätt to Augsburg (including books from the former court library of the Prince Bishop of Eichstätt); in 1818 the State and City Library added books from several East Swabian monastic libraries (e.g., Irsee and Ottobeuren) to their collections.

The more than 1,000 hymnological sources in possession of the State and City Library thus come from a city library shaped by its Protestant traditions as well as from the libraries of several religious institutions (College of St. Anne's, Jesuits' College, Monastery of St. Ulrich and Afra). In addition, approximately 500 volumes (mainly Protestant hymnbooks) came from the private library of Hans Michael Schletterer (1824-1893), Director of Music in Augsburg's Protestant churches.

Augsburg University Library

The hymnological collection of Augsburg University Library (founded in 1970) consists of nearly 3,000 books, about one tenth of which once formed part of the library of the Princes of Oettingen-Wallerstein, Fürstlich Oettingen-Wallersteinschen Bibliothek (DKL location mark: «HR»), which was purchased in 1980 by the Free State of Bavaria and assigned to Augsburg University Library. Most hymnological books from the Oettingen-Wallerstein Collection originally belonged to the Swabian monasteries whose property came into the possession of the princes in the course of secularization at the beginning of the 19th century.

Between 1986 and 1990, thanks to the initiative of some Augsburg scholars working in this field, Augsburg University Library could acquire the private hymnbook collections formerly owned by Walter Blankenburg (1903-1986, about 450 volumes; DKL location mark: «SLÜb»), Konrad Ameln (1899-1994, 622 volumes, DKL location mark: «LÜDa») and Konrad Wölfel (1911-1982, ca. 1500 volumes, DKL location mark: «FÜw»). The Wölfel collection is on permanent loan to Augsburg University library by courtesy of Konrad Wölfel's son; the Ameln collection was systematically developed since the 1920s and thus is an outstanding, if not the most significant, achievement in this area.

The Microfiche Edition

The Harald Fischer Verlag in collaboration with the Augsburg State and City Library and the Augsburg University Library is making the complete Augsburg hymnological sources from the 16th to 18th centuries available in a Microfiche Edition in three instalments.