In Manuscript and Print: The Fifteenth-century Library of Scheyern Abbey

This dissertation explores the library of Scheyern Abbey through religious, artistic, bibliographical, and historical paths in order to articulate more clearly the history of book production and library growth during the revolutionary “book age” of the fifteenth century. I have reassembled the now scattered fifteenth-century books from the monastery and examined the entire collection to show how one institution adapted to the increasing bibliographic requirements of the period, first through manuscript and then manuscript and print together. Two sets of library shelfmarks from the fifteenth century, unrecorded until now, physically represent attempts at ordering the Scheyern collection and disregard any differentiation between manuscript and print, proving how the books were utilized by their contemporary audience. In the fifteenth century, Scheyern Abbey subscribed to the so-called Melk Reform, a monastic reform movement that emphasized literacy and the care of books as one of its primary elements. The introduction of the Melk Reform inspired Scheyern’s local book production, which shows a diverse system of both highly trained scribes and many anonymous scribes who worked on individual books as part of their round of monastic chores. The connections established between member monasteries of the reform brought Scheyern into contact with commercial Augsburg book producers, especially Hainrich Molitor, who produced several large and lavish manuscripts for the monastery. Importantly, he introduced Scheyern to other book producers in Augsburg, including illuminators, printers, and binders, who continued to have an impact on Scheyern production and the growth of the library through the end of the century. Scheyern was also an epicenter of Bavarian dynastic propaganda, because their foundational history as the original house-cloister of the ruling Wittelsbach dukes was visually marked around the monastery and textually deployed to other monasteries in the region through the Scheyern Fürstentafel. The unification of book historical and art historical concerns herein allows for a clearer and deeper examination of a fifteenth-century library than heretofore attempted, and this examination reveals important characteristics of fifteenth-century library development necessary to fully understand the multivalent contexts of historical book collections.Ph