26 March 2024

The volumes had experienced a turbulent history: confiscated during the land reform programmes carried out in the Soviet Occupation Zone in 1945/6, the texts were handed over to the Stadtbibliothek Magdeburg (Magdeburg Municipal Library), where they were held until they were returned to their original owner in early 2018 under Germany’s Indemnification and Compensation Act. This is why each volume bears a stamp from the Stadtbibliothek Magdeburg as well as an elimination stamp. The collection acquired by the HAB includes 1,245 printed works in 14 volumes (generally simple cardboard bindings), whereby the composition of the individual volumes is determined by the place of printing, the authors or the families involved in the celebrations or commemorations. They are occasional writings produced in honour of birthdays, weddings, accessions to office and deaths between 1605 and 1751. Of the 632 titles dating from the 17th century, 431 previously unknown works have been identified and catalogued in depth for the first time. Of the 18th-century works, 408 are unique copies.

Focuses of the collection

The focus of one of the volumes is on writings relating to the families of faculty at the University of Helmstedt, such as that of orientalist Christoph Heinrich Rittmeier (1671–1719) or of professor for anatomy, surgery and botany Lorenz Heister (1683–1758). The writings relating to Heister were all hitherto unknown to scholars. The Alvensleben family is also well represented with numerous occasional writings, most of them penned in response to deaths in the family; others commemorate weddings, accessions to office, promotions and birthdays.
One volume contains a great number of writings relating to the ducal Braunschweig-Lüneberg family, including a previously unknown variant of the libretto ‘Ballet der Zeit’ (Ballet of Time) (fig. 1), which Duchess Sophie Elisabeth von Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1613–1676) wrote to mark the birthday of her husband Herzog August von Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1579–1666).

The art of the book printers

A remarkable number of the region’s printshops are represented with lavish, skilfully produced works. For example, the collection includes a broadsheet embellished with silver and gold, a sonnet commemorating steward Jacob Freudemann’s name day, which was printed by the court printer Paul Weiß in Wolfenbüttel (HAB Wt 4° 175.1 [55]). One exceptional piece is a text printed in white on black-coated paper by the Helmstedt printer Georg Wolfgang Hamm, memorialising the death of one of his children (HAB Wt 4° 175.2 [110]). We know of no other comparable printed work in the HAB collection (cover image).

Kaspar von Stieler

Another "Sammelband" contains the collection’s greatest treasure: prints from the region of Leipzig, Jena and Erfurt, including 14 prints with texts by Kaspar von Stieler (1632–1707). Stieler, a member of the Fruitbearing Society who also known as ‘Der Spate’ (The Latecomer), was not only a poet and renowned songwriter but also a linguist who compiled a dictionary, Der teutschen Sprache Stammbaum und Fortwachs (The Genealogy and Growth of the German Language, 1691), which offers a comprehensive overview of German vocabulary at that time. Twelve of these Stieler prints published in Jena, Erfurt, Gotha and Weimar between 1669 and 1689 are unknown and do not appear in bibliographies. They are poems commemorating birthdays, accessions to office, marriages (‘Anakreontische Spielreime’ [Anacreontic Rhymes]) as well as writings dedicated to individuals from Stieler’s milieu. One eight-page text for a wedding was even written by Stieler together with his three sons.

The most substantial – and previously unknown – text by Stieler was written to commemorate the death of the three-year-old Wilhelm August von Sachsen-Eisenach (1668–1671). In it he directly addresses the child’s grieving mother, Duchess Maria Elisabeth von Sachsen-Coburg, née Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1638–1687) (fig. 2).

The text comprises a 20-stanza poem expressing grief, a mourning aria and two additional laments. Of particular note are the two handwritten corrections in the first poem. It is unclear whether these were made by Stieler himself.

Only two lines of the first poem were previously referenced in Stieler’s Teutsche Sekretariatskunst (German Secretarial Art, Nuremberg 1673), as an example of a rhetorical device, the Gleichhang (consonance). Such finds enable us to rediscover Stieler, who appears not to have been interested in a complete edition of his scattered casual poetry during his lifetime.

The collector

The handwritten entries on the inner cover of nearly all th volumes tell us which member of the Schulenberg family was responsible for putting together this unique collection of occasional writings (fig. 3). This refers to August Schönberg von der Schulenburg (1716–1772) from Altenhausen, who enrolled at the university of Helmstedt in 1732.

One additional personal document relating to August Schönberg von der Schulenberg exists, his Stammbuch (family register), which he maintained from 1734 until his death in 1772 and which is now held by the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek (University and State Library, ULB) in Halle. The index includes many of the family names appearing in the occasional writings. This allows us to speculate on whether the collector may have received the printed works via his network of acquaintances. In an 1847 publication focusing on the Schulenberg’s family history, August Schöneberg von der Schulenberg is described as ‘imbecilic’. How such a comment written in the 18th century should be classified today is uncertain – one of the last entries in his family register would appear to cast a different light on him, however. Shortly before his death, on 3 January 1772, Dorothea Christiane Ehrengard Countess von Schulenburg, née Schenk (1741–1823) wrote, ‘Plus être que paraître’ – ‘More being than appearing’, a description which could certainly be applied to his collection!

Cover image: broadsheet ‘Die Unvermeidliche Todes-Stunde’ [The Inevitable Hour of Death], HAB Wt 4° 175.2 [110]