The Reformation History Research Library was formed in spring 2018 by merging the libraries of the Protestant Seminary for Preachers and the Luther House of the Luther Memorials Foundation in Saxony-Anhalt. Smaller holdings were also taken over from the Leucorea Foundation. The new library is accommodated on the second and third floors of Wittenberg Castle, which has been completely renovated and converted for new uses.
With the library of the Protestant Seminary for Preachers, around 160,000 volumes were transferred to the Reformation History Research Library, including large parts of the Leucorea library, which merged with the University of Halle in 1816/17, as well as several early modern scholars’ libraries and the book collections of various church institutions that were dissolved in the 19th or 20th century. The research library adopted a special collection of about 60,000 volumes on the history and impact of the Reformation from the Luther House, including several book collections by prominent Reformation researchers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The books from the Leucorea Foundation primarily concern recent research literature. Through additions and new acquisitions, the total holdings have now grown to approx. 230,000 volumes (To Research).
The collection is of particular value due to its holdings of around 100,000 old prints, i.e. titles published before 1850, as well as around 500 incunabula and a number of valuable medieval and early modern manuscripts. The collection focuses on prints from the Reformation period as well as theological, ecclesiastical and philological literature of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The library holds almost all writings of Martin Luther as first editions, including the main Reformation writings of the year 1520: “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation”, “On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church” and “On Christian Liberty”. The original first editions of Luther’s September and December Testaments of 1522 and the full Bible of 1534 are also part of the collection as outstanding testimonies to the history of the Reformation. In addition, the research library preserves a number of old prints with handwritten marginalia by the Wittenberg Reformers, which provide insights into their working practice and thought processes.
However, it is not only these special pieces that make the collections of great value, but also the extraordinary density of the handing down of Wittenberg prints and works by members of the Leucorea. There is hardly any other place where the publication activities of the Wittenberg Reformers and the Wittenberg theologians of later generations, who often regarded themselves as custodians of the Lutheran heritage, are documented in such a complete way. Moreover, around 25,000 dissertations and disputations provide deep insights into academic life at the Leucorea as well as into scientific and intellectual developments from the 16th to the 19th century. A collection of more than 5,000 funeral writings, mostly of central-German provenance, allows for multifaceted studies of sepulchral culture in the early modern period. Testimonies of this kind from the academic milieu are represented in large numbers in particular.
The holdings of the Reformation History Research Library also include the archive and the special collections of the Protestant Seminary for Preachers, which was established in the Augusteum in 1816/17. When it was founded, this institution had numerous cultural treasures transferred to it from the holdings of the University of Wittenberg by the Prussian state. This includes a collection of around 70 paintings. Most of them are depictions of reformers, sovereigns, professors of the Leucorea, and later portraits of the directors of the seminary were added. In many cases, the portraits in this collection are the only surviving colour likenesses of the scholars. The special collections also include graphics and testimonies to literary and university culture in Wittenberg. The gold-woven poet’s wreath of Friedrich Taubmann (1565-1613) has been preserved, for example, as well as old seals, flags and standards of the Leucorea.
In addition to the historical holdings, the Reformation History Research Library offers around 130,000 titles of modern literature. Acquisition focuses on the history of the Reformation and the church, of universities and education, the older regional history of Wittenberg, as well as theology and religious education. Important reference works and handbooks as well as the editions of the works of the Reformers and other leading theologians are available to users in a freely accessible reference collection. In the open access area, there are also more than 700 specialist journals, yearbooks and religious and socio-political journals.
Further reading: Meinhardt, Matthias (ed.): Die Reformationsgeschichtliche Forschungsbibliothek Wittenberg. Eine Einladung (The Wittenberg Reformation History Research Library. An Invitation), Halle (Saale) 2017.