Deutsches Gebetbuch in Richmond

http://www.thecollegianur.com/article/2015/11/the-calvin-rare-book-room

“At about the same time he donated the university’s mummy, Ti Ameny Net, to the Department of Classical Studies in 1876, Richmond College professor Jabez Curry also donated a small German manuscript to the Rare Book Room, which has recently garnered some attention.

Very little was known about the medieval text until 2012, when a German history professor from the University of Würzburg, Helmut Flachenecker, spent three days at Richmond reading it cover to cover.

Using skills more suitable for a detective than for a professor, Flachenecker was able to decipher that the manuscript was a prayer book written by two authors for a German noblewoman. He identified the family crest on the cover and was able to ascertain that it was written sometime before 1471, because of the name of a pope written in the pages.

“We went from knowing nothing about that book to being able to put it in the hands of one of four people.” Kachurek said.

Flachenecker is returning to Richmond next Monday to give a talk about his continued historical detective work on the German prayer book.”

Das Stück ist dem Handschriftencensus unbekannt, und auf der Website der Bibliothek findet man nur ein Bild, das eigentlich nur aus dem Manuskript stammen kann.

http://libguides.richmond.edu/specialcollections

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