About the MGH Library

On his death, the Munich medieval philologist Ludwig Traube endowed the MGH with his private research library containing a large selection of old books, derived in particular from secularised monasteries. An important supplement to this foundation was the library of Oswald Holder-Egger, the designated but never officially instated chairman of the central board of directors. In 1911, he bequeathed his book collection, also containing many books from secularised monastic libraries, to the MGH.

Thereafter, the MGH library was continually incremented through occasional antiquarian acquisitions and, more importantly, through the bequests of individual members or associated scholars such as: W. Arndt, F. Baethgen, F. Bock, F. Böhmer, A. Boretius, K. A. Eckhardt, R. Elze, J. Ficker, J. Grimm, H. Grundmann, P. Hinschius, A. Hofmeister, R. and W. Holtzmann, P. F. Kehr, R. Koser, K. and M. Manitius, G. H. Pertz, L. v. Ranke, F. and K. Weigle, L. Weiland, P. v. Winterfeld, K. Zangemeister or K. Zeumer.

A number of minor publications and offprints came to the MGH from the libraries of Wilhelm Levison and Bernhard Bischoff. Together with Bischoff’s notes, which are stored in the archive of the MGH, these are all recorded and accessible through the MGH OPAC.

Books from lost libraries

The MGH library owns books from a number of once important libraries that now no longer exist:

• the benedictine abbey of Benediktbeuren
• the Bromberg grammar school library
• The Charterhouse of Buxheim
• the Senatsbibliothek of Danzig (Gdansk)
• the library of the Altertumsgesellschaft zu Elbing (Western Prussia)
• the Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek of Donaueschingen
• the library of the Redemptorist Seminary in Hennef-Geistingen
• the Jesuit libraries in Amberg, Büren, Burghausen, Cologne, Konstanz, Innsbruck, Lille, Leoben, Munich, Neuss, Neuves-Maisons und Vals (in the Jesuit province of Lyon)
• the Carmelite monastery in Graz
• the library of the Teutonic Order in Mergentheim
• the Schlossbibliothek of Königsberg
• the Stuttgart Hofbibliothek
• the library of the Prussian Historisches Institut in Rome (now the Deutsches Historisches Institut - DHI)