The Augustinerbibliothek Münnerstadt

The Augustinerbibliothek Münnerstadt (Münnerstadt Augustinian Library) has been under the auspices of the Bavarian-German Province of the Augustinians since 2014. With a stock of approx. 70,000 volumes, it is a monastery library that has grown historically since 1652. When the grammar school founded by Prince Bishop Johann Philipp von Schönborn was taken over by the Augustinian hermits in 1685, it also served as a teachers' library.

Due to the literature from almost all fields of knowledge, it also developed into a universal library and was the most important library in Lower Franconia from the 17th to the 19th century – alongside the Universitätsbibliothek Würzburg (Würzburg University Library). As a result of the Peasants' Wars, nothing has been preserved of the predecessor library (Liberey) at the monastery of St. Michael, founded in 1279.

This dual function for the monastery and the grammar school results in the roughly equal split into theological and secular literature, which is divided into 50 subject groups and is reflected equally in the 1,290 journal titles.

Large additions were made to the collection above all during the Enlightenment, when the Augustinian grammar school attracted attention beyond the region, as a counterbalance to the Jesuits in Würzburg, and in the 19th century during its development into the so-called "Rhön University".

About 1,400 volumes come from the possession of the Augustinian and scholar Possidius Zitter (1723-1802), who worked for decades as headmaster of the grammar school, an enlightened educationalist, writer and pastor in Münnerstadt.

Other personalities who shaped the library were the Augustinian Prosper Fritzmann (1775-1846), Alois Braun (1811-1887) and Clemens Hutter (1829-1892) as the author of the catalogues in book form, Hieronymus Schneeberger (1835-1897), Vinzenz Schneider (1846-1913), Matthäus Zimmermann (1873-1959), finally Adolar Zumkeller (1915-2011) as initiator of the special collections for manuscripts, incunabula, early prints and rare books.

Since the monastery library was not dissolved during secularisation, the coherence of the book collection, including traces of the readership from the middle of the 17th century until today, has been preserved. In fact, as a result of secularisation, many volumes from libraries of dissolved monasteries ended up in Münnerstadt.

Numerous projects for the preservation and development of the collection have been started since 2013 and some already completed in order to make the Augustinerbibliothek Münnerstadt accessible to experts and the interested public.

• The objects of the Augustinerbibliothek Münnerstadt available on bavarikon

Collections owned by the Augustinerbibliothek Münnerstadt available on bavarikon

• Manuscripts from the Middle Ages to early modern times from the Augustinerbibliothek Münnerstadt