Elmar Hochholzer, ed.,. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Libri Memoriales et Necrologia, Nova Series 10.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018. Pp. xviii, 206; color and black-and-white plates. €125. ISBN: 978-3-4471-0955-0.
This 2018 edition of the Hersfeld necrologies, volume 10 of the Libri Memoriales et Necrologia, Nova Series, presents three different records of the twelfth century from Hersfeld Abbey (Hesse, Germany), which offer exciting insights into monastic liturgical commemoration. The Hersfeld manuscripts belong to a brief renaissance period of libri memoriales in the twelfth century. Usefully, the book is available online for free at https://
Producing an edition of the Hersfeld necrologies is challenging because two of the three (HEF A and HEF B) were lost in the turmoil of World War II and survive only in copies made by Gustav Könnecke (1845–1920) and Karl Eugen Hörger (1899–1934). The latter prepared a printed version of the necrologies accompanied by carefully documented observations. In addition, a photograph of manuscript HEF B has survived, which proves the reliability of Könnecke and Hörger's work. The edition under review is thus based on Könnecke and Hörger's work for HEF A and HEF B, while HEF C, a martyrological necrology, has survived almost entirely.
Although Elmar Hochholzer calls all three records "necrologies," this does not apply to HEF A, which consists of lists of names possibly taken from necrological notes. However, the six hundred names were completely rearranged. On the (now lost) double sheet, the names of popes, rulers, bishops and archbishops, the abbots of the Hersfeld monastery, as well as abbots of Hersfeld origin, abbots of Fulda and Corvey, a list of deceased Hersfeld monks in hierarchical order, laymen, including dukes and counts, and finally a list of the living members of the Hersfeld convent were inscribed in five columns under simple red line arcs. In my opinion, this visual structure clearly denotes a so-called liber vitae (also known as confraternity books), which reached its heyday in the early Middle Ages, but experienced a brief renaissance in the twelfth century. Although less splendid and detailed than the libri vitae of Corvey and Rastede, the Hersfeld HEF A double sheet, which was created between 1118 and 1127, is still part of the same renaissance.
HEF B contains a necrological section of a single page, which lists the deceased under the month in which each died. It contains 455 names. Before the month of January there are three lists of abbots (Hersfeld, Fulda, and presumably former Hersfeld monks who took over the abbacy in other monasteries). After the calendrical section is a list of rulers, which includes the emperors Constantine and Theodosius and stretches from the late Merovingian period to King Konrad (d. 1152). The page has elaborate arcade decoration which is continued on the reverse but was not completed, and includes bust images within the four arches. These details indicate it also belongs to the corpus of memorial records of the twelfth century. The collection of persons in HEF B represents a monastic historical consciousness that was established and reproduced in liturgical commemoration. The compilation of HEF B is related to either the consecration of the new church building in 1144 or the temporary leadership of the monastery of Fulda by Abbot Heinrich of Hersfeld (1148/1149).
HEF A and presumably also HEF B were compiled for a collective commemoration during the mass, and these records were usually placed on the altar. By contrast, the calendrical necrology HEF C commemorated these individuals at table in the refectory on the day of their death. It is part of a liturgical manuscript and was likely written in the first half of the twelfth century. The months of January and February are missing. A total of eighty-two names were inscribed, most of which also appear in HEF A and HEF B. It is noteworthy that only two names were added to the first layout. This shows that the necrology has not really been updated. Hochholzer assumes that this necrology was intended for use not in Hersfeld but in one of the provostries dependent on the monastery.
This edition is introduced by a full and helpful description of the manuscripts (as much as possible) using Hörger's and Könneke's transcriptions and commentaries, as well as an analysis of their structures, the historical context, and the interconnectedness between Hersfeld and other monasteries based on the inscribed names. It is accompanied also by short prosopographical commentaries, a list of important people, an index of places and persons, illustrations of HEF B and HEF C, and the necrology transcripts made by Hörger and Könneke.
The loss of HEF A and HEF B has made preparing this edition difficult. Still, it would have been useful to print the layer of the oldest name entries in bold, at least insofar as they can be reconstructed by the descriptions of Könnecke and Hörger. Instead, it is noted only in the apparatus textuum that names were added later. It also remains unclear if various prayer texts mentioned in the description have not survived or if they were simply not reproduced. The reader has to consult Hörger's and Könnecke's manuscripts to determine this. Finally, a lemmatized index of persons would have been helpful in order to quickly identify overlaps in the names.
Despite its shortcomings, this edition of the three Hersfeld memorial records is an important contribution to the still unexplored flowering of memorial writing in the twelfth century, of which the libri vitae of Corvey and Rastede and the Regensburg necrology are prime examples. Smaller records like those found at Hersfeld are necessary to broaden this context.
By Eva-Maria Butz
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