The Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts is shortly to embark on a new cataloguing campaign of its Latin manuscripts from medieval Germany, with the generous support of the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung of Cologne.

The collections involved include major groups of codices from particular centres, the study of which can make a great contribution to the study of German medieval culture. The manuscripts given to the Bodleian in the 17th century by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of Oxford University, derived from several religious houses which had suffered depredations during the disturbances of the Thirty Years' War: the Cistercian house at Eberbach; the cathedral of St. Kylian at Würzburg; and the Carthusian house at Mainz. From Eberbach alone there are 112 codices. Within these groups there are smaller numbers from other religious houses, for instance about twenty early manuscripts from the abbey of Lorsch.

It is not only the manuscripts donated by Archbishop Laud which contain significant groups from important libraries. The manuscripts (58 in number) given to the Bodleian by the sons of Sir William Hamilton (d. 1856) all belonged to monasteries in Erfurt, either the Benedictine house of St. Peter and St. Paul, or the Carthusian house of St. Salvator. They had been dispersed when the French took Erfurt in 1806. Smaller numbers of manuscripts from Germany are scattered throughout the collections, for instance in the manuscripts donated by the pioneering 17th-century Dutch philologist, Francis Junius.

These manuscripts have not been described in detail in any modern catalogue, either textually or codicologically. A catalogue which takes account of the enormous growth in our knowledge of medieval texts, scripts, and illumination during the 20th century is urgently needed. The smaller group of manuscripts containing German vernacular writing are being described as part of a separate project.

Through the generosity of the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung the cataloguing of the Latin manuscripts from Germany can thus now form part of the Bodleian's overall cataloguing strategy. The cataloguing work is now being undertaken by Dr Daniela Mairhofer in the library's Western Manuscripts section. The funding currently available will allow a start to be made on this important task; further funding will be sought to carry the work forward.