SOME NOTES ON THE STOLBERG LIBRARY



Some Notes on the Stolberg Library

By Hilmar H. Weber, Ph.D.

Harvard Alumni Bulletin. 27 April 1934: 798-808

The princely library is a product of the Renaissance. The revived interest in learning and the great facility in securing books which cam with printing led to the formation of libraries by laymen of rank and wealth, this superseding the monastic library which had been characteristic of the Middle Ages. The princely library has, in its turn, given way to the great public, and (in America) university library. It is only in Germany that, owing to peculiar circumstances, we find the princely library still in existence.[i]

Two of these stood out preëminently: the Court-Library of the Princes of Fürstenberg in Donaueschingen, which contains the most famous Codex of the Nibelungenlied, and the Library of the Princes – formerly Counts – of Stolberg-Wernigerode, situated in the delightful little town of Wernigerode on the north slope of the Harz Mountains.

The latter is no more. After an existence of almost four centuries, it had reached respectable size of 125,000 volumes, which were generously made accessible to the public. All expenses, however, for accessions and upkeep were borne exclusively by the princes, whose private property the library was. The princes, impoverished by the inflation and subsequent financial reverses, have had to surrender it, and in May 1930, it closed its doors.

Too large to find a single purchaser, it was offered for sale in the parts into which the library had been subdivided, and Harvard acquired the section designated K, containing the “Staats- und Rechtswissenschaften,” which we might translate as political and legal sciences, and comprising some 12,500 volumes and pamphlets. The bulk of this, notably the books on legal subjects, went to the Harvard Law Library, while the remainder (about 2,500 volumes) went to the Harvard College Library, and it is with these books we are concerned.

This number is, of course, but a small fraction of the original library, but it represents a complete cross section and perhaps no section could present a more interesting picture of the activities and interests of a great princely family during the last three and a half centuries.

In order to appreciate fully the character of the books, it is necessary to know something of the history of the Stolbergs, and to this we consequently turn. The Counts of Stolberg trace their origin back to the twelfth century. They were never created counts, but owe their rank to the tenure of the comital office. In 1429, on the death of the last Count of Wernigerode, the Stolberg family inherited his domains, and when later in 1645, the house divided into two branches, the older branch received this county, [ii] and took the name of Stolberg-Wernigerode, while the younger retained the original possessions[iii] and assumed the name of Stolberg-Stolberg. It is to this younger branch that the two brothers Stolberg, who played such and important part in German literature belonged.

As Counts of the Empire, the Stolbergs exercised within their respective domains all the functions of government. They participated in the Imperial Diet, where they sat, to use the technical expression, on the Wetterauische Gafenbank. This meant that, unlike the princes of the Empire, they did not have a separate vote, but that all the counts of each of the four “benches” were entitled to one collective vote.

During the turbulent times of the thirteenth century, the old Counts of Wernigerode had sought protection by becoming the vassals of the Margraves of Brandenburg. The Counts of Stolberg succeeded to this feudal tie, as well as to the County, and when the Hohenzollerns acquired the Mark Brandenburg, they found themselves with rights of suzerainty over the Stolbergs (but only for Wernigerode), which they proceeded to put into operation. After negotiations and repeated treaties in the course of several centuries, the Kings of Prussia, as Margaraves of Brandenburg, finally established their suzerainty, but not their sovereignty. They secured the right of having certain specified appeals go to their courts, but otherwise the Counts enjoyed full regalian rights. The relations of the Counts with the Empire, including the furnishing of twelve foot soldiers and three horsemen, were likewise left unaltered by these arrangements. When, however, in 1803 the famous Reichsdeputationshauptschluss mediatized the Stolberg possessions, Wernigerode was assigned to Prussia, where it has remained ever since, except of r the period from 1807 to 1813, when the “Comté de Stolberg” was incorporated by Napoleon into the Kingdom of Westphalia. After the Congress of Vienna, those parts of the Stolberg possessions which had accrued to the family form the inheritance of the Counts of Königstein-Eppstein, were assigned to Hesse, and it was for these possession that the Counts sat as hereditary members in the First Chamber of the Diet of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. The several treaties between the Counts and the Crown of Prussia, however, were still considered to be valid after the Counts had lost their sovereignty, and within the kingdom of Prussia, the Stolberg Counties occupied a rather peculiar position.[iv]

Thus in the administrative district designated the Regierungsbezirk Magdeburg, there were fifteen subdivisions; fourteen were designated as circles, under a Prussian Landrat, while the fifteenth was the County of Wernigerode, under an official bearing the title “Gräflich stolbergischer Regierungs-und Polizei-Rat.” The government of the County was organized quite differently than the other circles, and even corresponding officials often bore (apart from the designation Comital) quite different titles. This rather picturesque survival came to an end in 1876 with the reorganization of the provincial government. By virtue of the treaty of 1717, however, ecclesiastical and school matters remained in the hands of the comital authorities. The events of 1918 and 1919 failed to touch the designation “Grafschaft” applied to the County, as a circle, or the attribute Princely Stolberg-Wernigerodian applied to the mining office which exercises the same functions over the mines in the Counties of Wernigerode and Hohenstein, as to the Prussian mining office in their districts.[v]

With the constitution of parliaments in the different German states, the Counts of Stolberg became hereditary members of the upper houses in Prussia, Hesse, and Hanover[vi], but quite apart from this ex-officio participation in public life, they took a most active part in public affairs, notably in Prussia. Thus Count Eberhard was for a long time president of the Prussian House of Lords, and also member of the Reichstag. Otto (d. 1896), his son, was the first Oberpräsident of the Province of Hanover, Ambassador, Vice Chancellor of the Empire, and Minister of the Royal Household. Otto was also instrumental in restoring to the different branches of the family the title of Prince, as in 1742 and the Count of Stolberg-Gedern had been created a Prince of the Empire, the rank to apply also to the other branches of the Stolbergs. The Princes of Gedern died out in 1804, and their lands reverted to the Wernigerode branch, but as they had been mediatized the year before, they never really succeeded to the rank of a Prince of the Empire. In 1890, the Prussian crown gave its assent to the resumption of the title of Prince, and from thence on the library was known as the “Fürstlich Stolbergische Bibliothek.”

It is against this background that we must consider the collection, and with these facts in mind that we must appraise it. The Harvard Library has acquired various collections of books in that size amount to many times that of this part of the Stolberg Library and in value many times its worth. Even as an aid to scholarship collections of thousands of items on a narrowly circumscribed subject might take precedence. It would be hard to find, on the other hand, a collection equal to the Stolberg one in historic interest, or one showing better the changing needs of a ruling family over a period of centuries. It is one thing to find in a collection an incunabulum when we know perfectly well that it was added because the owner had an astute dealer, an ample cheque book, and the desire to own an incunabulum. It is an entirely different matter to know that the Count bought a Corpus Juris in the sixteenth century when an “incunabulum” was an unknown thing, when books of the fifteenth century were purchased just as we now purchase those printed in the nineteenth, and, finally, because as a ruler he needed a copy of the fundamental law book. The keynote of the collection is need: the books were purchased because of their need to the owner, because of an interest in certain matters, because in the case of later books, of the official position of some member of the family, in fact for ever reason short of that which actuates the “collector.” Thus when we puck up the little handbook on law, the title page of which is here reproduced, we feel at once that it is no curious item picked up but a few years ago, but that it was purchased by the Count as the “Standesperson,” he being one of the Estates of the Empire, or possibly for use by one of his sons at the university, in those days when the sons of counts did not sit with the rest of the class, but on a bench by themselves, and were addressed at the beginning of the lecture by the Professor especially and separately from the rest. We have the same feeling in the case of the little book on the revenues of a prince, which discusses to what extent the production of gold by means of alchemy was a problem of import to a ruler.

If we now turn to the books themselves, the earlier ones are interesting especially as showing the growth of the Library. The oldest part of it that we can definitely identify is composed of several hundred books (including several manuscripts from secularized monasteries[vii]) collected by Count Wolfgang Ernst, who died in 1606. All these are stamped on the outside of the cover with his monogram W(olfgang) E(rnst) G(raf) z(u) S(tolberg) and in most cases with the date of accession. Some books have the arms of the Count, surmounted by a ribbon bearing the inscription “WEGZSKRVW” (Wolfgang Ernst, Graf zu Stolberg, Königstein, Rochefort Vnd Wernigerode), likewise embossed in black below the shorter monogram.

This practice of indicating the date of accession was unfortunately not followed by any of the Count’s successors, so that except for the rather marked characteristics of the books acquired under Christian Ernst, who died in 1771, and the change of the inscription on the book stamp from “Gräflich” to Fürstlich”, which must have come directly after the assumption of the princely title in 1890, we have no indication when the books were added to the Library.

The “great period” of the Stolberg Library was during the reign of Christian Ernst who died an octogenarian in 1771, after having ruled since 1710. Ably assisted by his consort, Sophie Charlotte, of the comital house of Leiningen-Westerburg, he proved a veritable Maeccenas. The fact that the press of Struck, one of the most eminent printers of his time, was established as Wernigerode had an important influence on the further history of the Library.[viii]

Count Christian Ernst again took up residence in the castle of Wernigerode, and had the books collected by his predecessors removed thither from the Church of St. Sylvester where they had kept. Then began the building up of the collection. The publication in Wernigerode of a hymn book, superintended by the Count himself, was the reason for far-reaching investigations as to the authorship of the hymns, which meant the acquiring of a large number of books on the subject. During the reign of Christian Ernst the Bible was printed no less than eight times at Wernigerode, and it is not at all surprising that the Count took to collecting them. In eleven years the number of Bibles in the Library rose from 905 to 11,714, and three times printed catalogues were issued to assist dealers in securing further editions. No less activity was shown in the field of Jurisprudence, for the most important bibliographical work for the time: Lipenius, Bibliotheca Juridica (now in the Harvard Law Library) still contains the check marks of the Count, to indicate what he had, and lacked. To increase his collection he personally carried on a wide-spread correspondence, and in fact it can be said that up to his sixtieth year Christian Ernst was his own librarian, and even after that the functions of his librarians were limited to merely mechanical matters.

The greatest day for the Library was undoubtedly the 15th of January, 1746, when the Count issued an edict making the collection (then some 10,000 volumes) a public one. The Library was to be opened from 1 to 3 on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but strangers and travelers passing through, if they did not have the time to wait, could be admitted at any time by applying to the Librarian, or to one of the Count’s servants. The catalogues were open to inspection, and books could be used in the Library, and also taken out in certain carefully specified cases.

The great interest which Christian Ernst took in the Library is shown by the fact that after ten year, in 1721, he had a book-plate made, and placed in all the books, including those acquired by his predecessors. It is the only book-plate every used, and not until the nineteenth century were any marks of ownership used again. At that time, all books, even those with the book-plate, were stamped on the title page with a small armorial rubber stamp, with the inscription: “Gräfl. Stolbergische Bibliothek zu Wernigerode.”

The books acquired under Christian Ernst are, for the most part in white parchment bindings and on the backs the Count himself has written the year of publication. In the case of purchases there is the inscription “constat”, followed by the price. In two-volume works the first volume has the inscription “constat com tomo secundo” with the price, and in the second volume we read “quid constet, vide Tom. I.” A fact particularly worth noting is that where a number of small works were bound together, a detailed list of them, in the handwriting of the Count, appears on the inside cover. An indication of the fame of the Library is found in the dedication inscribed in the copy of Baluzius, Capitularia Regum Francorum, Paris 1677, by Friedrich Magnus, Count of Solms, to his “Avunclus clementissimus,” offering it “in qualerumque augmentum Bibliothecae sat locupletis.” Von Slechow, author of the Elementa Antiquitatum Iuris Romani, inscribed his presentation copy with an elaborate dedication which follows the form of the printed ones of the time. Selchow actually dedicated the book to Gerlach Adolf, Liber Baro de Münchhausen.[ix] The book having the wonderful folio book-plate of Duke Ulrich of Mecklemburg seems to have come to Christian Ernst through an inheritance, as the Count’s mother was a Mecklemburg princess. Certain books have the book-plates of previous owners, besides that of Christian Ernst, but their provenience is not specially clear.

For a second time, the Library flourished under Count Heinrich (1824-1854) who moved the Library from its now cramped quarters in the castle to the Orangerie, built, by strange coincidence, by Christian Ernst. At that time the Library amounted to 38,000 volumes, and during the next decades several important acquisitions were made, including the library of the historian Delius, whose books still bear his signature on the fly leaf. Delius was an interesting man. He was a native of Wernigerode, descended most probably from the other Wernigerodians of that name who had made their mark as scholars. Already as a schoolboy he copied and collected inscriptions on buildings and after finishing his studies entered the service of the Counts, as Archivist. No ever so flattering offer could lure him from Wernigerode, and at his death he had held the highest office in the gift of the Counts. He accompanied a member of the Stolberg family to the Congress of Vienna, and was one of the most important figures in the negotiations in 1822 between the Counts and the Prussian Crown. Since the basis for the relations between the Counts and Prussia rested upon the previous feudal nexus, we might well assume that the presence of the man books on feudal law, especially those of a latter date, was due to no mere academic interest in that subject. The change in the character of the Library is well indicated by the fact that Count Heinrich bequeathed to it his personal library of 5000 volumes[x] which shows to what an extend it had become a public institution. This did not mean that the Counts failed to take and active interest in it, for in 1857 Botho acquired for the Library the collection of 16,000 volumes made by Zeisberg, who had been Librarian at Wernigerode. The collection had attracted dealers from all over the country, but through the efforts of Count Botho was retained in Wernigerode.

The nest important librarian was Förstemann, the author of the monumental “Altdeustsches Namenbuch”. Although at the same time teacher in the Gymnasium, he devoted his chief energies to the Library. He drew up the classification which was used from that time on, rearranged the books, moving the 50,000 volumes for the most part himself, and compiled new catalogues. When, in 1865, he accepted the call to become Librarian of the Royal Library in Dresden, the Stolberg Library amounted to 68,000 volumes. Förstemann has left us an account of the Library, and its history, to which he has added the outlines of the classification which he introduced.

Since the days of Förstemann, the Library has practically doubled in size. The books of this later period were derived from two main sources: on the one hand there were the purchases of standard works, made possible by the increased appropriations of the Princes, and on the other hand the library received the many books on contemporary questions and official publications which a man high in public life would naturally accumulate, but which only too often he would not be able to preserve.

The German attitude towards parliamentary publications is far different from that in this country, hence collections are much rarer. While the Harvard Library through the generosity of the German Government had, years ago, secured the documents of the Reichstag sessions, there were great gaps in the series of the Prussian Landtag documents. These gaps have now been filled from the Stolberg books, seeing that they had a complete set, because of their membership from the very beginning of the Landtag. Membership again explains the presence of the parliamentary documents of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, as well as of the Prussian Province of Saxony. During a large part of the nineteenth century, the Counts were members of the Estates of the Kingdom of Hanover, and consequently we find some thirty volumes of parliamentary reports of that kingdom, which could be duplicated only by a miracle. We find also short runs of parliamentary reports of other German states for the early nineteenth century. Publications issuing from the administrative branch of the Government are unfortunately very poorly represented, there being practically only the “Gesetz-Sammlung für die Kgl. Preussischen Staaten”, from 1806 on.[xi]

The joy of the historian, however, is the registers. There are a few editions of the Register of the “Perpetual Diet” at Regensburg, as well as of the Ecclesiastical principalities of the eighteenth century. The most ample set is, of course, that of Prussia[xii], for the earlier relations between the Counts and Prussia are doubtlessly responsible for the earlier volumes from 1796 on. The later volumes of this “Hanbuch über den kgl. preussischen Hof und Staat”, differed from the copies already in the Harvard College Library by the heavier paper, and the official binding, which leads one to believe that these copies were perquisites of office. There are just a few gaps which have been filled by the more work-day copies which were used by the government offices in Wernigerode. They bear the stamp “Fürstl. Kammer Bibliothek Wernigerode”, Kammer being the name of the governmental and administrative offices of the mediatized nobility corresponding to the ministry of the reigning families. The term is a curious survival from the eighteenth century when it was applied to practically all government offices, and the “Polizey-und Finanzwissenschaften” with which the holder of an administrative office had to be conversant, were called “Cameralia”. Since the science of state finance, or “political” economy, was the most important one of the subjects that came under the heading of Cameralia, we find here all the books on economics.

To return to the Registers. The second large set is that of the Kingdom of Hanover, which from 1824 to 1866 is fairly complete. Among the few earlier ones is that for 1776 which bears the designation “Königl.gross-Britannisch- und Churfürstl. Braunschweig-lüneburgischer Staats-Kalender”, and incidentally came from the library of Delius. Some books on the organization and administration of the court of this vanished kingdom will certainly interest the curious.

A dismal period of German history is documented by the issues of the “Königlich Westphälischer Hof- und Staats-Kalender” in which there appears among the estates of the Kingdom the “Hereditary Count of Stolberg Wernigerode (Saale Department) Knight of the Order of the Westphalian Crown”. This same period is responsible for the presence of the German edition of the Code Napoleon, printed in Göttingen, and other books connected with its introduction. Again, actual need must have been the reason for these acquisitions. The dominating position of Napoleon is shown by the presence of a number of volumes of the Almanach Impérial.

How the Dutch “Almanach de la Cour” of 1816 came into the Library is not indicated, but it reminds us of the fact that Stolberg blood flows in the veins of the royal family of the Netherlands, and the present heir to the throne, Princess Juliana, bears the name of her ancestress, Juliana von Stolberg, mother of William the Silent.

Exceptionally large is the number of books which is some way or other, often by their mere presence, tell some story of the County or its rulers. The reason for the large body of books on feudal law has been explained, and we can assume that the right of Prussia to hear appeals had fully as much to do with the acquiring of the works of Cocceji, Grand Chancellor of Frederick the Great, as had the fame of him eminent jurist. The creation in 1800, of an entail for the cadets of the Family, and the importance of this legal arrangement for the mediatized nobility of the nineteenth century, account for the numerous books on this subject. From a presentation copy we learn that Prince Otto was president of a society interested in rural welfare and farm relief, and the small collection on this problem was most probably turned over to the Library when the activities of the Prince ended. Many of the books on questions of contemporary interest bear a note “Geschenk Sr. Durchlaucht des Fürsten.”

The eighteenth century books on economics are much more than treatises on theories long given up. They are contributions to the social history of the time and throw light, likewise, on the political history of the Stolberg Family. In order to increase their power, the Counts sought repeatedly to purchase new territory, and consequently found themselves in financial difficulties. We cannot help smiling at the tempting title of one little tract “Geprüfte Gold Grube der Universal Accise” which Christian Ernst had bound up with a number of other treatises on financial questions, including one on the advantages of lotteries. Let us hope that the Count found these schemes the “gold mine” which he might have hoped when he labeled the whole volume “Geprüfte Gold-Grube in der Accise.” Those interested in transportation will welcome the old time tables of the mail coaches or of early railroads, and the little postal handbooks of the late nineteenth century.

Students in sociology will find much of interest in the reports of charitable institutions in the eighteenth century. It must have been to find some solution to a problem that vexed the Counts that they acquired the little book entitled: “Wie versorgt ein kleiner Staat am besten seine Armen und steuert der Betteley?” (1783). Was a copy of this booklet ever in the hands of the man who put an end to beginning in the Electorate of Bavaria, the Reichsgraf con Rumford, a native of Woburn, and benefactor of Harvard College?

An interesting piece of family history is revealed by an inscription on the fly leaf of a copy of a collection of decisions of the Courts of Brabant. The entry was made by a councillor of the Princes of Stolberg-Gedern, while he was at Brussels in the interest of the princes. In 1544, on the death of Count Ludwig II de la Marck (to use the form familiar to the readers of Scott[xiii]) the County of Rochefort had fallen through inheritance to the Stolberg family, although hotly contested by the Counts of Löwenstein-Wertheim. In 1735 the Aulic Court had rendered its decision in favor of the Stolbergs, but it required the intervention of the Emperor to settle the matter definitively. Up to the French Revolution, the Princes of Stolberg-Gedern administered Rochefort, but the revenues were divided among the four branches.

Many other interesting facts could be mentioned, but enough has been said. At the time this is written, the books that are to remain in the Harvard College Library are still together, but soon they will be separated[xiv] and absorbed into the greater Harvard collection. Only an accident will again bring some of these books together, and one is almost led to believe that they will then reminisce of the good old days when they rested side by side in the Church of St. Sylvester in Wernigerode, when they were so fondly handed by Count Christian Ernst, or when they were housed in the Orangerie, and visitors came to marvel at them there. We may truly say of them in the words of the poet, HABENT SUA FATA LIBELLI.

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Notes:

[i] It should be remembered, however, that a certain number of princely libraries have formed the nucleus of the great national ones.

[ii] Prior to 1645 the Stolbergs had acquired in 1535, certain parts of the inheritance of the Counts of Königstein-Eppstein, and in 1593 the County of Hohenstein. These lands were divided among the two branches. Rochefort was acquired in 1544, but its possession was disputed. The County of Rossla was acquired in 1313 and 1341, but always remained with the younger branch.

[iii] There have been four main branches of the Stolberg family: Wernigerode, Gedern, of which more later on, and the two subdivisions of the younger branch, Stolberg-Stolberg and Stolberg-Rossla. Both of these are still flourishing today. The several short-lived subdivisions of earlier day, and the appanages need not concern us.

[iv] The Counties of Stolberg-Stolberg are Stolberg-Rossla were mediatized in 1803 in favor of Saxony, but in 1815 came under Prussian dominion. The Counts enjoy practically the same rights as the Counts of Stolberg-Wernigerode, within their respective domains.

[v] An interesting commentary on the position of the Stolberg family is that in the official “Handbuch der Provinz Sachsen” for 1885 and earlier years, the genealogy of the royal family which heads the book is immediately followed by that of the Stolberg House in its three branches.

[vi] For the County of Hohenstein.

[vii] These were not in the section acquired by Harvard.

[viii] In spite of its small size, Wernigerode was an important publishing center, and the Stolberg Library had a special section of Wernigerode imprints.

[ix] Gerlach Adolf was a kinsman of the famous, or notorious, Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, “the” Baron Münchhausen.

[x] The copy of the “Oekonomisch-belletristischer Taschen-Lalender des Nieder-und Ober-Rheins für dad IX Jahr der Fränkischen Republik und das Jahr 1801 nach Chr. Geb. Strasburg, in der Bucdruckerei des Weltboten,” bears the stamp: HENRICUS COMES IN STOLBERG WERNIGERODE. This book most probably came from the private library of Count Heinrich.

[xi] The original copy from the Stolberg Library was retained by the Law Library.

[xii] In 1932 the Harvard College Library acquired a very complete set of the Army Register (Rang and Quartierliste) of the Prussian Army going back to 1798. The student of history thus has documentary material on the personnel of both the military and the civil service of Prussia which could hardly be found in any other library in this country.

[xiii] Ludwig I, whose mother was heiress of Rochefort, and through whom that county accrued tot he House of de la Marck, was the half-brother of the famous William, the “Wild Boar of the Ardennes.”

[xiv] It is to be hoped that the books will bear a special book-plate proclaiming their provenience, since all books acquired by the Stolberg Library after the time of Christian Ernst are not specially marked. Harvard certainly owes a debt to the many generations of Counts who through their efforts had made possible the addition of so many rare books to the Harvard College Library.

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