“The next stop was Kremsmünster Abbey. When I arrived, the porter immediately told me that the abbot wanted to speak to me on the phone, whereupon I was set for the next treat of bad news. But his first words on the phone were: Willkommen in Kremsmünster.  Sie werden in Kremsmünster anfangen (“Welcome to Kremsmünster. You will begin your work here”). Brother, what a day that was for me, to hear such good news with my own ears.”

Father Oliver Kapsner, OSB; from: A Sense of Place II (Collegeville, MN, 1990)

When Abbot Albert Bruckmayr, OSB, gave Father Oliver permission to microfilm the medieval manuscripts at Kremsmünster Abbey in late 1964, he could not have imagined the monumental accomplishments that would result. HMML’s preservation work with manuscripts had steadily grown and moved into new areas in the subsequent six decades. At Kremsmünster, a Benedictine Abbey dating back to the eighth century, Father Oliver’s team had to start their photographic work from scratch. In the process, they preserved 433 codex manuscripts and about 67 manuscript fragments dating from the eighth to the 17th centuries, whose descriptions are now available in vHMML/Reading Room.

The first manuscript filmed, Codex Cremifanensis 1 (View now ), contains over 30 texts and serves as a nice example of how complicated manuscript books can be. The Kremsmünster manuscripts represent a broad range of monastic texts on hagiography, liturgy, Biblical studies, theology, philosophy, canon law, and other fields. Before long, Father Oliver’s team was working at several other Austrian abbeys and monasteries, with support from Kremsmünster’s librarian.