Cataloging is complete for the collection of the Universitätsbibliothek Rostock in northeastern Germany, microfilmed by HMML in 1998. Out of the 527 manuscripts, just over three quarters are written in Latin and around a third are written or partially written in German, Low German, and Dutch. Sixteen manuscripts written in Hebrew, Arabic, Arabic Garshuni, Syriac, Persian, Turkish, and Aramaic were cataloged by Dr. Joshua Mugler. The majority of the manuscripts date between the years 1300 CE and 1600 CE. The earliest manuscript is a 9th-century fragment of the Bible, and the latest texts include 17th-century historical chronicles of Hanseatic cities in northern Germany.

It is remarkable to find Low German texts from the medieval period that have been preserved. The Christian presence in the region around Rostock was relatively late and sparse, giving monasteries less time to build up their libraries. The rise of the Protestant Reformation, which had a stronger foothold in northern Germany, led to the destruction or relocation of the monasteries’ manuscripts, so that Low German texts are rare. Nonetheless, the collection at the Universitätsbibliothek Rostock features manuscripts from former monasteries, including the Franciscan Sankt Katharine and the Dominican Sankt Johannis. The collection contains manuscripts from privately owned libraries donated to the university, most notably that of Johann Albrecht I, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who was a patron of humanistic learning. Rostock also boasts a substantial body of early modern manuscripts and incunables, as well as ones pertaining to the Protestant Reformation, notably an autograph by Martin Luther that he was preparing for print in 1530 while exiled from the Holy Roman Empire (49045). The university library of Rostock offers some online facsimiles and a highly researched catalog, yet many of the manuscripts remain inaccessible; by digitizing this catalog in Reading Room, HMML presents a more comprehensive overview of the collection’s contents, allowing scholars to locate the more obscure texts in the collection. View now