Metadata for 694 volumes of the Archives of the Order of Malta, Series 16, of the National Library of Malta have been added to vHMML Reading Room. Series 16 includes documents pertaining to the activities and administration of the Langue of Italy of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta related to the foundation, estimation, measurement, and survey procedures of territories, properties, and goods located in the Italian Priories (Barletta, Capua, Lombardy, Messina, Pisa, Rome, and Venice). Records are land surveys (cabrei or platee), improvements (visite di miglioramento), prioral visits (visite priorali), and visite generali (general visits) and include lists of properties, drawings, maps, notarial records, and legal documents from the Order of Saint John and the local institutions involved dated from 15th to 18th century. View now

17 volumes of the Tribunal Debitorum Religiosorum fonds at the National Archives of Malta have been added to vHMML. The Tribunal Debitorum Religiosorum was instituted by Grand Master Emanuel de Rohan Polduc specifically to deal with cases related to debts with or against the knights of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. Records date from 1776-1798. View now

160 manuscripts from the L'viv Historical Museum from L'viv, Ukraine, have been added to vHMML. The collection contains a rich collection of Bibles, liturgical books, and theological treatises in Church Slavonic, Polish, and Ukrainian and a few other languages. View now

23 volumes of the Officium Bullae Sanctissimae Crociatae fonds at the National Archives of Malta have been added to vHMML. Records pertaining to the administration of the Bull of Crusade (Bolla della Crociata) managed by the prior of the Conventual Church of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta. Records include general ledgers, cash books, brogliardi (registers), letters patent, and loose papers. View now

Metadata for 176 volumes of Collection Treasury A (16th-19th century) at the National Library of Malta have been added to vHMML Reading Room. The collection is divided into two series: Archives of the Order of Saint John and Archives of the Università of Mdina and Università of Valletta, Vittoriosa, and Senglea. Documents once belonged to different archives and concern the activity of the Treasury (Tesoro or Comun Tesoro), the Assembly of Conventual Chaplains, the Congregation of War, the Secrecy  (Secrezia, Segrezia, or Officium Magisterialis Secretiae), and the foundations (fondazioni) of the Order of Saint John and its members. Records also concern the Jesuit College, the Monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene, the Santo Spirito Hospital, and the Universitates of Mdina and Valletta. Records were probably gathered and reused for administrative purposes by the Commission for national assets (Commissione dei domini nazionali) established by the French and later by the British government in Malta. View now

Metadata for 309 volumes of Treasury B of the National Library of Malta have been added to vHMML Reading Room. Treasury B includes documents mostly pertaining to the activity of the Administration of Public Property (Amministrazione dei beni pubblici) of the British government in Malta. The property was subdivided into urban property (beni urbani), rural property (beni rustici), and property related to the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem absorbed by the British government, including foundations and hospitals. View now

The Medieval Academy of America has awared the 2020 Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize for our digital platform vHMML.org. Projects leads Dr. Daniel K. Gullo, Joseph S. Micallef Curator of the Malta Study Center, and Fr. Columba Stewart, Executive Director of HMML represent the team of scholars and programmers working on vHMML since its re-imagination and development begun in 2014. https://bit.ly/36kNAJf

281 records from the Archive of the Confraternity of Charity in Valletta, Malta, have been added to vHMML Reading Room. The Confraternity of Charity was founded in 1610, and is associated with the Church of Saint Paul's Shipwreck Church in Valletta. Records within the archives detail the confraternity's activities, including local ministry to the poor, financial support for those who could not bury their dead, marriage dowries for the poor, the ransoming of slaves, endowments to support charity, and the construction of oratories and patronage of art works of Catholic devotion. View now

The collection from the archepiscopal archive in Freiburg includes several manuscripts from the Dominican convent at Adelhausen (Freiburg), which closed in the 19th century. Adelhausen had been formed by the merger of four women’s houses in the 17th century. These 40 manuscripts include several liturgical books (Psalters, Breviaries, Missals) and devotional works (Books of Hours).

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In the 1980s, HMML filmed over 90 manuscripts and fragments from the Archiv der Stadt Freiburg im Breisgau (one of several collections filmed in Freiburg). These manuscripts include historical works, a Passion Play from 1599 and several liturgical books (processionals)—chiefly from houses for Dominican nuns.

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Christian Benjamin Klein (1754-1825) was an organist and cantor from Silesia (today part of Poland). During his career he collection more than 500 manuscripts and printed works of music from 17th-, 18th- and early 19th-century composers. The king of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm III, gave this collection to the University of Bonn in 1829, where it was kept at the Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar (where HMML filmed it in the early 1980s). Today this collection is housed in the University Library at Bonn. Links to the full catalog records in RISM (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales) are also in the vHMML/Reading Room records.

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After World War II, the Franciscan province in Austria decided to collect many of its manuscripts from secularized and abandoned monasteries into one centralized library in Graz (capital city of Styria).  Most of these manuscripts are from the later Middle Ages (14th to 16th centuries) and are representative of Franciscan liturgical practice, as well as works on medicine, history, law and so on. HMML filmed 41 manuscripts at the Zentralbibliothek in the 1960s.

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HMML microfilmed about 400 manuscripts and fragments at the Oberösterreichische Landesbibliothek (under its previous name: Bundesstaatliche Studienbibliothek in Linz) in the early 1970s. The library was founded in 1774 in the course of papal suppression of the Jesuits and monastic reforms of Emperor Joseph II. After many years at the Benedictine monastery of Kremsmünster, the collection was moved to Linz. Founded in 1774 – part of the closure of the Jesuits by the Pope and then through numerous monastery closures by Emperor Joseph II. Housed for many years in Kremsmünster. Significant volumes filmed there include a 12th-century Gospel book, a 14th-century copy of the Christherre-Chronik (with hundreds of miniatures) and a 15th-century Historienbibel (or Biblical paraphrase with additional stories), also highly illustrated. Much of the original collection has been digitized and links to the digital files at the State Library have been provided in the records in vHMML/Reading Room.

The Cistercian house at Wilhering has roots going back to 1146, when an earlier Augustinian foundation was given over to this new order. The monastery is located in Upper Austria, just south of the Danube River and a short distance to the west of the provincial capital Linz. Although the house nearly closed during the Reformation, it was revived by the emperor and survived into modern times. Nearly the entire complex burned down in 1733 and was then rebuilt in Rococo style. HMML filmed close to 150 manuscripts at Wilhering. The earliest is an 11th-century hagiographical collection focusing on Saints Afra and Ulrich. Other early books from the 12th century include works by Bernard of Clairvaux and Alcuin of York.

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Metadata for 520 volumes of Series 6, Treasury, of the Archives of the Order of Malta have been added to vHMML Reading Room. Documents pertaining the activity of the Treasury of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta. The Treasury was the institution/office in charge of managing finances, collecting revenues, administer Hospitaller properties in the central Convent and in Europe, making and supervising expenses for the functioning of the Order. View now

Metadata for 68 volumes of Series 10, Statutes and Ordinances, ca. 1300-ca. 1800, of the Archives of the Order of Malta have been added to vHMML Reading Room. Documents recording statutes, ordinances (ordinationes), rules and regulations issued by the General Chapter of the Order of Saint John. Records also include privileges granted by popes and sovereigns, treaties, summaries, notes, comments, and controversies related to statutes, dignities, privileges, and magistral election. View now

14 volumes of the Curiae Episcopalis et Provicarialis Notabilis Civitatis fonds (CAN) at the the National Archives of Malta added to vHMML Reading Room. Records of civil and criminal proceedings of the episcopal courts of Malta, the Curia Episcopalis Civitatis Notabilis and Curia Provicariales. Records include legal proceedings and trials concerning benefices, renunciations, taxes, property, petitions, donations, marriages, privileges, legal declarations, among other major affairs related to the jurisdiction of the bishop of Malta. View now

Wilten is located on the ancient Roman site Veldidena (hence its name) at the foot of Berg Isel--now within the city limits of Innsbruck but in medieval times outside. Legend ascribes to the giant Haymo the foundation of a Benedictine house here around 870. Sometime before 1138 Bishop Reginbert of Bressanone/Brixen summoned Premonstratensian canons from the Swabian house of Roth to continue where a former collegiate church had been. The new establishment became an abbey in 1250 and was a double monastery till the end of the thirteenth century. Its heyday was perhaps the mid-fifteenth century when Nicolaus of Cusa dreamed of turning it into the center of a new network of reforms. Wilten thrived in the eighteenth century but was suppressed under Bavarian rule 1807-1816 and again under Hitler 1939-1945. Part of the library was carried off by the Bavarians and is now in the Universitätsbibliothek Innsbruck. The present holdings are mainly sermon books of the fifteenth century, many evidently gathered in from parish libraries such as that of Hall in Tirol.

Situated in the Krems valley about SO miles south of Linz, Schlierbach was first founded as a nunnery in 1355 by Count Eberhard V of Wallsee, governor of Upper Austria. The nuns came from the convent of Baindt in Wurttemberg (see the calendar from Baindt in MS 92). The poorly provided convent died out in 1554 as a consequence of the Reformation. Emperor Ferdinand II reestablished Schlierbach with Cistercian monks from Rein in 1620. The monastery has a library of 30,000 books including 176 MSS and 94 incunables. Perhaps the most remarkable MSS are the law books and chronicles which formed part of the rich Enenkel Library, inherited by Schlierbach after the death of the last family member, the humanist Job Hartmann Enenkel (1627). Other outstanding MSS are the 12th to 14th century New Testament (MS 15), the copy of Thomasin von Zerclaere's poem Der Welsche Gast (MS 28), and the architectural papers of Baron Widerraitel (MS 17).

Metadata for 77 manuscripts from the Spogli fonds at the Cathedral Archives of Malta added to vHMML Reading Room. Documents concerning the legacy of deceased members of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta and the administration and judgments of the commissioners of the spoils (commissari degli spogli). Documents include legal records, judicial proceedings, reports, lists of goods, and accounts. The two subseries (proceedings and judgments) in the series may reflect the original organization, and not the modern classification. Related documents once belonged to the same archive in series 6 Treasury at the National Library of Malta. View now