Report from my PAMELA Stay at the Stift Klosterneuburg

The PAMELA stay at the Stift Klosterneuburg cannot be reduced to a single topic. The experience unfolds through different layers: the materiality of manuscripts, the craft of manuscript digitization, the investigation of hidden voices, and the host research community that made this experience possible.

Manuscripts and the Digitization Process

Of the 1256 manuscripts preserved by the library, about 250 have been fully digitized and are available online at manuscripta.at. Many are still undergoing review and editing processes before being made available to users. The manuscripts available online span a variety of periods and subjects. Some of them are associated with the Klosterneuburg canonesses, whose convent was dissolved in 1568 and whose study has been the subject of recent relevant research. Some of them especially appealed to my interest and this is for the broader historical significance they embody. They show how enclosure was, in practice, relative rather than absolute and nuns as other contemporary examples do (e.g., Nürnberg, Lüneburg) continued to maintain contact with secular affairs within and outside the convent walls on different levels (Deichstetter–Miesgang, 2024, 119–146; Rückert–Kehnel, 2024, 147–170):

Among the manuscripts that have not yet been digitized is Cod. 419, whose digitization I had the opportunity to contribute to under Edith Kapeler’s and Christina Jackel’s guidance. This experience gave me first-hand insight into the effort such a process requires: technical expertise, sustained concentration, careful handling of the manuscript itself, as well as considerable time. The image below shows the opening of a sermon “Catherina” possibly attributable to Nicolaus de Dinkelsbühl. This is the point where I paused before continuing with the digitization of the remaining 350 verso folios.

Searching for Hidden Voices

If we search for the name of women authors amongst the 885 entries included in the Klosterneuburg monastery library’s catalogue of incunabula compiled by Oskar Vinzenz Ludwig in 1920 we will find ourselves disappointed. The only entry included is a copy edition of Cassandra Fedele’s Oracio pro Bertucio Lamberto, which, however, is no longer present in the monastery library, as it has been sold along with other 48 incunable exemplars.

The Nürnberg edition (1489) once owned by the library supposedly opened with a woodcut similar to that below depicting Cassandra delivering a speech before the academic senate in Padua in 1487 on the occasion of her cousin Bertucio Lamberti’s graduation ceremony. This image may have been one of the factors that piqued the purchaser’s interest, alongside the celebrity status Cassandra enjoyed throughout Europe at that time.

Even if Cassandra Fedele’s example could not yield positive results, this did not render the anticipated line of inquiry invalid. The catalogue opens up various promising avenues of research that give a hearing to hidden women’s voices or narratives related to them, as preserved and shaped through literary constructions. The library holds, for example, an incunabulum copy of Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris (C. t. 817), a text that widely circulated in Europe during the 15th century where women’s lives are narrated via a collection of biographies. The fact that the book transmits a printed edition of the De mulieribus claris is also highlighted by a handwritten note drawing attention to its content (Cf. Battista, Women’s Textualities in the Age of Incunabula, forthcoming). Although the copy held by the library corresponds to the Husner edition which lacks woodcuts (whereas editions of this text circulating in the 15th century usually featured them), the copy was prepared to accommodate hand-decorated initials. This decorative project was, however, never initiated for reasons that remain unknown (as confirmed also by Maria-Anna Schoderböck and Stella Federspiel, Stiftsbibliothek Klosterneuburg).

This early printed book forms part of Klosterneuburg monastery library’s current holdings and is also linked to its history from as early as the late medieval period. In fact it was owned by a certain canon, Leopold Maydl (d. 1521?), who was a member of the Klosterneuburg Augustinian canonry (Ludwig, 1920, 39, 242; Pfeiffer–Černík, 1931, vol. 2, 38–41) and owned also several manuscript books, some of them directly associated with the history of Klosterneuburg monastery library at least from the 17th century (e.g. Cod. 429; Cod. 474; Cod. 278; Cod. 300; for their description see Edit Anna Lukács et al., manuscripta.at).

The incunabula section of Klosterneuburg’s library preserves also several early print editions of Ovid’s Heroides, a collection of fictional letters that speak in the voice of mythological heroines. The editions held by the library are, in most cases, accompanied by Antonio Volsco’s commentary, whose editio princeps in 1481 was followed by more than 35 reprint editions during the 15th century. The Klosterneuburg exemplar C.t. 504 presents the heroines’ letters within the commentarial framework by Antonio Volsco and Ubertino Clerico da Crescentino. In the works of the two humanists, the letters constitute a scholarly compendium of mythological, historical and geographical material, accompanied by textual notes, conjectures and variants. At the same time, they offer a chance to explore psychology and emotions. It is interesting how an anonymous reader annotating C.t. 504 engages with this matter. For instance, in the letter addressed by Penelope to Ulysses (Heroid. 1), the annotator handwrites a note in the top margin, taken from the letter itself, which the reader probably considered particularly important: crimen hoc tenues vanescat in auras / uxor tantum lanas non sinit esse rudes.

Penelope expresses her fear that Odysseus, whilst away from home, describes her as an unrefined wife devoted solely to her weaving. Immediately afterward, however, she hopes that this fear is unfounded. Indeed, her fear remains an unsubstantiated suspicion, which, as another marginal annotation points out, is articulated through the rhetorical device of presumptio, whereby a potential accusation or situation is anticipated before it actually occurs in order to rhetorically manage it.

Interestingly, the Heroides cum commentario Volsci et Ubertini (C.t.504) is bound together with two other incunabula (C.t. 444; C.t. 441) whose rebounding process must have had some consequences, given that one of them (C.t. 441), split in two parts, had some parts removed (Metamorphoses; Amores; Ars amandi; Remedia amoris; Heroides; Sappho ad Phaonen), and some pages lost. However, the lost pages have been restored by handwriting, whenever possible, as in the case of the incipit of the In Ibin:

As the spine of their cover shows, the three books are linked by the same content (P. Ovidii Nasonis Opera), perhaps in origin under a common OLIM signature (?) 92 (hopefully, Kapeller and Jackel will provide a conclusive response on this matter at a later stage).

Two of the three bound books also share the same provenance (C.t. 504 and C.t. 444) linked once again to Klosterneuburg library during the 15th century. Furthermore, traces of the chain attachment that prevented theft seem to be visible on one of these (C.t. 444) and if further verification by Klosterneuburg’s research team will confirm this, one may speculate that this book once may have been part of the Klosterneuburg chain library, the remnants of which are still preserved today in some of Klosterneuburg’s books (Kapeller–Jackel, 2025, 25–26). However, as the book is lacking its original binding and has undergone a rebinding process, it is not possible to draw any firm conclusions about endpapers or last folios, where usually rust stains are found.

There are other letters in the incunabula section of the library that speak with women’s voices, including those contained within a manual of ars epistolandi by Franciscus Niger, which taught how to write letters by providing exemplary letters that were used as rhetorical models. Even if the letters were never sent, they however reflected the cultural expectations of the time. The letters contained in the manual are rubricated and feature decorative initials. Various types of letters are included here, with the focus on women and epistolary communication being on the love type.

The exemplary letters, however, were not so important in the monastery’s reading environment as the text from Niccolò Perotti’s Rudimenta grammatices, with which Niger’s ars epistolandi is bound together. Perottus is written four times on the parts of the book directly exposed to the reader: on the spine, on the top edge, and twice on the fore edge, with the latter inscribed in opposite directions so that the book must be turned to read both the inscriptions:

This volume, which is preserved in its historical cover (a fact not irrelevant given that most books, manuscripts and early prints, held today by Klosterneuburg’s monastery library were rebound in modern times by using 19th-century covers), was possibly formerly in the possession of the librarian of Klosterneuburg in the 15th century (Ludwig 1920, 147). Perhaps it was of particular importance to the monastery’s users, and such it has been easy to locate. From a 20th-century purchaser’s perspective, however, even greater importance was placed on the third incunabulum with which Perottus’ grammar and Niger’s epistolary manual were bound together. Unlike the other two works, Lescher’s Rhetorica pro conficiendis epistolis was removed from the composite volume and sold as a separate item.

A Living Research Community

As my report has shown, the Stift Klosterneuburg provided me different opportunities for research and scholarly development. It was also a place of warmth and hospitality. Visiting researchers, students, and guests were all received with genuine openness. I particularly appreciated the sense of community created through shared moments, as well as the opportunity to participate in the monastery’s many cultural (including the guided exhibition on maps or the Bücherabende) and research activities. The monastery’s staff made research feel not only productive but also genuinely enriching on a human level. Below is a picture of the Klosterneuburg monastery’s garden. It was one of my favourite spots during my lunch breaks sometimes accompanied by other colleagues – a quiet corner that offered a welcome pause between hours spent in the library and the next stage of my research.

Reference List

• Deichstetter, Sarah, Sabine Miesgang. 2024. “Die Augustiner-Chorfrauen von Klosterneuburg. Ein Forschungsüberblick zur Geschichte und dem Wirtschafts- und Rechnungswesen von 1445 bis 1533.” In The Ladies on the Hill. The Female Monastic Communities at the Aristocratic Monasteries of Klosterneuburg and St. Georgs’s in Prague, edited by Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Eva Schlotheuber, FoKuS Kloster, vol. 2, pp. 119–146. Böhlau Verlag.
• Kapeller, Edith, Christina Jackel. 2025. “Counted Books. Tracing Shelfmarks in Manuscripts and Early Prints of Klosterneuburg Abbey Library.” In Knowledge and Order. Monastic Learning and the Quadrivium, edited by Michaela Wiesinger, pp. 13–30. Böhlau Verlag.
• Ludwig, Oskar Vinzenz. 1920. “Die Klosterneuburger Inkunabeln.” Jahrbuch des Stiftes Klosterneuburg 8,2.
• Pfeiffer Hermann, Berthold Černík. 1931. Catalogus codicum manu scriptorum, qui in bibliotheca canonicorum regularium s. Augustini Claustroneoburgi asservantur, 2 vol. (vol. 2: Cod. 261–452). Augustinus Druckerei, Stift Klosterneuburg.
• Rückert, Maria Magdalena, Annette Kehnel. 2024. “Die Rechnungsführung der Augustiner-Chorfrauen von Klosterneuburg im 15. Jahrhundert.” In The Ladies on the Hill. The Female Monastic Communities at the Aristocratic Monasteries of Klosterneuburg and St. Georgs’s in Prague, edited by Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Eva Schlotheuber, FoKuS Kloster, vol. 2, pp. 147–170. Böhlau Verlag.