Partly with equity and partly with external funding and in collaboration with external partners the Francke Foundations aim to develop the archive and library holdings by means of numerous projects. The results of these projects are finding aids and catalogues, which are made accessible either in the series »Hallesche Quellenpublikationen und Repertorien« (Halle source publications and repertories) or through this website.
Completed Projects
2020–today
Edition of Johann Crüger's »Praxis Pietatis Medica«
With the two recently published volumes, the DFG-funded edition of »Johann Crüger: Praxis Pietatis Melica«, now comprising six volumes and edited by Dr Hans-Otto Korth and Dr Wolfgang Miersemann, has been completed.
This has opened up one of the most important hymnbooks of the 17th century, which was also important for the emerging pietism. Many of its hymns are among the most familiar today. Johann Crüger (1598-1662) was cantor at the Nikolaikirche in Berlin and can almost be described as the discoverer of Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676), who held one of the pastorates there. The majority of Paul Gerhardt's songs appeared for the first time in the Praxis Pietatis Melica.
sponsored by DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Critical edition and scholarly exploration of letters and journals of Halle pastors in North America 1740-1820
Based at the Francke Foundations was a 6-year research project, funded by the German Research Foundation, titled »Halle pastors, German settlers and Lutheran congregations in North America. Critical edition and scholarly exploration of letters and official journals 1740-1820.« A cooperative consisting of Prof. Dr. Mark Häberlein, Chair of Modern History at the University of Bamberg, Prof. Dr. em. Hermann Wellenreuther (†) , Department of Medieval and Modern History at the University of Göttingen, and Prof. Dr. Thomas Müller-Bahlke, Director of the Francke Foundations, supervises this project. The project funding ended on 31.10.2019. As "work in progress", the eight-volume edition has been published in the series »Hallesche Quellenpublikationen und Repertorien« by the Publishing house of the Francke Foundations til 2023.
Starting from the observation that the study of the history of the Lutheran church in North America during the decades before and after the founding of the United States has thus far been focused on the journals and correspondence of Henry Melchior Mühlenberg (1711-87), this project aimed at transcribing and editing all preserved official letters and journals written by Muhlenberg’s colleagues, that is, all Lutheran pastors dispatched from Halle to Pennsylvania between 1745 and 1786.
Project members:
Dr. Wolfgang Splitter (01.10.2013-31.10.2019)
Markus Berger (01.10.2013-30.09.2016), Jan-Hendrik Evers (01.10.2013-30.09.2016), Katharina Prager (01.11.2014-31.10.2016), Nikolaus Schröder (01.11.2014-31.01.2017), Lara Grünberg (01.03.2017-31.10.2019)
Project duration: 1.11.2013 to 31.10.2019; 2019 to 2023 publication of the volumes
sponsored by DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Digitisation of historical plans, construction and property files
The project aimed to digitise historical plans, construction and property files from the archives of the Francke Foundations.
DetailsDigization of 16th-18th century prints and educational prints in Czech Language in the library of the Francke Foundations
The goal of the project, funded by the state of Saxony-Anhalt, was to digitize 65 Czech-language prints from the 16th to 18th centuries, totaling 25,325 pages, from the holdings of the Library of the Francke Foundations.
The project was developed on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the printing of the Bohemian Bible in Halle, an anniversary that is in a line of tradition with the other major Bible anniversary in the state of Saxony-Anhalt: 500 years of the September Testament in Martin Luther's translation.
August Hermann Francke's endeavor was to provide the oppressed Lutherans in Bohemia and Moravia as well as the exiles in Barby on the Elbe and in Lusatia with books in their native language. Under Francke's co-worker Heinrich Milde (1676-1739), who was responsible for the Eastern European contacts of Halle's orphanage and the care of Bohemian exiles, Halle developed into an important printing house of religious literature in Czech language. An edition of the New Testament appeared as early as 1709. Between 1715 and 1724, further Czech books were then printed, with a total of more than 39,000 copies said to have been printed. The culmination of Milde's publishing activity was the printing of the Czech Bible in 1722, modeled on the Kralice Bible of 1613. Copies were secretly distributed in Bohemia and Moravia and even reached the Baltic States and Russia.
In addition, Milde himself collected books in Czech, which he had acquired on his travels in Bohemia or had received as gifts from the Bohemian exiles. Milde had a habit of writing notes in his books. Thus we learn with whom he was in contact, whom he met on his travels through Bohemia, what books exiled Bohemians from Barby gave him, and much more. In this respect, these handwritten notes make each print unique.
The Czech books printed in Halle and the books from Milde's possession are in the Library of the Francke Foundations and represent a unique corpus of sources on Bohemian history and emigration. These prints were digitized and made accessible worldwide in the Digital Collections of the Study Center. These are ten prints published in Halle in the 18th century and 55 books in Czech language from the 16th-18th centuries from Heinrich Milde's private library, which he bequeathed in his will to the library of the orphanage, now the Library of the Francke Foundations.
Project management: Dr. Britta Klosterberg
Research Assistant: Sabrina Mögelin
Library project support: Anke Mies
Project duration: 01.07.2022–31.012.2022
Digitisation and indexing of unique and rare prints of the 18th century within the project »Directory of 18th Century Prints Published in the German Language Area (VD 18)«
The project »Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 18. Jahrhunderts (VD 18)« (Directory of 18th Century Prints Published in the German Language Area), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), aims to record, index and digitise all prints published in the German language area as well as all prints in the German language, regardless of their place of publication.
Since the start of the project in 2009, the University and State Library of Saxony-Anhalt (ULB) has been one of the leading libraries in Germany in the realisation of this national project. The funding phase, which runs from 2019 to 2021, had now been set up by the ULB for the first time as a cooperative project and included the holdings of two other libraries in Halle, the Marienbibliothek and the Library of the Francke Foundations.
The Library of the Francke Foundations owns about 1,700 unique and rare prints of the 18th century, which were processed in the ULB during the course of the project: This included cataloguing, digitising and structuring the digital images. The digital copies and metadata are presented both as separate entries within the collection »Alte Drucke« in the Digital Collections of the Study Centre August Hermann Francke and in the Share_it Repository of the ULB.
The metadata and digital representations were continuously added to and presented in the Digital Collections of the Study Centre over the course of the project.
To mark the occasion of the project, the Francke Foundations, in cooperation with the Saxony-Anhalt University and State Library, presented the special exhibition »Invitation to the 18th Century. Experiencing book worlds digitally« at the Historisches Waisenhaus from 18 November 2021 to 13 February 2022. The exhibition explained the project, visualized the workflow from cataloging to digitization to presentation on the WWW, and showed selected prints of this period from the holdings of the three Halle libraries. The exhibition can also be experienced in an online version.
sponsored by DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Indexing and digitalisation of early modern ego and life documents from the archives of the Francke Foundations
The project, which was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), focused on approximately 1,500 handwritten ego-documents of the early modern period from the archives of the Francke Foundations, which have emerged since the end of the 17th century at the orphanage in Halle in the context of the establishing Pietism, the most important Protestant reform movement since the Reformation. These are, on the one hand, self testimonies of August Hermann Francke, the founder of the Halle orphanage, his colleagues and other contact persons, and, on the other hand, self testimonies that were created in the context of the missionary work of the Hallesch orphanage in India (so-called Danish-Hallesch mission) and the establishment of Lutheran congregations in North America. In the first three-year project phase, approximately 1,500 ego documents were digitised and indexed, and autobiographies, curricula vitae and writing calendars were transcribed and made available in the Digital Collections of the Study Centre.
The project continued from 1 April 2021 to 31 January 2022. In addition to the ego documents, around 460 biographical sources, especially curricula vitae and thanatographies, from the archives of the Francke Foundations from the period 1690 to 1813 were digitised, indexed and in some cases transcribed. A workshop on the project took place from 21 to 23 July 2021.The digitized and indexed sources were successively published in the course of the project in the Digital Collections of the August Hermann Francke Study Centre. The classification "ego/life documents" can be used to narrow down the search to these documents. The sources offer a variety of starting points for research into Halle Pietism in its local, supra-regional and global contexts of interaction, for research into religious practices and group formations as well as autobiographical and biographical writing in the 18th century.
Project head: Dr. Britta Klosterberg
Scientific collaborator: Dr. Karsten Hommel
Student and scientific assistants: David Löblich, Sabrina Mögelin (01.04.2018-30.09.2021), Désirée Schergun (01.04.2018-30.06.2019)
archival project support: Dr. Jürgen Gröschl
Project duration: 01.04.2018–31.01.2022
Edition of journals by Johann Martin Boltzius (1703–1765)
In a joint project with the Georgia Salzburger Society, six diary excerpts from the first Lutheran pastor sent from Halle to Georgia, Johann Martin Boltzius (1703–1765), have been published in a bilingual edition.
DetailsEdition of the letters of Johann Ernst Bergmanns (1755–1824)
In a joint project of the Francke Foundations with the Georgia Salzburger Society, Savannah (Georgia), and Prof. Russel Kleckley, Minneapolis (Minnesota), the letters of Johann Ernst Bergmann (1755–1824), the last Lutheran pastor sent from Halle to Georgia, kept at the Archive of the Francke Foundations were prepared for an English-language edition.
The edition was published in 2022 by Brill, Leiden and Boston. A German-language edition was published by the Francke Foundations in 2024.
Edition of Martin Opitz's Epistle Songs
The poet Martin Opitz (1597–1639) was long considered a trendsetter in early 17th-century poetry. With his epistle songs of 1628, he continued the tradition of Protestant pericope rhymes of the 16th century, but at the same time conveyed a new approach. In 1666, the texts of the song cycle were also included in the Berlin editions of the hymn book PRAXIS PIETATIS MELICA, founded by Johann Crüger, where they remained until 1703.
This edition follows the first edition; subsequent 17th-century sources, including the relevant editions of PRAXIS PIETATIS MELICA, have been taken into account. As a result, not only is a comprehensive list of variants and distributions provided, but some serious shortcomings of the first edition and early distributions are also identified, which were subsequently corrected in the PRAXIS PIETATIS MELICA. The song texts are accompanied by the relevant texts from the Luther Bible in synoptic form, which clearly illustrates Opitz's close adherence to them, his diligence and his own understanding. Furthermore, the melodies of the so-called ‘Geneva Psalter’ of 1662 are included, with which Opitz originally wanted to associate his epistle songs.
2010–2020
Francke–Portal. Building a web-based research platform for August hermann Francke, his printed and unpublished writings
The August Hermann Francke Study Centre with its sections of Library and Archive preserves the majority of printed and unprinted sources as to the founder of the Francke Foundations, the theologian and paedagogue August Hermann Francke (1663-1727). The project aimed to make electronic data collections and catalogues as well as editions, which have been developed in recent years in the August Hermann Francke Study Centre and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Pietism Studies of the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg available on a modular research platform under the provisions of Open Content in a “Francke Portal” on the website of the Study Centre, develop these further and systematically enhanced them with digital copies of printed and unprinted sources. On the digital information and research platform the source and data sets are presented by means of eight interlinked modules: (1) Portraits, (2) Diaries and egodocuments, (3) Diary inserts, (4) Bibliography of writings, (5) Edited writings, sermons and letters, (6) Epistolary, (7) Secondary literature, and (8) Francke’s private library. The Francke Portal will improve the scholarly supply of information about interdisciplinary research on Pietism and virtually all historically oriented disciplines on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and intensify research about August Hermann Francke and Halle Pietism. The Francke portal has been online since 2 June 2014 and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the context of the programme to support outstanding research libraries. The Francke Portal has been developed and enhanced further after the funding of tne DFG.
Project management: Dr. Britta Klosterberg
Scientific collaborator: Dr. Karsten Hommel
Student assistants: Anne Harnisch, Irina Schuchardt; Jürgen Schiller
Project duration: 1.3.2013 bis 28.2.2017
Pietist Communication Networks: Cataloguing Pietist correspondence in the main archive of the francke Foundations and in the University and Research Library Erfurth-Gotha
Halle Pietism generated an almost global echo during the eighteenth century. This was facilitated thanks to well-organised, far reaching communication networks. At their centre lay the exchange of letters between August Hermann Francke, his employees, companions and successors. This 3-year project, funded by the German Research Foundation, entitled “Pietist Communication Networks: Opening up Pietist correspondence in the main archive of the Francke Foundations in Halle and in the University and Research Library Erfurt-Gotha,” assumes the intentions Francke proposed as to the intended general reformation of the world are reflected in these exchanges of letters. The correspondence of Halle Pietism includes the exchanges with academic, church and state institutions in Halle, Berlin and the rest of Prussia as well as the cooperation with partners in other European and non-European nations. It extends from the first generation of Halle Pietists to 1769, the very year Gotthilf August Francke, who had succeeded his father as a director, passed away. Prior to the establishment stage of Pietism and partially accompanying it during its early days we come across exchanges of letters with spiritualist and separatist-minded individuals, in part stemming from Francke’s and his staff’s personal contacts and partly from estates from spiritualist writers collected in Halle and now kept at the main archive of the Francke Foundations. In this respect, the correspondence network portrays the emergence, the establishment and the impact of Halle Pietism, providing an insight into a spectrum of universally oriented subjects. As the Gotha Research Library of the University and Research Library Erfurt-Gotha house a singular collection of letters, documenting the early days of emerging Pietism as well as the establishment phase of Halle Pietism, while decisively supplementing the archival materials in the Halle Archive, the project described the letters kept at the main archive of the Francke Foundations and those kept at the Research Library Gotha dating from between ca. 1660 and 1769 in a combined database, both in form and content.
The description of this correspondence will be beneficial to all historically oriented scholars working on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and can lead to further research issues within the individual disciplines and through interdisciplinary collaboration.
Project management: Dr. Britta Klosterberg
Project supervision: Dr. Jürgen Gröschl
Project members: Dr. Karsten Hommel, Dr. Erika Pabst
Student assistant: Eric Nagel
Project duration: 1 November 2008 – 31 December 2012
Digitisation of unique and rare 16th-century prints from the library of the Francke Foundations
As part of the project, 302 unique and rare 16th-century prints from the library of the Francke Foundations were digitised and processed for presentation in the ‘Digital Collections of the August Hermann Francke Study Centre’. These include 208 prints that are unique in the catalogue of 16th-century prints published in German-speaking countries (VD 16) and 94 prints that were published outside German-speaking countries in the 16th century and are considered rare. After digitisation by a digitisation service provider, the prints were implemented in the ‘Digital Collections of the August Hermann Francke Study Centre’ and subjected to structured data capture for ease of research. The prints from the German-speaking world were also reported to the VD 16 catalogue. This means that these unique and rare items, which are part of the national cultural heritage of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, are now available on the internet to both academics and the interested public, regardless of their location.
Project duration: 1 May to 31 December 2017
Project funding: Saxony-Anhalt State Administration Office
August Hermann Francke's private library. Its reconstruction based on the 1770 aution catalog
Based on the printed 1770 auction catalogue, the book titles included in the private library of August Hermann Francke and his son Gotthilf August Francke have been determined as part and parcel of a project funded by the Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt. They were recorded in a database that has been integrated into the Francke Portal. By means of reconstructing the private library of father and son Francke not only scholars but also interested laymen are presented with an insight into their world of thought, their religious, educational and social interests and world-wide contacts, as reflected in the titles, the languages and the printing sites of the books.
Project leader: Dr. Britta Klosterberg
Project supervision: Anke Mies
Researcher: Dr. Christoph Schmitt-Maaß
Project Duration: 01 July 2012 to 30 September 2013
Bibliography of publications by the orphanage (1698–1785)
The library of the Francke Foundations has a special collection of literature produced by the publishing house of the orphanage bookshop. The publishing house, which was founded in 1698 like the foundations, was associated with the bookshop from the very beginning, publishing important theological, educational, scientific and regional literature that is neither completely available in the library nor listed elsewhere.
The aim of the project was to compile a bibliography of the publishing house's book production from its foundation in 1698 to 1785 for the first time. All titles were to be identified as completely as possible on the basis of catalogues, union databases and bibliographies and indexed according to library rules.
The bibliography of the publishing house's production between 1698 and 1728 was published as volume 10 in the series ‘Hallesche Quellenpublikationen und Repertorien’ under the title "Der Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses zu Halle. Bibliography of Prints 1698–1728," Tübingen 2010, edited by Brigitte Klosterberg and Anke Mies. The database can be viewed in the catalogue room of the study centre. The catalogue data for the period 1729 to 1785 will have to be further revised at a later date.
This first-ever catalogue of the publications of this long-established publishing house, which is closely linked to the history of Halle and the Francke Foundations, makes a significant contribution to the publishing, cultural, regional and scientific history of central Germany and thus provides a basis for future research.
The project was financed by funds from Lotto-Toto GmbH Saxony-Anhalt, the Regional Council in Halle and the Ernst Hellmut Vits Foundation in the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft (Donors' Association for the Promotion of Sciences and Humanities in Germany).
Project management: Dr Britta Klosterberg, Anke Mies
Research assistant: Mirjam Juliane Frank
Student assistant: Yvonne Kalle
Project period: 1999–2011
Reconstruction, Cataloguing and Provenance Inventory of Pietist Libraries
The project, funded by the German Research Foundation, aimed at reconstructing, cataloguing and provenance inventorising the private libraries of renowned Pietists who had bequeathed their collections of books to the Library of the Halle Orphanage, later the Francke Foundations, between 1698 and 1739.
Important private libraries, for instance the extensive library of Freiherr Carl Hildebrand von Canstein (1667-1719) and the library of the Slavist Heinrich Milde (1697-1739), included in the estate inventories, were reconstructed in the course the first phase (1 January 2007 – 30 June 2009) of the project; those titles available in the Francke Foundations’ Library were catalogued in the Common Library Network (GBV, Gemeinsamen Bibliotheksverbund) and their provenance, verified by means of autopsy, was listed. The libraries of Paul Anton (1661-1730) and Justus Lüders (ca. 1656-1708), both supporters of Halle Pietism, were the focal point during the project’s second phase (1 October 2009 – 30 June 2011). Titles no longer detectable in the holdings of the Francke Foundations’ Library are catalogued in a separate database. The autographs of estate donors are available in digital form.
As the Pietists not only intended to create an ecclesiastical reform but also aimed at a comprehensive reform of all fields of public life, their book collections demonstrate thematically and chronologically wide-span interests. Especially collectors such as Friedrich Breckling (1629-1711) and Heinrich Milde possessed extremely rare works printed in Dutch or Slavic. Carl Hildebrand Freiherr von Canstein owned one of the largest universally oriented private libraries of the early modern period comprising important legal, historical, and theological works. Moreover, his estate benefitting the Halle orphanage contributed especially to the fact that the Library of the Orphanage developed into a universal modern library open to the public. Therefore, cataloguing the Pietist libraries provides valuable material to all historically oriented disciplines.
Project management: Dr. Britta Klosterberg
Project supervision: Anke Mies
Project members: Anke Fiebiger, Mirjam Frank (scientific assistant)
Project duration: 1 January 2007 – 30 June 2011
sponsored by DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Halle and Züllichau as centres of Pietism and education in Brandenburg-Prussia (18th–20th centuries).
As part of a three-and-a-half-year project, the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education supported research into the connections between Halle and Züllichau from the 18th to the 20th century within the programme for the promotion of the humanities under the direction of Prof. Dr. Bogumila Burda, University of Zielona Góra. The Francke Foundations were cooperation partners in this project.
The following work was carried out at the August Hermann Francke Study Centre as part of the overall project:
Schools, pupils, teachers
Using the pupil and informant registers of the schools in the Francke Foundations, pupils and teachers from Züllichau/Sulechów and the surrounding area from the end of the 17th century to 1806 were recorded in a database. Where complementary sources could be identified, the educational biographies and careers of the pupils were examined. Among other things, the data revealed the connections between the schools and the personal networks between Halle and Züllichau and Silesia, such as the school at the Jesuskirche in Cieszyn/Teschen in Silesia.
Project management: Dr Brigitte Klosterberg
Project supervision: Dr Jürgen Gröschl
Project staff: Jan-Hendrik Evers (1 May 2017–30 June 2018), Kristina Hemmen (1 August 2018–31 May 2019)
Prints from the orphanage publishing houses in Halle and Züllichau in the 18th century: bibliography, publisher profile, book distribution
The central task was to compile a bibliography of the publisher's products. The works printed and published at the orphanage in Züllichau were systematically catalogued for the first time and their distribution in German and Polish libraries was documented. A database already exists for Halle with titles from the end of the 17th century to 1806, which was revised and supplemented with Polish inventory records. The second task was devoted to the statistical evaluation and description of the publishing profiles in Züllichau and Halle. The third task consisted of tracking down and evaluating sources that could provide information about the exchange of books between Halle and Züllichau. The books are thus understood not only as carriers of content and storage media for the knowledge of their time, but also as circulating media that were integrated into the personal networks of both the Halle orphanage and the Züllichau orphanage.
Project management: Dr Britta Klosterberg
Project staff: Rhea Matschke, Anke Mies
Prints from the Reformation period in the library of the Francke Foundations. Cataloguing and provenance research
The state of Saxony-Anhalt, the heartland of the Reformation, is home to numerous large and small libraries with historical book collections, including the library of the Halle Orphanage, founded at the end of the 17th century by August Hermann Francke, now the library of the Francke Foundations. August Hermann Francke's work in Halle aimed to further develop and complete Martin Luther's goal of Christian reform across all social classes and educational levels. This also included the establishment of a publicly accessible library. Today, this library contains around 8,000 prints from the 16th century, some of which contain interesting handwritten notes, even by Luther himself. As part of the two-year project, which is being funded in its first year by the State Administration Office of Saxony-Anhalt and the Protestant Church in Central Germany, the prints will be catalogued in the supra-regional catalogue of the Common Library Network and listed with all recognisable provenances. This will not only expand knowledge about Reformation documents in the territory of Saxony-Anhalt, but also lay a solid foundation for preparing an exhibition in cooperation with the Marienbibliothek in Halle, which is to be presented at the Francke Foundations as part of the Luther Decade 2016/17.
Project management: Dr Britta Klosterberg
Project supervision: Anke Mies
Project assistant: Mirjam Juliane Pohl
Project duration: 2014–2015
Printed in Wittenberg: Directory and presentation of Wittenberg prints in the library of the Francke Foundations
In the early modern period, Wittenberg was one of the most important locations for book printing and book trade in the Old Empire. The library of the Francke Foundations owns around 4,000 Wittenberg prints from the 16th to 18th centuries, which bear witness to the immense production of knowledge that took place in the region of today's state of Saxony-Anhalt during this period. In this project, over 1,200 prints from Wittenberg were catalogued in the supra-regional catalogue of the Common Library Network (GBV), making them searchable worldwide. A representative selection of the prints was presented in a cabinet exhibition at the library of the Francke Foundations. The project was funded by the Culture Department of the State Administration Office of Saxony-Anhalt.
Project manager: Dr Britta Klosterberg
Project supervisor: Anke Mies
Project assistant: Mirjam-Juliane Pohl
Project duration: 1 April to 31 December 2016
2000–2010
The Freylinghausen Hymn Book – Edition and Commentary
The aim of the project was to produce a critical edition of Freylinghausen's hymnal with detailed commentary, the first scholarly edition of its kind.
Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen (1670–1739), a theologian, educator and hymn writer who was an important representative of Halle Pietism, published two collections of hymns: the Geistreiche Gesangbuch (19 editions; Halle 1704–1759) and the Neue Geistreiche Gesangbuch (4 editions; Halle 1714–1733). Considered by the editor himself as two parts of a whole and compiled in one volume by Gotthilf August Francke in 1741 (under the title Geistreiches Gesangbuch; 1771 2nd edition of this complete edition), Freylinghausen's hymn book contains more than 1,500 song texts and approx. 600 song compositions. Freylinghausen's anthology is thus the most important collection of songs of Pietism.
The critical edition of Freylinghausen's hymnal is intended to make one of the key works of early modern Protestant hymn literature available for philological and musicological research and teaching, as well as for hymnological and church history research and teaching, and for church music practice.The commentary (Volume III), which forms an essential addition to the edition (Volumes I and II), is conceived as a kind of compendium of spiritual song in early 18th-century Germany, which received important new impulses (still effective today) from the Pietist movement in Halle. By bringing together existing and anticipated results of interdisciplinary research on Freylinghausen and his literary, musical, theological and devotional history, this commentary exemplifies the rich diversity of Pietist song culture.
Edition: Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen: Geistreiches Gesangbuch (Witty Songbook). Edition and commentary. Published on behalf of the Francke Foundations in Halle by Dianne Marie McMullen and Wolfgang Miersemann.
Vol. I/1: Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen: Geist=reiches Gesang=Buch (Witty Songbook) (Halle, fourth edition 1708). Part 1: Text [Songs 1–395]. Tübingen 2004.
Vol. I/2: Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen: Geist=reiches Gesang=Buch (Halle, fourth edition 1708). Part 2: Text [Songs 396–758 / Melody Booklet]. Tübingen 2006.
Vol. I/3: Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen: Geist=reiches Gesang=Buch (Halle, fourth edition 1708), Part 3: Apparatus. Edited by Dianne Marie McMullen, Wolfgang Miersemann and Rainer Heyink. With a bibliography of Freylinghausen's hymn book by Oswald Bill. Berlin/Boston 2013.
Vol. II/1: Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen: Neues Geist=reiches Gesang=Buch (Halle 1714), Part 1: Text [Songs 1–434]. Tübingen 2009.
Vol. II/2: Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen: Neues Geist=reiches Gesang=Buch (Halle 1714). Part 2: Text [Songs 435–815]. Berlin/New York 2010.
Vol. II/3: Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen: Neues Geist=reiches Gesang=Buch (Halle 1714), Part 3: Apparatus. Edited by Dianne Marie McMullen, Rainer Heyink and Wolfgang Miersemann. With an author index and a text and melody index for the complete work. Berlin/Boston 2020.
Project leader: Prof. Dr. Thomas Müller-Bahlke
Project staff: Dr. Wolfgang Miersemann, Prof. Dr. Dianne Marie McMullen, PD Dr. Rainer Heyink, Dr. Christiane Hausmann,
Birgit Grosche, Dr. Matthias Paul, Reinhard Radecker, Marcus Heidecke M.A.
Project period:
2000-2006
Sponsored by DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Francke's schools
The research project ‘Pupils, Teachers and Everyday School Life at the Franckesche Stiftungen Schools: From the Beginning to the Death of the Second Director’ was funded by the German Research Foundation. The aim of the project was to catalogue all sources relevant to the history of education and pedagogy in the archives of the Francke Foundations for the period from the founding of the Halle Orphanage by August Hermann Francke (1695) to the end of Gotthilf August Francke's directorship (1769). In addition, the development of the schools of the Halle Orphanage and their educational practices in the first two thirds of the 18th century were to be researched in more detail.
The first complete cataloguing of the school archives since 1993 was a prerequisite for this research project. The sources in the school archives provide information about the social and geographical origins of pupils and teachers at the Francke Foundations, as well as their subsequent lives after leaving the institutions. Regular minutes of teacher and administrative conferences, house books written by inspectors, regulations, student work, lesson books and plans, account books, meal plans and building floor plans offer detailed insights into school operations and everyday life at that time.
As part of the research project, data relevant to social and personal history from the individual sources was entered into databases. The online version contains personal data on 16,605 orphans, pupils and teachers. In addition, transcriptions were made from the central sources (orphan registers, informant registers, conference books). As preliminary work for this project, the edition of the orphan registers 1695–1749 has already been published. Two dissertation projects have also emerged from the project work.
Project management: Prof. Dr. Juliane Jacobi, University of Potsdam, Prof. Dr. Peter Menck, Dr. Thomas Müller-Bahlke, Francke Foundations
Research assistants: Silke Brockerhoff M.A., Dr. Axel Oberschelp
Project period: 1999–2003
sponsored by DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Dissertation topics:
Axel Oberschelp: Teacher training and teaching at the Halle orphanage in the 18th century. Design, implementation and effectiveness of an educational reform concept.
Silke Brockerhoff: Between Pietism and the Enlightenment – pupils and teachers at the Latin school of the Halle orphanage (1697–1769).
"Man hatte von ihm gute Hoffnung...". Das Waisenalbum der Franckeschen Stiftungen 1695–1749. Hrsg. von Juliane Jacobi und Thomas J. Müller-Bahlke. Tübingen 1998. (Hallesche Quellenpublikationen und Repertorien; 3).
PublicationZwischen christlicher Tradition und Aufbruch in die Moderne. Das Hallesche Waisenhaus im bildungsgeschichtlichen Kontext. Hrsg. von Juliane Jacobi. Tübingen 2007. (Hallesche Forschungen; 22).
PublicationOrphanage Register
In this project, sponsored by the Friends of the Francke Foundations, orphanages established in Germany from the end of the Thirty Years' War to the end of the Old Empire were recorded in a database. To this end, relevant primary and secondary literature as well as archival sources were evaluated. The database includes information on the founders and privileges, affiliated social, educational and economic institutions, pupils and teachers, buildings and financing. An important aspect of this was the characterisation of the relationship to the Halle orphanage. The project thus contributed to the preparation of the 2009 theme year ‘Welfare and Social Responsibility’ and created the basic conditions for further research into the historical impact of the Francke Foundations.
Project management: Dr Britta Klosterberg
Project supervision: Dr Jürgen Gröschl
Project work: Antje Faßhauer
Project duration: May 2007 to March 2009
Cataloguing of the Canstein Bible Collection
Named after its patron Carl Hildebrand von Canstein (1667–1719) and founded in 1710, the world's first Bible Society was one of the most profitable enterprises of the Halle Orphanage. Since August Hermann Francke believed that the Bible was at the centre of every pious life, he explored the possibility of producing inexpensive Bibles that were affordable for everyone. In Carl Hildebrand von Canstein, Francke found a patron and supporter of his idea to print Bibles from a fixed typeface. The Bible Institute was extraordinarily successful and only began to decline at the beginning of the 20th century. Between 1712 and 1934, a total of around 8 million Bibles and New Testaments were sold by the Canstein Bible Institute.
The specimen copies of the various Bible editions form the basis of the Canstein Bible Collection, which today is a special collection of the Francke Foundations Library. The collection also includes Bible translations that were donated to the Bible Institute by various Bible societies, primarily the English Bible Society. Therefore, the Canstein Bible Collection contains not only German-language Bibles, but also Bibles in 99 languages (e.g. Ethiopian, Japanese, Kalmyk, Coptic, Mandarin, Swahili, Sanskrit, Welsh and Zulu). These foreign-language Bibles are what make this collection so special today. The special collection contains a total of 1,655 Canstein Bibles. This makes it a unique, comprehensive collection of the various editions of the Canstein Bible in Germany. In addition, there are 429 Bibles, including Luther Bibles from the 16th century and Bible translations that the Bible Institute received in exchange or as gifts. The Bible collection was inadequately and incompletely catalogued in a card catalogue and was therefore not optimally accessible to users. For this reason, cataloguing the Bibles according to library standards was an urgent desideratum.
The aim of the project was to catalogue the Bibles for the first time according to the rules for alphabetical cataloguing (RAK) in the electronic catalogue of the Common Library Network (GBV), so that the Bibles could be traced supra-regionally. In order to obtain a complete overview of all Bibles available in the library of the Francke Foundations, the Bible editions available in other library collections were also catalogued. This involved an additional 322 Bibles in 30 languages. The third-party funded project was financed with funds from institutions of the Protestant Church, including the Bible and Culture Foundation, the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) and the Church Province of Saxony.
Project management: Dr Britta Klosterberg
Project team: Gerald Reeke
Project period: 2004
Oriental manuscripts
The archives of the Francke Foundations in Halle contain Hebrew, Old Syrian, Arabic, Persian and (Ottoman) Turkish manuscripts from three centuries, primarily the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. These unique handwritten sources from various countries in the Orient came into the possession of the Glauchaschen Anstalten in Halle in very different ways during the 18th century. The majority – Korans, Koran commentaries, prayer books, works on Islamic law and Islamic history, mysticism, logic, philology, lexicology and calligraphy, as well as works of Arabic, Persian and [Ottoman] Turkish literature – were captured during the Turkish Wars in the 17th century and given as gifts by their later owners to the directors of the Halle Orphanage, the Collegium Orientale Theologicum or the Institutum Judaicum et Muhammedicum. A significant portion of the manuscripts originated in the Glaukas Institutes themselves. These are primarily copies of original Oriental manuscripts, translations of Christian writings, grammars, glossaries, and writing exercises. Between 2001 and 2003, the Oriental manuscripts stored in the main and mission archives of the Francke Foundations in Halle were examined and re-catalogued according to modern standards. The result of this work is the catalogue ‘Oriental Manuscripts in the Archives of the Francke Foundations in Halle’, in which all Hebrew, Old Syrian, Arabic, Persian and (Ottoman) Turkish manuscripts are described in detail, taking into critical consideration the catalogue of Oriental manuscripts in the library of the Halle Orphanage compiled by the Leipzig Orientalist August Müller in 1876.
The results of the cataloguing work were compiled in both an online database and a finding aid. In addition to the printed repertory, the catalogue can also be accessed as a complete document on the Internet. This provides specialists and interested members of the public with extensive research opportunities, giving them comprehensive insight into the Oriental manuscript holdings of the Francke Foundations Archive.
Project manager: Dr Thomas Müller-Bahlke
Project assistant: Dr Erika Pabst
Project period: 2001–2003
Archival Holdings of the India Mission, 1700–1918, in German-Speaking Countries
The idea of compiling a survey of European archival holdings relating to the India Mission arose in the autumn of 1999 on the margins of a conference in Oxford that focused on Christian-influenced intercultural exchange between India and Europe. The Archive of the Francke Foundations subsequently undertook the task of preparing such a survey for the German-speaking world. The aim was to identify the relevant archival repositories in German-speaking countries and to provide a brief description of the source materials held there.
The holdings survey now presented here is the result of close and constructive cooperation between the Foundations’ Archive and the mission and religious order archives in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as with scholars of mission studies, historians, theologians and representatives of church institutions. The survey provides information on the period and region of missionary activity, on the history of each mission, and on the manuscript and printed sources, material objects, visual sources and personal papers preserved in the mission and order archives. In addition, it contains up-to-date user information on the archives and the libraries associated with them. Each set of holdings data is preceded by an essay introducing the history of the respective mission.
Project Director: Dr Thomas Müller-Bahlke
Project Advisory Board: PD Dr Hugald Grafe (Hildesheim), PD Dr Michael Bergunder (Heidelberg), Dr Heike Liebau (Berlin)
Project Researcher: Dr Erika Pabst
Project Period: 1999–2001
Publication:
Archival Holdings of the India Mission, 1700–1918, in German-Speaking Countries.
Edited by Erika Pabst and Thomas Müller-Bahlke.
Tübingen 2005 (Halle Source Publications and Repertories; 9).
Cataloguing of the archive holdings on the Danish-Halle Mission
In 2006, the first missionary enterprise in Protestant church history, known as the Danish-Halle Mission, celebrates its 300th anniversary. The majority of the extensive written records are now preserved in the archives of the Francke Foundations. In a three-year project supported by the German Research Foundation, over 34,000 letters, diaries and reports were individually catalogued and made available in an online database.
Project management: Dr Thomas Müller-Bahlke
Project supervision: Dr Britta Klosterberg, Dr Jürgen Gröschl
Research assistants: Dr Karsten Hommel, Dr Erika Pabst
Student assistants: Jan Brademann, Andreas Otte
Administrative assistant: Hildegard Beßler
Project duration: 1 January 2003 to 31 October 2005
Cataloguing August Tholuck's Library
From 1993 on, the library of the Halle professor of theology Friedrich August Gotttreu Tholuck (1799-1877), one of the outstanding figures of the revival movement during the nineteenth century, has been kept as a deposit of the Evangelical Seminary in the library of the Francke Foundations. As part of a DFG-funded project concerning the development of specialist library holdings this specialist theological library comprising more than 10,000 titles was included in the transregional catalogue of the Common Library Network (GBV) and thus made accessible to research.
The August Tholuck Library is a theological library focussing on Biblical studies, church and dogma history, the history of Christianity and of religious and academic life during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The titles predominantly derive from the nineteenth century (ca. 65%) and eighteenth century (ca. 23.5%). The library bears witness to the theological scholarship of the revival movement and, together with the Tholuck archive, also stored at the Francke Foundations, conveys an accurate picture of academic theological research during the first half of the nineteenth century. Tholuck also acquired the work of authors active during the Reformation period as well as works by the Pietists and Enlightenment theologians of the eighteenth century.
The Tholuck library ideally complements the historical collection of the Francke Foundations’ Library. The literature on eighteenth-century Pietism in the main part of the Library and the writings on the nineteenth-century revival movement in the Tholuck Library are united at a single library location.
Project management: Dr. Britta Klosterberg
Project researecher: Gerald Reeke
Project duration: 2000–2002
Sponsored by DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
The Francke Estate in Berlin
An extensive collection of sources with regard to the history of Halle Pietism is preserved as the Francke Estate (Francke-Nachlass) at the State Library in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. The documents of this estate were originally part of the collections of source material kept at the Archive of the Francke Foundations in Halle and is directly related to the sources in Halle. A project funded by the German Research Foundation was the first to facilitate a complete inventory of the entire Francke Estate in Berlin to be composed in the archives of the Francke Foundations. In this way, a very central source inventory of the history of Pietism was made available to research, in addition to what is known from the Halle archival data.
The Francke Estate in Berlin comprises 11,147 documents, mainly letters. Reports, discussions, journal excerpts, as well as notes complete the source collection.The rules for the cataloguing and describing of estates and autographs formed the methodological basis of the inventory.
As a result of the 2-year project a 3-tome finding aid with a separate index volume and an online database was created.
The work was carried out in coordination with the manuscript department in Berlin. The data were taken over by the Kalliope cataloguing system of manuscripts.
Project leader: Dr. Thomas Müller-Bahlke
Project supervision: Dr. Jürgen Gröschl
Project members: Oliver Behn, Matthias Finke, Clemens Köhn, Hildegard Beßler
Project duration: 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2001
Sponsored by DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Edition der Briefe von Johann Martin Boltzius
In a collaborative project with the Georgia Salzburger Society in Savannah, Georgia, letters written by Georgia's first Lutheran pastor, Johann Martin Boltzius (1703–1765), were prepared for publication in English. Boltzius, who had studied theology in Halle and worked as an inspector at the Francke Foundations, was the pastor of the Salzburg emigrants who found a new home in North America in 1734. Under his leadership, they established their congregation in Ebenezer near Savannah. Influenced by Halle Pietism, Boltzius was committed to helping the Salzburg emigrants not only spiritually, but also economically and politically. He corresponded extensively with the European administrators of the colony. Halle actively supported the establishment of the community with donations, medicines and books. Boltzius is still highly regarded today among American Lutherans and the descendants of the Salzburg settlers in Georgia. Approximately 1,100 letters and diaries in the mission archives of the Francke Foundations bear witness to this important period in the early colonial history of North America. From this extensive material, 150 letters have been selected for publication. The letters were first transcribed in the foundation's archive and then translated into English in Georgia. They cover the period from the departure of the first emigrants in 1733 to Boltzius' death in 1765. An extensive, jointly compiled commentary section complements the two-volume work.
Projektleitung: Vincent C. Exley (Savannah)
Projektbetreuung: Dr. Jürgen Gröschl
Wiss. Mitarbeiter: Dr. Karsten Hommel (Leipzig), Dr. Russell Kleckley (Minneapolis)
Projektdauer: November 2006 bis Juni 2009
Veröffentlichung:
The letters of Johann Martin Boltzius, Lutheran Pastor in Ebenezer, Georgia. German pietist in colonial America, 1733-1765. Ed. and transl. by Russel C. Kleckley in collaboration with Jürgen Gröschl. Lewiston [u.a.] 2009.
Digitisation of the Halle Reports
The periodically published mission reports from India in the 18th century, known as the ‘Hallesche Berichte’ (Halle Reports), are considered to be the first Protestant mission journal. In 1710, these reports were first published under the title ‘Der Königlich dänischen Missionarien aus Ost=Indien eingesandter ausführlichen Berichten erster Theil, Halle 1710’ (The Royal Danish Missionaries from East India's Detailed Reports, Part One, Halle 1710). This first report was followed by 108 journal issues until 1772, which were published by the bookshop of the Halle Orphanage. The total volume of the periodical published between 1710 and 1772 is approximately 17,500 pages. In addition to text pages, there are 33 pages with copperplate engravings, plates and maps, some of which can be opened out.
The ‘Hallesche Berichte’ have been filmed and digitised using a hybrid process by the Mikro-Univers company on behalf of the Francke Foundations and can be viewed online.
Project period: October 2004 to January 2005
Cataloguing the Tamil Manuscripts
In 1706, the Danish-Halle Mission was founded in the small Danish trading colony of Tranquebar in southern India. Its first two missionaries were Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau, both of whom were closely associated with the Halle Orphanage. The correspondence and journals of the Danish-Halle Mission, which extend into the nineteenth century, today form the India section of the Mission Archive of the Francke Foundations. As part of their missionary work, manuscripts in Indian languages also reached Halle, predominantly in Tamil and Telugu. A large proportion of these manuscripts is held in the archive’s collection of palm-leaf manuscripts.
Ziegenbalg and his successors engaged intensively with South Indian culture. They also devoted themselves to translating biblical texts, hymns, prayers and important Pietist writings into the local languages. However, they did not commit these translations to paper, but instead recorded them in the customary literary medium of the region, on palm leaves. This facilitated access to their Indian audiences, as they were thus able to convey the Christian message through a medium that was familiar to them. In this way, a large number of palm-leaf manuscripts in Indian languages came into being. The missionaries sent them back to Europe as evidence of their work. In Halle, they were carefully preserved and initially displayed as curiosities in the orphanage’s cabinet of art and natural history, later transferred to the main library and finally incorporated into the archive. Today, they are kept there as the largest European collection of its kind, comprising around 100 bundles of Tamil manuscripts and 160 bundles of Telugu manuscripts. Further Tamil-language documents survive as paper manuscripts in the regular fascicles of the Mission Archive.
Within the framework of a cooperation between the Francke Foundations and Gurukul Lutheran Theological College in India, Dr Daniel Jeyaraj catalogued all the Tamil-language manuscripts held in the Foundations’ archive. The result is three catalogues, which have been made accessible to the public.
Project Director: Dr Thomas Müller-Bahlke
Project Team Members: Dr Daniel Jeyaraj, Dr Erika Pabst
Project Period: 1998, 2003
Hungarica Collection / Portraits Section
In cooperation with the Széchényi National Library in Budapest, the Francke Foundations are cataloguing the Hungarica held in the collections of the Library of the Francke Foundations. Through this collaboration, the two institutions are jointly contributing to research into Halle–Hungarian relations, which were fostered three hundred years ago by August Hermann Francke. A first publication lists the Hungarian portraits from the extensive portrait collection of the Library of the Francke Foundations, which was bequeathed to the library in 1756 by Jacob Gottfried Bötticher, inspector of the Orphanage Bookshop. Introductory chapters describe the history of the portrait collection and the Hungarian connections of the portraits. In addition to reproductions of the portraits, the catalogue provides a description of each portrait together with a short biography of the person depicted.
Project Directors: Dr István Monok, Dr Britta Klosterberg
Project Staff: Attila Verók, Dr György Rózsa
Project Period: 2001–2002
Publication:
The Hungarica Collection of the Francke Foundations in Halle. Edited by Brigitte Klosterberg and István Monok. Part 1: Portraits.
Compiled by Attila Verók and György Rózsa. Tübingen 2004 (Halle Source Publications and Repertories; 7).
1990–2000
Bio-Bibliographical Index to the Main Archive
The aim of the project was to compile a bio-bibliographical index of all authors whose manuscripts are held in the Main Archive. This involved approximately 6,500 individuals, for whom biographical data had to be established.
In December 1993, the project was transferred to the Archive of the Francke Foundations for final processing. There, the data were entered into a computer program specially developed for this purpose, ranging from individual manuscript records to detailed bibliographical references. Existing biographies were revised and missing data supplemented.
By the end of 1999, work on the index had progressed to the point that a substantially abridged printed version was initially published. In 2001, the index was made available online on the website of the Francke Foundations. Since 2009, bio-bibliographical data on individuals from all historical archival departments have been accessible via a database, insofar as they were identified in the course of cataloguing projects. Users may contact the archive in order to update and complete the data in cooperation with the archivists.
Through this project, researchers are provided with an extensive research tool for investigating the biographical context of Halle Pietism.
Project Director: Prof. Dr Rolf Lieberwirth, Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Project Researcher: Carmela Keller, MA
Project Period: 1993–1999
Publication:
Biographical Index to the Main Archive of the Francke Foundations in Halle (Saale). Edited by Rolf Lieberwirth.Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000.
Bötticher Portrait Collection
The library of the Francke Foundations holds a portrait collection comprising 13,000 sheets, bequeathed to the library in 1756 by Jakob Gottfried Bötticher, the inspector of the Halle orphanage’s bookshop. The portraits depict well-known and significant figures, primarily from the 17th and 18th centuries, and complement the library’s historical book holdings in an ideal manner. The particular charm of the collection lies in the verses composed by Bötticher himself, which he inscribed beneath the portraits.
All portraits in the collection are catalogued in a database and recorded according to a schema that includes all essential elements of a portrait description: signature, name, dates of birth and death, and occupation of the depicted person, engraver and draughtsman or painter of the original, imprint, dimensions, and the text of Bötticher’s verses. A digital image of each portrait can be accessed through the database.
Project Director: Dr Britta Klosterberg
Project Researcher: Dipl.-Bibl. Rhea Matschke
Project Period: 1996–1999
Publication: Rhea Matschke: "Du fragst wen stellet doch dis schöne Kupfer für..." The Portrait Collection of the Library of the Francke Foundations. Halle 2003. (Kleine Schriftenreihe der Franckeschen Stiftungen; 3)
Re-cataloguing of the Georgia Section of the Mission Archive
Letters and diaries that have been carefully preserved for centuries in the Mission Archive of the Francke Foundations document the fate of the Salzburg Protestant exiles who, under the leadership of Halle Pietists, founded Georgia’s first Lutheran congregation in 1734. The connections with Halle continued over several generations into the nineteenth century.
Produced during two years of project work in cooperation with the Georgia Salzburger Society in Savannah, the resulting finding aid and reading guide provides access to the 1,067 manuscripts in the Georgia Section of the Mission Archive. It offers a wealth of new material for research into church and social history, as well as into economics, education, medicine and many other fields.
The documents were completely re-catalogued, arranged chronologically and recorded in the form of German- and English-language summaries of contents. The name index comprises more than 2,200 individuals.
Project Director: Dr Thomas Müller-Bahlke
Project Staff: Dr Jürgen Gröschl, Dr Wolfgang Krüger
Project Period: 1997–1999
Restoration
Restoration of Manuscripts Damaged by Ink Corrosion from the India Department of the Archive of the Evangelical Lutheran Missionary Society Leipzig (Deposited at the Francke Foundations)
The aim of the project was the restoration of the so-called Tranquebar Archive, which had been severely damaged by ink corrosion and is held as a deposit of the Leipzig Missionary Society at the Francke Foundations. The restoration was intended to enable the use and digitisation of the manuscripts.
The restoration project was generously funded by the Coordination Office for the Preservation of Written Cultural Heritage (KEK) within the framework of the special programme of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, as well as by the State of Saxony-Anhalt. The foundation’s own contribution was financed through support from the Leipzig Missionary Society and a donation from the Friends of the Francke Foundations. The work carried out by Paperminz Bestandserhaltung GmbH in Leipzig included dry cleaning, wet treatment and paper stabilisation measures, and the repackaging of the documents.
The Keferstein Collection at the August Hermann Francke Study Centre
Among the treasures of the August Hermann Francke Study Centre is the estate of Christian Keferstein (1784–1866). Keferstein was a highly educated amateur in the fields of geology and mineralogy. He gained attention in scholarly circles in the 1820s when he published the first geognostic map of Germany in the journal Teutschland, geognostisch-geologisch dargestellt, which he edited. As part of this ambitious project, Keferstein collaborated with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who developed a colour scale for the colouring of the maps drawn by Keferstein. The geological maps in the Keferstein Collection are of particular scientific interest today, as Keferstein partly coloured them himself and added handwritten annotations.
Within the framework of a project funded by the G. & H. Murmann Foundation through the Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, 339 maps from the Keferstein Collection were professionally restored in the spring of 2020 at the Book Restoration Workshop Leipzig. The 18th- and 19th-century maps exhibited dirt, tears, losses, rust stains, or even holes, and some had been inexpertly secured with adhesive tape, which permanently damages the paper. Furthermore, the inclusion of many maps in folders hindered their storage and display. During restoration, all maps were removed from their bindings, individually cleaned and restored, and subsequently laid flat on acid-free boards, ensuring their long-term preservation and safe storage.
Some of the geological maps were displayed from 20 September 2020 in the annual exhibition of the Francke Foundations, “In the Quarry of Time: Earth History and the Beginnings of Geology”.
Folded and Sealed: Restoration of Early Modern Privileges and Feudal Charters on Parchment and Their Subsequent Storage in Enclosed Protective Enclosures for Long-Term Archiving
Funding: BKM Special Programme 2018 for the Preservation of Written Cultural Heritage in Germany
Thanks to funding from the Coordination Office for the Preservation of Written Cultural Heritage (KEK) under the BKM Special Programme, 48 early modern documents from the Foundation Archive, dating from 1601 to 1800, were restored. Among the most significant items is the founding charter of the Halle Orphanage of August Hermann Francke, issued in 1698 by the then Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich III., later King in Prussia.
The parchment charters in the archive of the Francke Foundations are among the most important documents in the history of the Foundation. They attest, on the one hand, to the relationship between the founder and the Prussian state, which, through its privileges, established the legal basis for the establishment of the orphanage and subsequent institutions such as the printing house, pharmacy, and schools. The archive also contains documents relating to the agricultural estates managed by the Halle Orphanage in the surrounding region. The feudal charters, some dating back to 1601, illustrate the supply situation of Francke’s school town and are therefore an important source for the economic history of the Halle Orphanage. They also provide valuable material for regional history and for the study of noble families and their property relations.
The condition of the charters had previously made their use almost impossible: seal ribbons had disintegrated, metal capsules had corroded due to humidity, and some documents had missing sections. Notably, 36 of the 48 charters were folded. The dry parchment made unfolding the documents extremely difficult without causing damage. In some cases, heavy soiling also hindered legibility. Thanks to KEK funding, the documents were cleaned, flattened, and expertly restored at the Preservation Academy Leipzig. Following restoration, the charters were digitised at the Study Centre, making the texts accessible online to a global audience.
Dust-Free and Packaged – Dry Cleaning and Conservation Packaging of the Holdings of the Archive and Library of the Francke Foundations
Within the framework of the special programme of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), the Coordination Office for the Preservation of Written Cultural Heritage (KEK) supported a project in 2020 aimed at protecting the holdings of the library and archive at the August Hermann Francke Study Centre.
The project was based on the conservation recommendations developed in the preceding 2019 KEK-funded project, “Creation of a Damage Register for the Historical Holdings of the Library and Archive of the Francke Foundations”. To ensure the long-term protection of these valuable historical holdings from mechanical damage, light, dust, microorganisms, and pests, regular cleaning is essential. As part of the project, approximately 64,000 volumes of the historic book collection, particularly from the Kulissenbibliothek, were professionally cleaned by staff from Preservation Academy Leipzig (PAL). In addition, the historical archival holdings were repackaged in acid-free boxes. Packaging represents one of the simplest and most effective means of preventive conservation. It not only protects against damage from external influences but also facilitates storage and transport.
These conservation measures also served as preparation for the relocation of central archival and library holdings, which is scheduled to take place in 2021 to the former printing house (Buildings 52–53).
Creation of a Damage Register for the Historical Holdings of the Archive and Library (Special Programme of the BKM)
Following the successful completion of the restoration project “Folded and Sealed”, in 2019 we were able, with the support of the Coordination Office for the Preservation of Written Cultural Heritage (KEK) under the special programme of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), to launch a new project aimed at protecting the holdings of the library and archive.
The aim of the project was to develop a conservation-based damage assessment for the historical holdings of the library and archive of the Francke Foundations, which are stored and managed at the August Hermann Francke Study Centre. This assessment now provides a basis for the systematic planning of future preservation measures. The damage assessment covered 450 linear metres of archival files and 3,300 plan drawings in the archive, as well as 119,000 volumes and 29,000 school programmes in the library. Experienced conservators from the Preservation Academy Leipzig, in consultation with archivists and librarians, compiled a damage register that not only documents the damages but also categorises the objects according to the severity of damage, in order to establish priorities for subsequent interventions.
Following the on-site survey, the recorded categories of damage were evaluated. This evaluation, with regard to the potential risk to the long-term preservation of the holdings, forms the basis for a preservation action plan, including a cost analysis to determine financial requirements. Future conservation measures can thus be planned more effectively and integrated into the institutional budget. The prioritisation according to damage categories ensures that appropriate interventions for highly endangered holdings can be implemented promptly, thereby securing the collection for the long term.
Restoration of Early Religious, Linguistic, and Natural Science Studies by Missionaries in South India
Funding: Archive of the Francke Foundations, Coordination Office for the Preservation of Written Cultural Heritage (KEK), 2016
In 2016, the Coordination Office for the Preservation of Written Cultural Heritage (KEK), under the motto “First Choice”, funded 36 model projects across Germany for the preservation of holdings in archives and libraries. The central focus of the programme was the important question of prioritisation in preservation: which holdings should be treated first in order to prevent the loss of cultural heritage in archives and libraries? Preserving the diversity and volume of collections, some of which have developed over centuries, requires a carefully considered approach, as not all damaged or endangered originals can be treated simultaneously.
The archive of the Francke Foundations received a one-year project grant from KEK for the restoration of early religious, linguistic, and natural science studies created in the first decades of the 18th century by Halle missionaries in what is now the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Some of these manuscripts are unique and, due to their condition, had not yet been accessible to researchers. Comprehensive restoration and subsequent online publication of these manuscripts contribute significantly to making the history of intercultural dialogue between Europe and India accessible to both the scientific community and a wider international audience, while also revitalising and further developing shared cultural heritage in the 21st century. The integration of the digital copies into the exhibition concept of the developing museum in Tharangambadi also supports this objective.
The selected writings uniquely reflect the pioneering role of the Halle missionaries in studying everyday life, traditions, language, and natural phenomena in South India at the beginning of the 18th century. The Genealogy of the Malabar Gods (1713) by the first Protestant missionary, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (1682–1719), represents a milestone in the study of Indian religious history. For the first time, it comprehensively presents, for a European audience, the principal and secondary Hindu deities, prophets, festivals, and sacrificial ceremonies.
A continuation of this work is Christoph Theodosius Walther’s (1699–1741) Jadhur Wedam, a commentary on the Yajurveda compiled at the request of European scholars, providing insights into one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism, about which only vague notions had existed in Europe until that time. Benjamin Schultze’s (1689–1760) multilingual Tamil–Telugu–Latin–English dictionary, originally compiled between 1728 and 1732 for the translation of the Old and New Testaments and preparation of sermons, exemplifies the emergence of comparative linguistics, of which Schultze is considered a pioneer.
The studies on the Indian calendar, astronomy, and meteorology by Christoph Theodosius Walther and Johann Ernst Geister (d. 1750) are among the earliest natural science investigations conducted on Indian soil, with no comparable parallel records surviving.
