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The Abbey Library |
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When discussing the Benedictine way of life, we also must include the library. St. Benedict demanded that his monks read, even for hours at a time. With the passing of time, their study of the Bible and the spiritual writings of the Fathers promoted a book culture in the Benedictine monasteries. This led to the founding of libraries in the monasteries, libraries in which the written cultural heritage of antiquity was handed down to the Middle Ages and on to our times. | |||
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| The Einsiedeln abbey library is a typically monastic institution. Benedictine culture is foremost a religious culture, thus implanted in the cult, in the worship. So the core of a monastic library is the Bible (= bibliotheca in the rule of St. Benedict). Around it, is an inner circle with books of spirituality and theology, and in the outer circle all the other books on history, philosophy, law, natural sciences and even medicine. The manuscripts of the abbey's early times give evidence of an extensive broadness of thought and interest, likewise also the historical books published after the Reformation, and so does also in some ways the modern library. | ||
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The history of the abbey library is connected with that of the abbey. Thus the library reflects the abbey's intellectual life. The inventory of the books shows the ups and downs of the life of the monastery. It is astonishing that such a rich historical stock of books survived all the trials, disasters, pillages, fires and even the monks' carelessness for the cultural heritage of their own past. Details about lost manuscripts and books cannot be given, because our library does not have a catalogue of the medieval stock of books. | |||
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| A basic reorganization of the library was realized in the years 1994 - 1998: A new stack room with movable compact book cases was installed in the basement and also an undercroft shelter was built for the cultural assets, the manuscripts and the incunabula. An new office for the librarians, a room for the catalogue and a modern reading room with the reference books and the periodicals were added. Finally the "Great Library" with the sophisticated early rococo decorations was carefully restored. The abbey library now holds 1230 manuscripts (500 of them were written before 1500 ), 1100 incunabula and early prints (until 1520), and 230,000 printed volumes. About 130 current periodicals offer the the results of recent research in various fields of knowledge. Librarian: Father Odo Lang Tel. +4155/418 65 45 or +4155/418 63 14 Abbey CH - 8840 Einsiedeln |
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