Book Collections as Archaeological Sites
A Study of Interconnectedness and Meaning in the Historical Library of the Canonesses Regular of Soeterbeeck
Hans Kienhorst, Ad Poirters
- Pages: 716 p.
- Size:216 x 280 mm
- Illustrations:15 b/w, 267 col., 3 tables b/w.
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:2023
- € 200,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-60458-9
- Hardback
- Available
This volume studies the collective story of the old books of the convent of Soeterbeeck on the basis of their stratification and against the background of the community’s trials and tribulations and the sisters’ personal lives.
"Het geheel kan met recht een monument worden genoemd voor de zusters van Soeterbeeck en hun bibliotheek. Daarnaast opent het een nieuwe weg in het onderzoek naar de bibliotheekgeschiedenis en, meer algemeen, de collectiegeschiedenis." (Lauran Toorians, in Noordbrabants Historisch Jaarboek 2023, p. 193)
Hans Kienhorst (1954) taught historical Dutch literature, book history and medieval book illumination at Radboud University in Nijmegen. His research focuses on Middle Dutch manuscripts and the production of books in women’s convents of the Modern Devotion.
Ad Poirters (1989) obtained his doctorate in Nijmegen with a thesis on the use of books from the convent of Soeterbeeck by Rector Arnoldus Beckers. A staff member of the Titus Brandsma Institute, he works on the Modern Devotion and its afterlife.
In 1997 the canonesses regular of Soeterbeeck moved from their convent in Deursen (the Netherlands) to a nursing home in Nuland. They left behind an old library of considerable size and historical significance that is now the core of the Soeterbeeck Collection at Nijmegen University Library. It is a suitable starting point for telling the story of the historical library of a women’s convent with roots in the Modern Devotion, from the community’s humble beginnings in 1448 to the present day.
This study describes the collective history of all manuscripts and early printed books that are known to have been in communal or personal ownership at Soeterbeeck. It investigates the books’ production and delves into their traces of use. Many of these are connected to each other, usually because they were left by the same person or had the same purpose. Such units transcend the level of individual volumes and reveal what might be called the stratification of the historical library as a whole. They can be interpreted in the context of the sisters’ personal lives and the convent’s communal history. This approach provides insight in the multiplicity of meanings that the books had for their users.
For the first time, theoretical principles of modern archaeology are used to map a historical library as an archaeological site. A scholarly catalogue of the Soeterbeeck Collection that documents its traces of use is also included. Stunning illustrations visually lay bare the books’ eventful lives.
Part I Study
Chapter 1 An Archaeological Approach
1.1 The Madonna of Soeterbeeck
1.2 The Historical Library
1.3 A Book Collection as an Archaeological Site
1.4 Plan of the Following Chapters
Chapter 2 Faithful to the Divine Office
2.1 The First Phase
2.2 Choir Books Attributed to Mariënhage
2.3 Two Stratigraphic Units in Choir Books
Chapter 3 In Times of Trouble
3.1 The Fire of 1539
3.2 Book Production at Soeterbeeck
3.3 Ownership Notes from the Years 1606-1608
3.4 Books that Came in 1613
3.5 Aftermath
Chapter 4 Personal Ownership of Books in a Monastic Environment
4.1 Two Circuits
4.2 The Sisters of 1632 and Their Books
4.3 Not to Forget
4.4 After the Relocation
4.5 Sister Lips’s Booklets
4.6 Books in the Choir Stalls
Chapter 5 Changing Attitudes towards Old Books
5.1 Cut to Pieces or Sold
5.2 First Signs of a Library
5.3 Revaluation
Chapter 6 On the Edge of Beyond
6.1 Special Attention for the Manuscripts
6.2 Witnessing to a Tradition
6.3 The Soeterbeeck Collection
6.4 Towards an Archaeology
Chapter 7 Back to Hodder
Appendices
A Books with Ownership Notes of the Convents of Soeterbeeck and Nazareth
B Alienated Books
C Books in the Archives of Soeterbeeck
D Shelf-Marks on Labels of Woody Paper (ca 1952)
E Fragments from the Winter Part of an Antiphonary
Excursuses
1 The Term Stratigraphic Unit
2 A Bindery at Mariënhage
3 Incongruities in the Additional Office for Anthony Abbot in IV 4 and IV 22
4 Mysteries surrounding Psalter IV 75
5 Antonius van Hemert
6 Catharina Dekens
7 A Spiritual Exercise at Mass
8 A View on the Seventeenth-Century Convent
9 A Nuns’ Gallery at Soeterbeeck
10 The Uncertain Origin of Mater 2
11 The Contents of IV
12 The Choir Stalls of Soeterbeeck
13 The Duration of Petronella van Berckel’s Priorate
14 Issues about Wouter Willems’s Rectorate
15 Rumbling in the Convent
16 From Sister Verhoeven with Compliments
17 The Bishop’s Rule
18 A Sister’s Hand on Loose Leaves in IV 15
19 Against the Plague
20 Names of Loved Ones in Two Printed Books
21 Copies of the Windesheim Officia propria from St Joseph-Nazareth in Antwerp
22 A Bookcase in the Choir
23 Two Books near the Prioress
24 Books of Lay Boarders
25 Soeterbeeck’s Antiphonaries
26 The Feast of Vincent of Saragossa in Soeterbeeck’s Graduals
27 The Patched-Up State of IV 78
28 The Present State of IV 24
29 Lots 64-66 and 70-72 in the Auction Catalogue of the Estate of Theresia Smits
30 ‘Made by’ Antoon Hermans
31 More Roads to Haaren
32 Exceptionally Black
33 The Notebooks of ENK AR-Z104/545
34 Tight Links between the Text Block and Endpapers of The Hague, 130 G 18
35 The Sections of the Library of 1958
36 Soeterbeeck’s Books on Display
37 From Another Past
38 Books in the Care of Van Dijk
Part II: Catalogue of the Soeterbeeck Collection
Introduction
In General
Titles
Annotations
Traces of Use
The Sisters’ Old Library
Case III
Case IV
Case V
Indices
Previous Book-Owners
Notes
Bibliography
Pictures from the Archives
Statues, Portraits and Other Objects