At-risk Fragment Collections in Ecclesiastical Institutions

One day in October 2019—at that time we had already been working on the ULB Tyrol detached fragments project for one year—I decided to travel to Stams in Tyrol to visit the Cistercian abbey there, in order to photograph the fragment pieces that belonged to the parts housed at the ULB Tyrol. We knew that these parts belonged together, but we could not find any digital images of them anywhere.

The village of Stams, today an Austrian community in the district of Imst in Tyrol with around 1,500 inhabitants, was established in 1065. In 1273 the constituent convention under abbot Heinrich von Hohenstetten of the Cistercians Kaisheim near Donauwörth inhabited the first domicile in Stams. After the construction of the abbey, which was endowed by Graf Meinhard the II of Görz-Tyrol, the foundation deed was issued and the new abbey and church inaugurated in 1284. The Cistercian abbey (OCist) Stams belongs to the Mehrau congregation and the diocese of Innsbruck, and has a long history that is reflected in its library and archive. The history of the Cistercian abbey Stams was also closely connected to that of the ULB Tyrol. And, this holds true for many Tyrolean abbey libraries. However, despite of the transfers that the ULB Tyrol was forced to undergo in the past, in other words collections were partly restituted to the abbey, Stams still owns especially valuable book collections.

During my visit, which was originally intended to complete ULB Tyrol Frg. 65, I found hundreds of detached and in situ fragments housed in Stams that were uncataloged. I found this to be the case after only seeing the archives collection during my short visit, not even the library collections. In other words, more fragments are likely to be found if one were to take a closer look at the library collections. Only a few examples of fragments from Stams have been discovered and published in the past (see for example the contributions by Anton E. Schönbach at the end of the 19th century). Cataloging the Stams fragments (that means, describing and digitalizing them) would presumably lead to several mergers with fragment material from the ULB Tyrol, but not only from the ULB Tyrol, for the abbey in Stams was in close contact with various countries throughout its history.