UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

Collections of the monastery library of the Kreuzherren zu Wickrath as deposit of the Catholic parish St. Antonius Wickrath in the city archive Mönchengladbach

Depositum der Katholischen Pfarrgemeinde St. Antonius Wickrath
Goebenstraße 4 - 8
41061 Mönchengladbach

Tel.: +49 2161 2553511
 

E-Mail: stadtarchiv@moenchengladbach.de
Internet: https://www.moenchengladbach.de/de/stadtarchiv/bibliothek-des-stadtarchivs

Library abbreviation: 260 = Z9022

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After the development of the old holdings of the Cologne Franciscan Province, which today belong to the Mönchengladbach Municipal Library, another historical book treasure from Mönchengladbach is now accessible to the public. The library of the former Kreuzherrenkloster zu Wickrath, which is a depository of the Catholic parish of St. Antonius Wickrath in the Mönchengladbach City Archives, has been recorded in cooperation between the Mönchengladbach City Library and the "Historische Bestände im Rheinland" (Historical Stocks in the Rhineland) office, and has been incorporated into the North Rhine-Westphalian network database (link in German). With the foundation of the Wickrath Monastery by Heinrich von Hompesch, Herr von Wickrath, and his wife Sophia von Burtscheid in 1490, the history of the monastery library also begins. It ends with secularisation in 1802. Valuable prints and manuscripts had already been confiscated by the French during their occupation. The remaining holdings were part of the St. Antonius Wickrath parish library until 1976 and have been stored in the Mönchengladbach municipal archive ever since. These 432 preserved volumes, the majority of which were severely damaged and could only be partially restored in the past decades, are almost exclusively theological in content and predominantly written in Latin, to a lesser extent also in German or Dutch. Of the even more extensive collection of incunabula around 1900, six works have survived. Among them is a "Missale Dominicanum seu Ordinis Praedicatorum" (Basel, c. 1488), of which only six other specimens can be found worldwide, so that the existence of a seventh specimen can be considered particularly gratifying. It was just as encouraging that the parish of Wickrath was able to reacquire a volume of "Liber sextus decretalium", Basel 1500, which had been alienated in the course of the 20th century. Thus the work on this hidden "treasure" not only contributed to making it accessible to the general public, but also enriched it with a previously lost piece.