In 620 individual articles, this volume contains an annotated edition of inscriptions from five districts south-west of the Elbe up to the year 1650. The inscriptions focus on the noble families living in the countryside with their manors, family chapels and patronage churches. Other focal points are the Bardowick canonry of St Peter and Paul, the town of Uelzen and the inscriptions referring to the Lüneburg dukes as princes and their officials.
In 620 individual articles, this volume contains the annotated edition of inscriptions from five districts [Landkreise] south-west of the Elbe up to the year 1650 covering the northern part of the former Principality of Lüneburg. The districts of Lüneburg, Harburg, Lüchow-Dannenberg, Uelzen and the Heidekreis surround the city of Lüneburg and thus also the monastery of St Michaelis with its numerous patronage churches in the villages. A large number of inscriptions illustrate the relationship between the town of Lüneburg and its surrounding area. While the inscriptions of the city of Lüneburg (DI vol. 100) focus on the patriciate, the inscriptions in the neighbouring districts concentrate on the landed aristocratic families with their manors, family chapels and patronage churches. Other focal points are the Bardowick canonry of St Peter and Paul, the town of Uelzen and the inscriptions referring to the Lüneburg dukes and their officials.
The introduction to the volume establishes links between the inscriptions and the history of the Lüneburg region. It analyses the inscriptions of individual groups of objects such as bells, funerary monuments, church utensils and church furnishings from various points of view. The catalogue entries are arranged chronologically. They provide a description of the object and a reproduction of the texts with the abbreviations broken down. Latin and Low German texts are translated. The subsequent commentary discusses important questions relating to the inscription or the object. Ten indexes make the catalogue section accessible to the reader. An extensive illustration section completes the edition. A special feature of this volume is the list of bells made by the Lüneburg foundry family Voss in 1723, edited in an appendix. With 155 bells listed the list provides a detailed insight into the operation of a foundry based in Lüneburg.
Dr Sabine Wehking (born 1956, studied History and Older German Language and Literature), is a freelance member of the research department Die Deutschen Inschriften des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit at the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony. Together with the current volume on the districts around Lüneburg, she has compiled eight volumes of inscriptions. Previously she worked on the inscriptions of the female monastic communities around Lüneburg (DI 76) and on the inscriptions of the town of Lüneburg (DI 100).
The project aims at compiling and publishing all Latin and German inscriptions of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period until 1650. Geographically, the collection currently covers Germany and Austria as well as South Tyrol. The findings are published in the DI volumes. Each volume comprises the inscriptions from one or several urban or rural districts or from a single city, issuing even smaller complexes separately in cities with particularly large numbers of inscriptions. The series includes both preserved original inscriptions and those which survive only as copies.
“Die Deutschen Inschriften” is by far the oldest current project aiming at the compilation of medieval and early modern inscriptions. It was founded over 75 years ago as a joint project of the German and Austrian Academies of Sciences and Humanities on the initiative of the Germanist Friedrich Panzer (Heidelberg) with substantial cooperation from the historians Karl Brandi (Göttingen) and Hans Hirsch (Vienna).
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