Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

was used can only be made on the basis of published and
dated pictures or drawings of identical watermarks that are
unambiguous in all their details.
An analysis of about three hundred watermarks in the WZ-
MA collection, for which it could be established that at
least two dated manuscripts contained the identical form,
revealed that about a third of these watermarks exceeded
the maximum time period of four years that was postulated
by Piccard (cf. Haidinger, Datieren mittelalterlicher Handschriften,
17–20). Although, because of the small number
of samples, this does not allow us to make a general statement
about the time period identical paper was used, it
nevertheless shows that Piccard’s rule must be considered
simply a working hypothesis, which, based on the current
state of research, cannot be considered “highly certain”,
but merely valid for a majority of cases.
Literature: Haidinger, Datieren mittelalterlicher Handschriften;
Piccard, Die Wasserzeichenforschung als historische
Hilfswissenschaft.
A.H. (C.P.-K.)
Different monasteries – identical paper
Universities and monasteries, and increasingly also the administration
of cities and estates, were the centres of the
written word in the late Middle Ages. It can be assumed
that there was brisk exchange between these institutions:
university graduates were, for instance, employed in administrative
positions. Unsurprisingly the connection between
monasteries and universities was very close, especially between
those lying close to one another such as the University
of Vienna and Stift Klosterneuburg, which lies only a
few kilometres outside the city, or the Vienna Schottenkloster,
which, like the University, lay within the city walls.
Students came from the monasteries to the University,
when finished with their studies returned there, and later
some came themselves to teach at the Alma Mater Rudolphina.
The manuscripts that were written and used for
studying and teaching found their way between the institutions
in the hands of students and professors, as did the
texts that were necessary for the daily liturgy. Based on the
consideration that the paper used in this setting came from
the stock of the same traders, within the framework of the
Viennese project “Wasserzeichen des Mittelalters”, the watermarks
in manuscripts of Klosterneuburg began to be
recorded as well as of those in the dated manuscripts of the
Schottenkloster. The more identical watermarks from different
dated manuscripts available, the more reliable dating
based on them becomes. As expected, it could be established
that the collections in the two monastery libraries
contained corresponding watermarks, and thus also corresponding
paper, and so with dated codices from one
monastery it was possible to substantiate or further qualify
dating assumptions about manuscripts in the other.
One example is the Codex 315from Klosterneuburg,
which contains a copy of a lecture held by Konrad Ülin von
Rottenburg on Book III and IV of the Sententiae. Konrad
Ülin von Rottenburg studied theology at the University of
Vienna at the end of the 14 th century, then taught there
himself, taking on the deanship of the Faculty of Arts several
times. In 1413 he became a canon at St. Stephen’s cathedral,
where after his death in 1416 his grave was also located.
A systematic examination of his works, including lectures
and sermons, has yet to be undertaken.
An important contribution to the chronology of his
work’s transmission could be made by means of research on
watermarks. By comparing the watermarks in Codex 315
with other manuscripts in the monastery’s library and with
watermarks in the Piccard-Online Collection, it has already
been possible to limit the dates of the manuscripts’ writing
to the years “1415/1420”.
In addition, of the six watermark pairs in the Klosterneuburg
Codex 315, three pairs could be found in the
following dated manuscripts of the Schottenkloster (Ill. 2):
Cod. 101 New Testament dated 1416
Cod. 130 Konrad de Brundelsheim: dated 1418
Sermones de sanctis
Cod. 329 Sermons and moral- dated 1417
Part I (fol. 1–132) theological texts
The watermark pair “Crown” (A+B) in Codex 315 is also
found in Codex 329, Part I of the Schotten collection,
where it is found in eleven of sixty-six sheets, a quite substantial
number. For two codices of the Schotten collection,
paper with the watermark “Moor’s head” (C+D) was used:
in Codex 101 it appears in 114 of 156 sheets, in Codex 130
it is in 8 of 143. The watermark “Moor’s head with crown”
(G+H) is found on six sheets of the same manuscript. The
dates of this Schotten manuscripts confirm the assumed
date of the Klosterneuburg Codex 315 to “1415/1420”, as
was previously inferred.
Literature: Hohmann, Konrad Ülin von Rottenburg; Knapp,
Die Literatur des Spätmittelalters, 180.
M.S. (C.P.-K.)
Watermarks and their variants
Watermark research differentiates between ‘identical watermarks’
and ‘variants’. Watermarks that are considered
‘identical’ are the same in all details – both the impression
of the wire figure and the placement on the mould – and
so are perfectly congruent, which can be tested by laying
transparent copies one above the other. In contrast, watermarks
that are classified as ‘variants’, as the term is used today,
were clearly made with the same wire figure, but during
the production process the shape of the figure
changed, creating watermarks that are different from one
another. Through the mechanical wear and tear of the papermaking
process or when the mould was cleaned, parts
of the wire could become loose and then bent or moved. It
was also possible for a wire to break.
The wire figure was usually attached to the laid and chain
lines with sewing wire. When the mould was shaken during
the papermaking process, it was possible for the wires of
the figure to become loose or parts of them to begin to
“wander”. The wire was then re-attached at a spot that
37