Medieval Manuscript Collection
The Department of Special Collections contains over 140 manuscripts from the
Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. The first 102 manuscripts are on permanent
loan from the Cistercian monastery of Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, Kentucky.
These manuscripts are from the Obrecht Collection collected by Cistercian
Abbot Dom Edmund Obrecht. He traveled across Europe gathering medieval books
and rare Cistercian manuscripts to add to the Abbey's library so that his monks
could understand their heritage better.
The remainder of the collection has been acquired through WMU purchases and
donations. The oldest manuscript, Manuscript 1, dates from before 1140. The subject
material of the manuscripts covers everything from antiphonaries, sermons of
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Rule of Saint Benedict, breviaries, graduals, Cistercian
statutes, cartularies, indentures, binding fragments, and papal bulls.
The manuscripts
originated in such places as France, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, Flanders, Alsace,
Germany, Poland, Austria, England, and etc.
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