Legacy of a schoolmaster

Most schoolmasters of the early fifteenth century have disappeared from history without trace. What has preserved Poetzlinger’s memory to this day is a combination of four factors. First, he collected a large personal library of more than a hundred manuscripts that contain many of the principal scholarly (i. e. mostly theological) texts of his day, but also include one that has extraordinary musical significance. Secondly, these manuscripts formed part of his donation to the monastery of St. Emmeram in return for his care in old age. Thirdly, the library of this monastery had unusually good fortune in remaining more or less intact until the present day (it is now part of the Bavarian State Library). And fourthly, a librarian of the monastery around the turn of the fifteenth century, Dionysius Menger, wrote a very detailed catalogue of the monastery library, which helps to identify most of the manuscripts that belonged to Poetzlinger. The survival of a substantial personal library from the early fifteenth century provides us with an unusual glimpse into the scholarly culture of the period.