Lorch Monastery in the Rems Valley is known as a main site of Staufer history in Württemberg. However it is often forgotten that the monastery was not only important because it was to be the tomb of the Staufer dynasty. The magnificent Lorch Choir Books (1511-1512) bear witness to another age. They originated during the heyday of monastic life and creativity in Lorch in the early 16th century. For their creation the best scribes, book illuminators and specialists for musical notes from Southern Germany were brought together to work on the precious parchment pages of the three preserved manuscripts - originally there were five. The order was so large that a separate workshop was probably even set up in Lorch. All hymns of the monastic Church year were written down in the volumes. Two were used for horary prayer, and the monks sang during Mass from the third. At the beginning of each church celebration the pages are adorned with illustrations, ornaments and elaborate initials.
The choir books were commissioned by Abbot Sitterich from Lorch. He specified the content, selected the artisans and ensured the financing of the costly works. Countless persons are listed in the manuscripts as donators and sponsors - first and foremost the sovereign Duke Ulrich of Württemberg. Only with their support was the monastery able to raise the sums required, for example, for parchment and inks.
The illustrations of the book illuminator Nikolaus Bertschi from Augsburg are dazzlingly beautiful. Their wit, vividness and rich coloration are still enchanting today. Bertschi succeeds in a particularly realistic representation not only of religious scenes, but also of everyday life from the area surrounding the monastery. Two unusual illustrations provide an extremely rare insight into the workday routine of the medieval monastery workshop. They show Nikolaus Bertschi and the music illuminator Leonhard Wagner from the monastery St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg at work. There are also amazing, striking scenes with almost black humor. For example, the rabbits whose victim, the hunter, is joyfully being grilled. However, before Bertschi could begin his work, the scribes had to have completed theirs. To support the Lorch monks, monks from Elchingen, Murrhardt and Augsburg were brought in. But the most famous scribe came from Lorch itself. It was the monk Laurentius Autenrieth, who later became abbot there.
Of course, the three folio volumes can be admired beginning in April in the major Lorch anniversary exhibition - or maybe that can't really be taken for granted considering the fact that the monastery, and with it also the library, was closed in 1535. The volumes disappeared. It took 1587 before they were sold by two former Lorch monks to the non-reformed Benedictine monastery in Neresheim. There they remained into the 18th century. They wandered as a gift of the abbot of Neresheim to Stuttgart - to Duke Karl Eugen, who was a passionate collector of old bibles and religious manuscripts. Since that time they have been carefully preserved and protected. Today they are in the possession of the Württemberg State Library (Württembergische Landesbibliothek). The duke's collection is an important basis of the library today. Now an exception has been made so that these precious works can return to Lorch Monastery one at a time to be displayed and opened there for the duration of the exhibition!