The (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for "Historical Monuments of Germany"), frequently abbreviated MGH, is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an Artifact (archaeology), artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was cre ...

s, both

chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

and

archival An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials, in any medium, or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organ ...

, for the study of parts of Northwestern, Central and Southern European history from the end of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

to 1500. Despite the name, the series covers important sources for the history of many countries besides Germany, since the Society for the Publication of Sources on Germanic Affairs of the Middle Ages has included documents from many other areas subjected to the influence of Germanic tribes or rulers (Britain, Czech lands, Poland, Austria, France, Low Countries, Italy, Spain, etc.).

History

The MGH was founded in Hanover as a private

text publication society A text publication society is a learned society which publishes (either as its sole function, or as a principal function) scholarly editions of old works of historical or literary interest, or archival documents. In addition to full texts, a text p ...

by the

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom Stein in 1819. The first volume appeared in 1826. The editor from 1826 until 1874 was Georg Heinrich Pertz (1795–1876), who was succeeded by Georg Waitz (1813–1886). Many eminent medievalists from Germany and, eventually, other countries, joined in the project of searching out and comparing manuscripts and producing scholarly editions. The motto chosen, ("Sacred love for the fatherland gives the spirit"), is explained as linking

Romantic nationalism Romantic nationalism (also national romanticism, organic nationalism, identity nationalism) is the form of nationalism in which the state claims its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes ...

with professional scholarship. In 1875, the MGH was established as a more formal institution with headquarters in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. In 1935, the organization was taken over by the state and renamed the ("National Institute for Older German History"). This was abolished in 1945, at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The institute was later revived under its original name with the support of German institutions and the

Austrian Academy of Sciences The Austrian Academy of Sciences (; ÖAW) is a legal entity under the special protection of the Republic of Austria. According to the statutes of the Academy its mission is to promote the sciences and humanities in every respect and in every fi ...

. The Monumenta Germaniae Historica Institute has been located in Munich since 1949 and possesses a large specialized library on the medieval history of Germany and Europe, including Church history, along with 130,000 monographs and approximately 150,000 dependent writings. During the late 1940s, Margarete Kühn used her work on the MGH as cover for taking the Wiesbaden Codex from

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

control in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

and having it returned to Eibingen and then to the State Library of Wiesbaden. The MGH moved into its current premises in the building of the

Bavarian State Library The Bavarian State Library (, abbreviated BSB, called ''Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis'' before 1919) in Munich is the central " Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the biggest universal and research libra ...

in 1967. The project, a major effort of historical scholarship, continues in the 21st century. In 2004 the MGH, with the support of the

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bu ...

, made all of its publications in print for more than five years available online, in photo-digital reproduction, via a link on the MGH homepage.

Divisions

The series falls into five main divisions, ("Antiquities"), ("Documents"), ("Letters"), ("Laws"), and ("Authors"), with an additional smaller division of ("Necrology"). Many subsidiary series have also been established, including a series of more compact volumes for school use () and special studies ().

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Reprinted in

External links

2015 list of publications

The MGH homepage

Digital MGH homepage
, from which the digitized texts can be searched
Monumenta Germaniae Historica on Archive.org
* Th
list of links to scans of MGH volumes
in the "Links Galore" spreadsheet {{Authority control 1826 non-fiction books 1826 in literature 1826 introductions Book series introduced in the 1820s History books about Germany Documents Text publication societies 19th-century history books Academic publishing 19th-century books in Latin Germanic studies