Stephan Kuttner
Institute of Medieval Canon Law Stephan Kuttner
Institute of Medieval Canon Law Introduction
The contribution of the ius novum to the development of the learned law is now well known to historians, as is the role that the decretal collections, especially the Anglo-Norman decretal collections, played in this process. Yet the majority of these collections have not yet been edited. Because of the great importance of the card file assembled by Walther Holtzmann as a preliminary “Regesta decretalium,” these records are going to be made available on the Internet as gif-files even before the card file has been completely prepared for publication. The Monumenta Germaniae Historica has begun the essential steps toward this publication with the aid of the Bavarian State Library in Munich which is handling the digitalization process. They have also, along with the Leibniz Computation Center of the Bavarian Academy of Arts and Sciences who are installing the database, been readily available whenever help or advice has been needed. Frau Dr. B. Gilcher, assembled the database, Herr Landherr, form the LRZ Computation Centre took care for the transformation in searchable pdfs, after the old server couldn't be used any longer.
Tips on using the card files
In connection with the ongoing work on the 12th-century decretal collections, the Walther Holtzmann Card File is being digitalized and made into a database so that the individual gif images of the cards can be the objects of a search program using Incipit, Kuttner Institute Number (KI-Nummer), Walther Holtzmann Number (WH-Nummer), and Jaff�-Loewenfeld Number (JL-Nummer) as search terms. It will open a searchable portable-document-format-file, which is linked to the underlying image. There are also plans to expand the search functions in a later phase of the project and to extend the search to include the full text of the cards..
Search options:
The Card File can be searched by incipit, by KI-number, WH-number, JL-number
after opening the table either as searchable pdf or in the given order (incipit,
Ki, WH, JL-number) just by scrolling.
In the upper left-hand corner of each card there is a number known as a Walther Holtzmann Number (WH-Nummer). These numbers have been used in citations in the scholarly literature for a number of years. In the top center position is the (old) Jaff�-Loewenfeld Number (JL-Nummer). One must be careful here: not every WH number has a corresponding exclusive JL Number. In the top right-hand corner one finds the newly assigned Kuttner Institute Number (KI-Nummer) that has been a necessary part of the digitalization effort since Holtzmann often used both sides of a card for his notes.
When a Search is run all of the data entries that match the numbers (or letters) entered in the search field will be shown. There is no need to truncate with an asterisk (*).
Please note that an individual entry can encompass more than one card, or can extend to the rear of a card (i.e. to more than one gif file
Links to the search fields for the Walther-Holtzman Card File:
last update: May 2012