During Spalatin’s Lifetime

In 1510 Georg Spalatin received from Elector Frederick III of Saxony, known as Frederick the Wise, the commission to compose a dynastic chronicle of the Electoral Saxon house. The chronicle was intended to recount the origins of the Saxons, Thuringians, and Meissenians and to trace their history up to the author’s own time, culminating in the reign of the incumbent elector. Following extensive preparatory work, a fair copy of the chronicle was produced. This version survives today in the three Coburg volumes (LBC, Ms. Cas. 9–11) as well as in the Weimar chronicle volume (HStAW, EGA, Reg. O 21). The latter consists of disparate manuscript gatherings that remained unbound in Spalatin’s house at the time of his death. This collection of gatherings has a transmission history distinct from that of the Coburg volumes and will not be discussed in detail here. The Weimar manuscript is occasionally referred to as the fourth volume of the chronicle. This designation is inaccurate and potentially misleading, since a fourth chronicle volume is indeed attested in historical records but appears to have been produced only later – probably after 1535 – and its whereabouts can no longer be traced after 1590.

At least two scribes were involved in producing the fair copy preserved in the Coburg manuscripts and the Weimar gathering compilation. Both must have been active in the immediate environment of the author and his patron at the Electoral Saxon court in Wittenberg. One of these scribes identifies himself by the monogram "HB", which appears at the lower margin of the second chronicle volume (LBC, Ms. Cas. 10, fol. 189r). The identity of this individual, however, has not yet been established. Evidence for dating the fair copy is provided by the Weimar chronicle volume. In the sixth gathering block (fols. 225–248), which concerns the landgraves of Hesse, the most recent event mentioned in the chronicle is the marriage of Elisabeth (1502–1557), eldest daughter of Landgrave William II of Hesse, to Duke John the Younger (1498–1537), son of Duke George of Saxony, on 20 May 1516. Although this date cannot be regarded as a strict terminus post quem for the entire manuscript, it nevertheless provides an important chronological reference point. When considered together with the results of watermark analysis, the study of the bindings and materials, and the known facts of Spalatin’s biography, it permits the secure conclusion that the fair copy was produced between 1515 and 1517. Three of the four surviving chronicle volumes – the present Coburg manuscripts LBC, MS. 9–11 – were bound shortly thereafter in 1516/1517. By contrast, the gatherings that now constitute the Weimar chronicle volume (HStAW, EGA, Reg. O. 21) remained unbound until 1681.

According to Spalatin’s testament of 13 October 1535 (HStAW, EGA, Reg. O 56, 3v), both the "three chronicle books with paintings" (= LBC, Ms. Cas. 9-11) and the "several written gatherings" (= HStAW, EGA, Reg. O 21) were stored in one of two "chronicle chests" in his house in Altenburg, where he had moved after the death of Frederick the Wise in 1525. Evidently Spalatin intended to preserve the possibility of continuing work on the chronicle.

From Spalatin’s Death to 1574

For a long time it was assumed that the chronicle volumes were transferred to the Saxon elector after Spalatin’s death on 16 January 1545 in accordance with his testamentary instructions. At that time the elector was John Frederick I, known as John Frederick the Magnanimous. However, an entry in a financial account book from 1540 records that Spalatin had already arranged for the transport of the two "chronicle chests" – which contained, among other things, the three bound volumes of the chronicle (LBC, Ms. Cas. 9–11) – from Altenburg to the residence of Elector John Frederick I in Torgau in that same year (HStAW, EGA, Reg. Bb 5301, 13r). Following the Capitulation of Wittenberg in 1547, the volumes were probably moved first to the new residence city of Weimar. In 1565 they were transferred to Gotha under Duke John Frederick the Middle of Saxony-Weimar (1529–1595), and after the Capitulation of Gotha in 1567 they returned to Weimar at the court of his brother Duke John William I of Saxony-Weimar (1530–1573).

From 1574 to the Present

The three chronicle volumes can be documented again only in the holdings of the University Library of Jena. After the death of Duke John William I, they were transferred there on 30 March 1574 together with the books of Duke John Frederick the Middle. Their presence in Jena is confirmed by three inventories compiled in connection with this transfer (HStAW, Kunst und Wissenschaft – Hofwesen, A 7000, 12r; A 7001, 35v–36r; A 7002, 37v–38r). Furthermore, the volumes are mentioned in an inventory entitled "Duke John Fredericks books" of 1582, which forms a separate section within the overall inventory of the Jena University Library and survives in two copies (ThULB Jena, Bibliotheksarchiv, AC I 1, 173r; StA Coburg, LA E 2405, 243r).

In 1589 Duke John Casimir of Saxe-Coburg (1564–1633), the son of the imprisoned Duke John Frederick the Middle, laid claim to his father’s library. The books were accordingly transported from Jena to Coburg in October 1590. Yet a letter from Johann Casimir to the University of Jena dated 26 October 1590, together with an appended list, shows that the chronicle volumes were missing during the transport (ThULB Jena, Bibliotheksarchiv, AA I 1, 54r and 55r). The most plausible explanation is that Duke Frederick William I of Saxe-Weimar (1562–1602) – son of John William I – had borrowed the manuscripts in order to have them copied. Indeed, exact page-for-page copies of the chronicle were produced around 1585 on behalf of Frederick William I and his mother Dorothea Susanna (FB Gotha, Chart. A 189–191). The fact that Duke Frederick William I did not return the chronicle volumes to John Casimir as requested after the copy had been produced is demonstrated by a second copy of the chronicle made between 1650 and 1675 in Weimar or Gotha (FB Gotha, Chart. A 528–530), possibly commissioned by Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Gotha (1601–1670). This second copy does not derive from the earlier copy but was produced directly from the original manuscripts LBC, Ms. Cas. 9–11. Only after the completion of this second copying process were the chronicle volumes apparently transferred to Coburg, where they properly belonged according to the dynastic line of inheritance. By the end of the seventeenth century they were part of the library of Duke Albert of Saxe-Coburg (1648–1699), known as the Bibliotheca Albertina. Their affiliation with this collection is confirmed by Duke Albert’s ex libris pasted into the front endpapers of the manuscripts.

In 1701 a large portion of the holdings of the Bibliotheca Albertina, including the three chronicle volumes LBC, Ms. Cas. 9–11, was transferred by testamentary provision to the library of the Gymnasium Casimirianum in Coburg. In the catalogue compiled by the librarian Johann Georg Brückner in 1734, they are listed among the folio manuscripts as no. 4 (LBC, Ms. Cas. 2, p. 95). Following the reorganisation and recataloguing of the collections by the teacher Ernst Anton Julius Ahrens in 1856, the manuscripts received the shelfmarks 8791–8793 (LBC, Ms. Cas. 8, 31v).

Shortly thereafter they were loaned to the art collections of the Veste Coburg. There they received the shelfmarks Ms. 3–5. In 1956 the manuscripts were transferred to the Landesbibliothek Coburg in Ehrenburg Palace and, during a recataloguing of the manuscripts carried out by Franz Georg Kaltwasser, were assigned the shelfmarks still in use today: LBC, Ms. Cas. 9–11.

Christina Meckelnborg,  Anne-Beate Riecke, November 2011
Editorial revision: December 2025