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oa ‘Was die Not im Vaterland jetzt von uns verlangt!’
Onderzoek naar de aankoopgeschiedenis van de Richthofenkolleksje in 1921–1923
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis, Volume 32, Issue 2025, Jul 2025, p. 50 - 78
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- 01 Jul 2025
Abstract
The Richthofenkolleksje is a collection of ten manuscripts on medieval Frisian law, kept at the Frisian Historical and Literary Centre Tresoar in Leeuwarden. In 2022, the Richthofenkolleksje entered the Dutch UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The collection, created as a sub-collection by public notary and legal historian Petrus Wierdsma (1729-1811), came into the hands of legal historian Karl Freiherr von Richthofen (1811-1888) in 1858. In 1920/1921, his daughter-in-law, Margarete Freifrau von Richthofen von Webern (1861-1933), authorised family friend Professor Theodor Siebs (1862-1941), a German linguist specialised in Frisian, to offer the collection for sale. The University of Groningen was interested, but decided not to acquire it. After long and complicated negotiations and with the help of international crowdfunding, the collection ended up in Friesland in 1922/1923, where it was deposited in the Provincial Library, a predecessor of Tresoar.