Anniversary book

Anniversary books (Latin libri anniversariorum; also known as obituario) are calendars with the names and endowments of pious donors entered on the date of their death or burial in order to hold an annual mass with intercessory prayers for the redemption of their souls.[1] Most religious institutions throughout Western Christianity started keeping such registers during the High and Late Middle Ages, listing the anniversary masses, chantry services or obiits they were committed to celebrate on each day of the year.[2]

Since the donors were hoping for eternal redemption, these books were contemporarily referred to as the heavenly Book of Life (latin liber vitae or liber vivorum, Book of the Living) mentioned in the Bible.[3] Other terms comprise obituary or necrology, although the two are sometimes used to distinguish between actual anniversary books and their monastic predecessors which did not list endowments. The same terms are also used in French and Italian, whereas the German expressions are Jahrzeitbuch or Jahrtagsbuch.[4]

While leading figures of the Reformation such as Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin rejected the idea of purgatory an therefore abolished the practices of intercession and anniversary masses,[5] they were continued by Catholics for decades. Thousands of medieval and early modern manuscripts have survived in France and the Holy Roman Empire. Jean-Loup Lemaître has collected more than 3000 obituaries or anniversary books from France,[6] whereas Rainer Hugener could trace over 1000 manuscripts from Swiss archives.[7]

References
  1. Michael Borgolte, Foundations 'For the Salvation of the Soul' - an Exception in World History?, in: Medieval Worlds, vol. 1, 2015 pp. 87-105.
  2. Rainer Hugener, The Social. Ritual, Faith, Practices, and the Everyday, in: Stefan Berger, Jeffrey K. Olick (eds.): Bloomsbury Cultural History of Memory, vol. 2: A Cultural History of Memory in the Middle Ages, ed. Gerald Schwedler, London/New York 2020, pp. 123-146, ISBN 978-1-4742-7338-1; Peter-Johannes Schuler: Das Anniversar. Zu Mentalität und Familienbewusstsein im Spätmittelalter, in: id. (ed.): Die Familie als sozialer und historischer Verband. Untersuchungen zum Spätmittelalter und zur frühen Neuzeit, Sigmaringen 1987, pp. 67-117 ISBN 9783799558112.
  3. Leo Koep, Das himmlische Buch in Antike und Christentum: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zur altchristlichen Bildersprache, Bonn 1952.
  4. Rainer Hugener, Buchführung für die Ewigkeit: Totengedenken, Verschriftlichung und Traditionsbildung im Spätmittelalter. Zürich 2014, pp. 31-2, ISBN 978-3-0340-1196-9 (PDF).
  5. For England cf. Peter Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, Oxford 2000, pp. 94-5, ISBN 978-0198207733.
  6. Jean-Loup Lemaître, Répertoire des documents nécrologiques français, Paris 1980 (Recueil des historiens de la France publié par l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Obituaires), ISBN 978-2-87754-401-6.
  7. Hugener (2014), pp. 303-91.

Further reading
  • Philippe Ariès, Western Attitudes Toward Death from the Middle Ages to the Present, Baltimore 1974, ISBN 978-0801817625.
  • Michael Borgolte, World History as the History of Foundations, 3000 BCE to 1500 CE, Leiden 2020, ISBN 978-90-04-41448-8.
  • Elma Brenner, Meredith Cohen, Mary Franklin-Brown (eds.), Memory and Commemoration in Medieval Culture, Aldershot 2013, ISBN 978-1-4094-2393-5.
  • Bruce Gordon, Peter Marshall (eds.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 978-0521645188.
  • Nicolas Huyghebaert, Les documents nécrologiques, Turnhout 1972 (Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, vol. 4), ISBN 978-2-503-36004-1.
  • Armando Petrucci, Writing the Dead: Death and Writing Strategies in the Western Tradition, Stanford 1998, ISBN 978-0804728591.
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