Topographically Arranged Bibliography of Reference Works and Studies on Pastors of the Early Modern Period in Europe

1. Project description

• The collective term “Pfarrerbuch”, which is used repeatedly in this bibliography, refers to parish registers with or without biographical details (and not baptismal, marriage or death records).
• The aim of this project was therefore to compile a bibliography of topographically arranged reference works and studies on pastors of the early modern period in Europe.
• This bibliography was compiled as part of the Heinrich Bullinger-Briefwechseledition at the Institute for Swiss Reformation History at the University of Zurich between November 2010 and May 2011. Among other things, it should make it easier to identify the pastors mentioned in the letters to Heinrich Bullinger.
• Accordingly, this bibliography concentrates on the Reformation era and the period of confessionalization (16th–17th centuries). In addition, the focus of the listing is on Protestant pastors, although some directories for Catholic priests have also been included if they were discovered by chance.
• The compilation was carried out under the expert guidance of Reinhard Bodenmann, head of the Heinrich Bullinger-Briefwechseledition, and using his preliminary work on this project. The project was financed by the Foundation for Scientific Research at the University of Zurich, to whom we are greatly indebted.
• The bibliography is maintained by the staff of the Heinrich Bullinger-Briefwechseledition and by users, whose comments are gratefully received. As a result, it is constantly being corrected and expanded and kept as up-to-date as possible. All bibliographical details added later are marked with an asterisk (*) in front of the note.
• We would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people (without mentioning their academic titles) for their comments: Jan-Andrea Bernhard, Erich Bryner, Ulrich Dühr, Julia Neumann, Hans Ulrich Pfister, and Pascal Rambeaud.

2. Creation and organization of the bibliography

• Various sources were searched to compile this list: collections and records from the Institute for Swiss Reformation History at the University of Zurich, private notes by Reinhard Bodenmann, online catalogs, bibliographies on the Reformation period (including Karl Schottenloher, Bibliographie zur deutschen Geschichte im Zeitalter der Glaubensspaltung 1517–1585, 7 vols, Leipzig, 1933–1962, whose bibliographical information on the visitation literature was not included here, however), as well as individual bibliographies on this topic written earlier, which are cited at the beginning of the index.
• The Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog (KVK) and other online catalogs were used for the digital search. These were searched for the following keywords: Pfarrerbuch, -bücher, -liste, -verzeichnis, -geschichte, Presbyterologie, Kleriker, -liste, -verzeichnis, Geistliche, Series Pastorum, evangelische Geistliche, protestantische Geistliche, Geistlichkeit, Pasteur, Clergé protestant, etc.
• The bibliography is structured as follows: The studies listed have been arranged alphabetically by country and, within a country, alphabetically by the respective administrative structures (i.e. by federal state / canton / département / voivodeship etc.). Within these territorial units, the entries have been arranged alphabetically according to the geographical details given in the title. If no specific geographical location could be inferred from the title, this title was placed at the beginning of the respective administrative divisions, i.e. outside the alphabetical order. General studies on the respective administrative structures of these departments were also indicated there. The different sections of a department were subdivided using the delimitation ***.
• In addition to listing the parish registers under today's administrative structures, it was a major concern from the outset to assign the individual studies we have listed to precise geographical areas or locations in order to make it possible for the user to find the relevant parish register for a particular place. An attempt has therefore been made to list the areas covered by today's political administrative structures - administrative districts (in the case of Germany), départements (in the case of France), voivodeships (in the case of Poland), regions (in the case of the Czech Republic), federal states (in the case of Austria) and cantons (in the case of Switzerland) - under the heading “Geographical location”. For place names, the current names in the respective national languages were used, although an attempt was also made to include former spellings (e.g. for places in present-day Poland) in order to make the search as easy as possible for the user. For digitized books that are publicly available on the Internet, an Internet link has been included.
• Where appropriate, references to older editions of a cited study were provided.
• In the case of digitized books that are publicly available on the Internet, an Internet link has been added or a reference given as to where they can be found.

3. Limitations

• Due to the wealth of sources identified and the limited time available, it was not possible to check the relevance of each of the studies listed here and determine whether or not they actually contain lists of parish priests. A large number of the entries listed here were therefore included on the basis of their titles - including historical works on parishes - if this suggested that information on pastors or at least individual pastors could be found in the relevant study.
• The geographical classification should be understood as merely indicative and not exhaustive. It was not possible to transfer old territories such as counties or former bishoprics one-to-one to today's administrative structures. For this reason, the heading “Geographical location” (see above) should rather be understood as a starting point. In case of doubt, more rather than fewer territories were indicated.

4. Notes

• The bibliography is to be used as follows: To identify a pastor of a specific place, first use the search function Ctrl + F to find the corresponding place name in the bibliography. If the search is unsuccessful, the county, canton, department, etc. of the place you are looking for must be determined. This can be done easily using the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The determined county/canton etc. can now be found in the bibliography using the search function Ctrl + F and should lead to a result.

Martin Böger, editor of the bibliography under the direction of Reinhard Bodenmann
Zurich, June 2011