Archivum Lithuanicum

The paper deals with Johann Jacob Quandt’s (1686–1772) manuscript Prussian Presbyterology (Germ. Preußische Presbyterologie, vol. 1–5, ~1737–~1772, hereinafter referred to as QPP), currently stored in the Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz; GStA PK: XX. HA Hist. StA Königsberg, Hs, No. 2). The author of the presbyterology Quandt was professor primarius of theology at the University of Königsberg, the chief court preacher, and General Superintendent of Prussia; for over four years, he supervised the Lithuanian Language Seminar (1723–1727), and for two decades, he was in charge of publishing Lithuanian religious literature. The paper presents an overview of the history of the QPP manuscript, the aspects of its attribution, the structure and the content of the text, and the main sources of reference, with the focus on the QPP significance for the research into the history of Lithuanian writings. As testified by the analysis of handwriting, QPP is Quandt’s autograph. It is his largest currently known autograph and a very important part of his written heritage. Quandt worked on his presbyterology in Königsberg over three decades, from approximately 1737 until the last years of his life (his latest entries date back to the period between 1768 and 1772). Based on handwriting analysis, the chief court preacher, General Superintendent of Prussia, and later on, Archbishop of the Prussian Evangelical Church Ludwig Ernst von Borowski (1740–1831) was found to have been one of the contributors to that presbyterology. His additions were rather sporadic and found merely in volumes 1 and 2; they date back to the year 1816 or slightly later. An anonymous inscription on the provenance of the manuscript (QPP I 1) is also to be assigned to Borowski’s hand; together with the information provided by the Manuscript Catalogue of the Prussian State Archive Königsberg, it testified to Borowski having been the owner of volumes 1 to 4 of QPP. Both that fact and the handwriting analysis as well as the dating of subsequent additions led to the revision of Albert Nietzki’s (1866–1923) statement about the manuscript having been inherited and abundantly supplemented by Quandt’s colleague Daniel Heinrich Arnoldt (1706–1775): he could only have been the owner of volume 5 of QPP or its reader (between 1772 and 1775). The entries of the so far unidentified main contributor to QPP date back to the period between 1816 and 1829. In the mid-nineteenth century, Quandt’s manuscript continued to be supplemented by a third contributor.