A wax tablet held by the Polish Academy of Sciences Kórnik Library (BK 1782) is a fragment of a polyptych of the New Town of Toruń. It displays a report of proceedings held before the Council of the New Town of Toruń on 5 January 1444, concerning some misunderstandings between the Council and one of the local patricians – Andrzej Hertil. The Council suspected that in violation of the testament of his recently deceased wife, Marta, Hertil intended to prevent the payment of 6 grzywnas for the benefit of the parish church of St. Jacob in the New Town of Toruń.

An analysis of many Toruń sources enabled a reconstruction of Andrzej Hertil’s life history and his family connections and revealed that he was a merchant, an important town official, a lay judge and head of the court of assessors, a councillor and a mayor (several times – initially in 1442). It was under his term of office that the polyptychs L and H were introduced for use in office- and financerelated matters, which was no doubt a huge administrative challenge. In 1442, Andrzej Hertil was appointed head of the party supporting the Teutonic Order, which opposed radical measures of the Prussian Confederation. He also headed negotiations with the authorities of the Old Town of Toruń concerning the right to the use of the Old Town heritage.

The Gdansk chronicle by Bernt Stegmann was written in the East Central German language (Ostmitteldeutsch) in 1528 and is the oldest surviving historiographic artefact concerning Gdansk. The article sums up the author’s latest findings concerning the circumstances in which the chronicle was written and the probable addressee of the work. She also puts forward some hypotheses regarding the origin of the compiler, discusses the structure of the manuscript and the manner of its production.
The chronicle is a compilation of some older historiographic sources, which place the history of the Main City of Gdansk in world history: the Jerusalem rulers and the history of the Teutonic Order. It is a type of a universal town chronicle. The content is moralizing – the compilation is a collection of historical examples teaching how to rule the town properly. It was probably written for didactic purposes for young Hans Kremer, the future mayor of Gdansk.
Bernt Stegmann was a merchant trading in such places as Stockholm and Reval. The toponymic criterion indicates that his family could originate from the area of Brandenburg or Braniewo, while the dialect in which he wrote the chronicle as well as the numerous Silesian threads in the content also make it possible to be open to the hypothesis that Stegmann’s family could have come from Silesia. This question remains unresolved. The manuscript was written and made personally by Bernt Stegmann, as indicated by the atypical arrangement of its sections and non-professional binding.

The medieval manuscripts of St. Mary’s Church Library ( Biblioteka Mariacka) are the oldest part of the collections of the Gdansk Library, with some items dating back to the 12th century. In view of their topics and history, they provide a priceless testimony to the history of Pomerania. The value of the manuscripts lies not only in their contents and ornamentation, but also in the fact that they include parchment documents bound by Gdansk bookbinders, which have survived in an excellent condition. The uniqueness of the collection was confirmed by the missal Missale secundum notulam dominorum Teutonicorum (Ms. Mar. F 332) being entered on UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” Polish National Register in 2016.
After 1921, not a single study discussing the provenance of books kept in St. Mary’s Church Library was written. This paper is an attempt to partially fill in the gap – to indicate the scribes and owners of the most valuable manuscripts. Among the latter, special attention should be devoted to clergymen connected with St. Mary’s church: Andreas Slommow, Heinrich Calow, and Johannes Zager, a lawyer Nicolaus Velan, and a scribe Johannes Rasoris from Nidzica.
For the purposes of this article, books kept by the Library were divided into sections: theology, philosophy, law and medicine; manuscripts related to the Teutonic Order were also given a separate section. Such a division may help the readers use the library holdings. The text also discusses the most important wartime losses.