Elisabeth von Sachsen-Meiningen

Elisabeth of Sachsen-Meiningen (3 December 1681 - 24 December 1766) was a princess of Sachsen-Meiningen. Between 1713. Until her death in 1766, she had been the long-serving Abbess of the free imperial secular [quasi-monastic] foundation at Gandersheim ("Kaiserlich freies weltliches Reichsstift Gandersheim"). Life Elisabeth Ernestine Antonie von Sachsen-Meiningen was born in December 1681 at Meiningen, a daughter of Bernhard I von Saxe-Meiningen and his second wife, Elisabeth Eleonore von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, whom Duke Bernhard had married earlier that same year. Elisabeth Eleonore von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel's father - thereby Elisabeth of Sachsen-Meiningen's maternal grandfather - was the dynastically ambitious art-loving and prolifically letter-writing Prince Anthony Ulrich von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel. She spent her childhood and teenage years at court, developing interests in literature and music at an early age. She was a gifted singer, and also made stage appearances at the court theatre. In 1713 she took over from her deceased kinswoman, Marie Elisabeth zu Mecklenburg, as Abbess at Gandersheim Abbey. Sources commend her piety. For forty years, between 1709 and 1749, she transcribed her own record of every sermon that she heard. Through her commitment to learning and the arts she was able greatly to expand both the monastic art collection and its library of books and manuscripts. For these reasons, and on account of the duration of her incumbency, she is widely viewed as the most important of the post-reformation abbesses at Gandersheim. The current abbey library is largely her creation, in part through a major purchase made by her and the abbey chapter on 26 April 1721. This had become urgent because the abbey's former ancient treasures had mostly been lost during the course of The Reformation, or subsequently plundered during the seventeenth century's wars. Books during this period were still luxury items. Valuable support came from donors and from her chief steward, Anton Kroll von Freyhan, who administered the major book purchases that were central to the project. It is clear from the dedications included with the volumes that Elisabeth never hesitated to invite the abbey's visitors to make their own generous contributions to the book acquisition programme. The resulting collection contains relatively few works contemporary to the eighteenth century.