A Brill Calendar: December 16

The Brothers Tiele

Few bonds may be more rewarding than brotherhood.

Some three years after Cornelis Tiele was born (on December 16, 1830) – a miracle happened for the tot, when mother Tiele presented Cor with baby brother Pieter, on January 18, 1834.

When this younger brother died in 1889, his older sibling had set the course of the history of modern librarianship and bibliography in the nascent Kingdom of the Netherlands. Together with the legendary antiquarian and bibliographer Frederik Muller (1817 - 1881), Pieter Tiele saw to it that the cataloguing in Dutch University Libraries – particularly those at Utrecht and Leyden – would never have to suffer dilettante treatment again; due to a dedicated love for all printed books.

For some thirteen years – from 1866 until 1879 – he worked as Conservator at the Leyden University Library, in the city where brother Cor had taught since 1873, at the Seminary of the Remonstrant Brotherhood; Leyden priding itself on a lasting bond as urban host to that Christian denomination since its 17th century origins there. In 1877 the University became Cornelis Tiele’s employer for the new Chair for the History of Religion, a national novelty. The elder Tiele had already become an expert orientalist and occupied the position especially created for him almost a quarter of a century. Comparative study of religion would never be the same again. And not only in Holland: Cornelis Tiele was invited to deliver one of the early Gifford Lectures, the greatest honour Scottish Academia can bestow.

When Pieter was promoted to become Head-Librarian of Utrecht University – where he spent the last decade of his brief life – both brothers, ‘Leyenaars’ par excellence, may have been lost for words. It is seldom in the history of Leyden University that two brothers were so similar in temperament and yet dissimilar in serving their scholarly idealism.