The University of Würzburg was founded in 1582 by Prince-Bishop Julius Echter after a brief earlier institution in the early 15th century. Printed course catalogues in the modern sense did not exist during the first two centuries; the continuous series begins only in 1785.

Although the Julius-Maximilians-Universität continues to publish course catalogues today (both in print and digitally) the digitised holdings provided by Würzburg University Library currently extend only up to 1945 due to personal and copyright considerations.