The University of Würzburg was founded in 1582 by Prince-Bishop Julius Echter after a short-lived predecessor at the beginning of the 15th century. Modern, printed course catalogues did not exist during the first two centuries. The series begins in 1785 and was issued regularly from that point onward.

While their primary purpose was to announce courses, the catalogues also provide valuable insight into teaching staff, organisational structures, institutes, and much more. For certain periods, they even include directories of staff and/or students; from 1830/31 onwards, these were issued separately.

This development is also reflected in the changing titles of the Würzburg course catalogues. The first catalogue appeared in 1785 under the title Catalogue of Public and Private Lectures at the Academia Julia of Würzburg. As early as the following year, this was changed to Schedule of Public and Private Lectures at the Julius University of Würzburg, a title that remained in use until 1803. Between 1803 and 1838, the official title was Schedule of Lectures at the Royal University of Würzburg, before the catalogues were, for two years, published as Register of Lectures to be Held at the Royal Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg.

From 1841 to 1918, they appeared as Register of Lectures Held at the Royal Bavarian Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg and Staff Directory of the Royal Bavarian Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg. The staff component, however, was removed from the title between 1919 and 1929, when the catalogues were issued simply as Course Catalogue of the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg.

For a brief period, they carried the titles Course Catalogue with Staff List of the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (1930–1931) and Course Catalogue and Staff Register / Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (1931–1934), before being published from 1935 to 2012 as the Staff and Course Catalogue / Bavarian Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg.

Because the titles changed so frequently, searching for these catalogues in library databases can be challenging; for this reason, they are referred to here collectively as the “Würzburg Course Catalogues.” For reasons of personal-data protection and copyright, digitisation currently ends with the year 1945.