Volume 136, Issue 4

The etymology of the term rune is assessed in light of recent developments in comparative linguistic study. Several proposals for the etymology of rune are not consistent with recent comparative understandings. Rather than magico-religious expressions, runes are better seen primarily as instruments of communication. The term rune has clear cognates in Celtic and Baltic which indicate an underlying meaning ›counsel‹.

Concepts like the written syllable, the featural analysis of letter forms and the length hierarchy have led to stunning insights over the last few years. However, they are still very much disputed. The present paper investigates a number of historical developments in the German writing system with regard to the length hierarchy. Many of these changes can be understood (exclusively) as an increasing profiling of the written syllable.

In this paper, the author contests Helmut de Boor’s widespread labelling of the early Minnesang verses as the ›Danubian tradition‹ by revealing his unfortunate blending of topographical, textual, formal and genre-related aspects. The argument is based on a selection of early stanzas that have not absorbed Franco-Provençal influences such as the strophic form of the canzone or the idea of love service. In the manuscript tradition, some of these in the first place anonymous verses have been attributed to Der von Kürenberg , the Burggraf von Regensburg , Leutholt von Seven , Waltram von Gresten and Niune . At this point they are newly conceptualized as witnesses of a collective art form. Therefore, these early verses constitute an own sub-genre and can be distinguished from the later corpora rightly attributed to the Burggraf von Rietenburg, Meinloh von Sevelingen and Dietmar von Aist .

On the occasion of the new ›Laurin‹-edition, this article focuses on the phenomenon of the critical apparatus. Philologists have taken serious efforts in re-examining the standards of editing medieval texts in general over the last decades. However, the apparatus itself has received far less attention. The article discusses the consequences of this disequilibrium for contemporary editions. It proposes a new approach to apparatus design, which takes into account the manifold textual situations we encounter in medieval transmission.

This article deals with a dialogue tract, surviving in one manuscript from 1469, that teaches a female penitent seven golden rules of exemplary piety; a contemporary short version of them is published here. The catechetic programme of the tract is embedded in the biography of a prototypical Dominican father confessor and makes use of the apocryphal legend of Saint Paul and Thecla as a biographical model. The anonymous author also bases his text on a certain type of mystical autobiography and, possibly, the Legend of Meister Eckhart’s Daughter. Much as the text appears to allude to real figures of the Dominican Order, its historical truth cannot be confirmed.