Texte und Textgeschichte
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Edited by:
Klaus Grubmüller
The series Texte und Textgeschichte [Texts and Textual History] set up by the Würzburg research group on ‘Medieval Prose’ under its leader Kurt Ruh contains editions and studies of widely disseminated high-impact late medieval German functional texts. They are prepared and presented with an emphasis on the communicative function of literature, the mutual interaction of author, writer and public. This involves taking primary account of textual mutations in the course of transmission; the methodological objective of each of the editions is to present these editorially in an optimum manner (textual transmission methodology). The studies are directed in each case at the particular circumstances of the transmission - textual geography, chronology and sociology - process the sources and trace the impact of the texts.
Around the year 1060 Williram von Ebersberg wrote a commentary on the Song of Solomon that was the most widely read commentary of its kind in the German Middle Ages. Here a critical textual analysis of this commentary is undertaken on the basis of all 46 extant versions dating from the 11th to the 16th century. It transpires that Williram circulated eight versions of his text. Each of these versions has been transmitted by a group of manuscripts whose interdependencies are examined and represented in a stemma. The interpretation of the author variants sheds light on the way Williram worked.
The »Nürnberger Marienbuch« dates from around 1410 and contains the earliest German prose account of the life of the Virgin Mary, a collection of miracles associated with her, and two interpretations. Accounts of the life of Mary and the miracles associated with her were the main sources for the Marian legends contained in the widely disseminated German book of saints' lives »Der Heiligen Leben«. The present volume presents an edition of the »Marienbuch« complete with an apparatus on the sources, studies on origins and dating, the state of research on the sources, and the reuse of the text as a source for »Der Heiligen Leben« and »Der Magnet unserer lieben Frau«.
Konrad von Megenberg, canon of Regensburg cathedral, wrote his »Book of Nature« between 1348 and 1350. It has come down to us in approx. 150 manuscripts, which makes it one of the most popular vernacular encyclopedias of the late Middle Ages. Konrad had a Latin version of Thomas of Cantimpré's »Liber de natura rerum« at his disposal, which he translated into German, adapting and extending it and also re-accentuating certain aspects of the work. This is the first critical edition of version A. It replaces Franz Pfeiffer's valuable 1861 edition. At a later stage, it will be supplemented by an introduction (Vol. I), a commentary (Vol. III) and a dictionary (Vol. IV).
This first annotated and variously indexed edition of 14th-16th century Yiddish glosses on the »Book of Job« provides scholars working on the history of the German language and in the field of Yiddish (and Jewish) studies with a vast fund of material (15,000 word and sentence glosses from 11 manuscripts and printed versions) presented here in the context of its transmission. As such, it is a stimulating source for all kinds of different studies.
The prose legendry »Lives of the Saints« written in the Dominican monastery in Nuremberg around 1400 was the most widely disseminated vernacular legendry of the European Middle Ages. It has been handed down in almost 200 manuscripts and 33 Upper German and 8 Low German printed editions and was disseminated all over German-speaking Europe and in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The work is a major exception among German legendries in that it does not derive primarily from Latin sources but almost exclusively from German verse and prose legends (»Passional«, »Märterbuch«, Hartmann von Aue's »Gregorius«, Ebernand von Erfurt's »Heinrich und Kunigunde«, Reinbot von Durne's »Georg« etc.). Its status was that of the major vernacular hagiographic source (for the Mastersingers, Jakob Mennel etc. as well as for artists) and its popularity made it a target for one of Luther's lampoons in 1535. This second and last volume includes an index of persons and places.
The German »Macer«, translated into Thuringian dialect in the first half of the thirteenth century, is the earliest extensive herbal in German. It treats 97 herbs in an equal number of chapters. This central work of German medical literature is critically edited here for the first time. The introduction gives a short history of the herbal genre, surveys the complicated history of the text and its transmission, and analyzes the texts that accompany it in manuscripts, thereby providing a brief literary history of early German medical literature. Latin source texts are printed in an appendix.
The study essays an overall view of 16th century German lexicography on the basis of single-, two- and multi-language dictionaries printed on German-speaking territory in that period. The following aspects are dealt with: dictionary typology (forms of lemma selection and commentary); prefaces and postscripts to dictionaries; dictionary titles; author, addressee and user intentions; dictionaries from dictionaries; dictionaries and their German vocabularies; German lexicography in the European context; links with 15th and 17th century lexicography. 100 reproductions from dictionaries of the period illustrate the argument.
The present study deals with the reception of the works of Meister Eckhart during the first half of the 15th century at the Benedictine monastary of Melk (Austria). Eckhart's work is to be found there in manuscripts of the laybrother Lienhart Peuger only. A detailed description of these manuscripts (also introducing some hitherto unknown sermons by Eckhart) is preceded by a more general discussion of the role of the laybrothers during the Benedictine 'Melk Reform'. The treatise »Von der sel wirdichait vnd aigenschafft« (»On the Nobility and Character of the Soul«), which is transmitted in one of Peuger's manuscripts, was formerly believed to be a work of Eckhart himself; as such it was edited by Franz Pfeiffer. The present study and the new edition set out to prove that the treatise was compiled by Peuger, and list all the Eckhartian materials he used.
The study looks at eight cases of dissemination of encyclopedic knowledge in the European Middle Ages. As a major source of insight, the author draws on the prologues of the selected Latin (e.g. "Elucidarum", "Hortus delicarium"), German (Lucidarius, Hiltgart von Hürnheim's "Encyclopedia"), French ("Livre de Sidrac", Brunetto Latini, Christine de Pizan), and Spanish works, examining them from the perspective of communication science. The results point up not only a number of constants but also some surprises in connection with the vehicles, forms, and audiences of encyclopedic knowledge dissemination.
More than 100 years after the publication of Ferdinand Khull's editio princeps, the present volume is the first to make Konrad von Stoffeln's "Gauriel von Muntabel" available in a critical edition that takes full account of the debates on philological editing practice that have taken place over the last few decades. The text itself is preceded by detailed studies on the dating, localization and literary significance of this last Middle High German Arthurian romance in rhyming couplets, alongside a full description of the way the work has been handed down to us. The volume closes with notes on those passages of the work requiring comment, an index of names and a bibliography.
The "Vitaspatrum" are a collection of potted biographies, learned discourses and sayings of the first Oriental hermits and monks and are among the most important writings of the monastic movement. The "Alemannische Vitaspatrum" edited here is a prose translation in Southern Alemannic probably stemming from 14th century German mystics. It is in two parts, each with a different translator, one being a set of biographies, the other a collection of exempla. This historical edition provides an edition of the vulgate text of both parts, extracts from the most important extant revised version and all later additions to the exempla section.
The prose legendry "Lives of the Saints" produced by the Dominican monastery in Nuremberg around 1400 was the most widely disseminated vernacular legendry of the European Middle Ages. It has been handed down in just under 200 manuscripts and 33 Upper German and 8 Low German printed editions and was disseminated all over German-speaking Europe and in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The work is a major exception among German legendries in that it does not derive from Latin sources but almost exclusively from German verse and prose legends ("Passional", "Märterbuch", Hartmann von Aue`s "Gregorius", Ebernand von Erfurt`s "Heinrich und Kunigunde", Reinbot von Durne`s "Georg" etc.). Its status was that of the major vernacular hagiographic source (for the Mastersingers, Jakob Mennel etc.) and its popularity made it a target for one of Luther`s lampoons in 1535. This historical edition is based on the oldest and most reliable manuscript source, the Summer Part Manuscript, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Laud. 443.
The edition of the First Commandment in the exegesis of the Decalogue by Ulrich von Pottenstein († 1416) provides scholarly access to the most monumental document of late medieval Latin-vernacular expository writing in the German-speaking area. The critical edition of the text draws upon all extant manuscripts. The Latin sources exploited by Ulrich for his learned katechesis (Thomas Aquinas' "Decretum Gratiani" and "Summa theologiae" and Guillelmus Peraldus' "Summa de vitiis et virtutibus") are documented in detail in the commentary section. An introduction covering all aspects of the relevant research provides information on the author and his work.
The German »Lucidarius« is both a continuation of the educational works of Honorius of Autun at the vernacular level and a new departure in terms of conception and systematic approach. Drawing on further sources, notably William of Conches' »Philosophia«, it succeeds in establishing a new scientific emphasis in comparison with Honorius' »Elucidarium«. In its educational approach it is modeled on monastic didactics. Alongside the inclusion of the Latin source texts, the commentary centres on the author's achievement in communicating the knowledge of his day and the specific place occupied by the work in the context of 12th century language and literature.
Die Neuausgabe des "Lucidarius" ersetzt den "unzureichenden Textabdruck" (J. Bumke) von Felix Heidlauf aus dem Jahr 1915, dem wesentliche Passagen des ursprünglichen Textes, z.B. über die Antipoden, fehlen. Sie erstellt einen autornahen Text aus der Kenntnis der gesamten erhaltenen handschriftlichen Überlieferung, worüber eine ausführliche Einleitung Rechenschaft gibt; und sie bietet zudem ein vollständiges Wörterbuch (von D. Gottschall), das U. Goebels Wortindex von 1975 zur Heidlaufschen Ausgabe weitgehend überflüssig macht.
The Index gives ready access to the German vocabulary of the edition of the "Vocabularius Ex quo". With its high contemporary incidence and broad dissemination, the dictionary supplies a representative picture of vocabulary organization and vocabulary movement in the 15th century. The Index provides access to the vocabulary via standardized Early High German forms. As such it can stand in its own right as a dictionary of 15th century German.
The Latin-German »Vocabularis Ex quo« was, to judge from the more than 270 surviving manuscripts and some fifty incunabula editions, the most commonly used late medieval alphabetical dictionary on German soil. It was meant by its anonymous compiler-author to enable pauperes scolares to read and literally understand the Scriptures and other Latin texts. It dates from the late 14th century and, spreading all over the then German speaking countries, kept being copied until the last decades of the 15th century. During that very productive tradition it was subject to continuous change: almost every manuscript reveals different text. Yet, groups of manuscripts can be classified as descendants of nine major and most widely used revisions, eight of which are synoptically represented in the present edition. The text itself is accompanied by an introductory volume containing an up-to-date review of the research done on that subject, the lists of manuscripts and 15th century editions, an account of the überlieferungsgeschichtliche (K. Ruh) editorial principles, the classification of the text's tradition, and an alphabetical index of the more than 20.000 Latin entries.
The lexicon pertaining to Brother Berthold's »Rechtssumme« is an integral part of the overall edition. Its function is to provide a dictionary of definitions based on the three versions of the work. The references for the individual lemmas take the form of contextual references. Equivalents for the lemmas are also provided to the extent that they are identifiable in Berthold's source text, the »Summa confessorum« by Johannes von Freiburg. The lexicon also includes a glossary of equivalences and indexes of proper names and the Latin terms employed in Berthold's text.
Mit der Ausgabe des 'Liber ordinis rerum' legt die Würzburger Forschergruppe "Prosa des deutschen Mittelalters" die erste der von ihr in Angriff genommenen Arbeiten zur Erschließung der Vokabularliteratur des späten Mittelalters vor. Das Ziel der Gruppe ist es, die wichtigsten, weil am weitesten verbreiteten und im Wortmaterial ergiebigsten Vokabularien in Editionen zugänglich zu machen und durch die Erforschung ihrer Text- und Uberlieferungsgeschichte für bildungs-, literatur- und sprachgeschichtliche Auswertung zu erschließen.
