The Heidelberg Research Centre (Director: Prof Dr Bernd Schneidmüller)
In Heidelberg, texts by 12th and 13th century authors who designed fundamental models of order and thus had a targeted effect on life outside the monastery are at the centre of attention. The works studied were written in the context of monasteries in the Benedictine tradition or other religious communities, such as the canons regular or mendicant orders. In them, the authors collected theological knowledge and oral narrative material available to them at the time and brought it into a new order. In this way, they created forward-looking visions of a "better" world. They thus left behind impressive sources for contemporary perception, description and mastering societal upheavals.
The design of this inter-academic project is based on the visionary plans and research of Stefan Weinfurter, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in Mainz on 27 August 2018.
Objective
(a) The compilation of new editions of central sources on religious life in the Middle Ages.
(b) The content-related evaluation of the examined texts taking cultural studies and new methodological questions into account.
Project part A.1 (Johannes Büge; until May 2023 Dr Julia Becker)
In the first sub-project, Johannes Büge is currently working on the edition, translation and commentary of the Anticimenon ("contradiction") by Anselm von Havelberg, Bishop of Havelberg (acting 1129-1155) and Archbishop of Ravenna (acting 1155-1158). In his main work, written around 1149/50, Anselm deals above all with the unity of faith in the context of the diversity of religious forms of life and encourages a dialogue between the Eastern and Western Churches.
The aim is a modern new edition of this historical-theological writing, which is to be embedded in the context of Anselm's complete works and in the institutionalisation phase of the Premonstratensian Order.
In general, Anselm's writings also deal with the shaping of the regular-canonical way of life and its place in the social order of the 12th century and thus decisively complement the new editions of regular-canonical writings already published in project part A.1.
Completed projects
His vision of a "better" world in which all clerics live together under one rule according to the apostolic model was presented by the canon regular Gerhoch of Reichersberg in his work "About the Building of God" (Opusculum de aedificio Dei) in the middle of the 12th century. In the margins of the main text, Gerhoch substantiated his radical and not easily realizable demands with numerous quotations from canonistic and patristic authorities. He drew his knowledge of this primarily from the common legal collections of his time.
The new edition established in project part A.1 now for the first time offers a modern and annotated edition with a German translation of the Opusculum de aedificio Dei as well as a complete record and critical evaluation of the authorities cited by Gerhoch.
Julia Becker (Hg.), Gerhoch von Reichersberg, Opusculum de aedificio Dei. Die Apostel als Ideal (Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar), KAI 8, 2020, 936 pages. Further information: www.schnell-und-steiner.de.
The Scutum canonicorum ("Shield of the Canons") by Arno of Reichersberg provides identity-forming guidelines for the shaping and defence of the regular canonical way of life in the mid-12th century. This central source for the implementation of the vita canonica in the Salzburg reform area now appears for the first time in a critically annotated edition with a German translation.
Julia Becker (Hg.), Arno von Reichersberg, Scutum canonicorum (Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar), KAI 11, 2022, 256 pages. Further information: www.schnell-und-steiner.de.
Project part A.2 (Jonas Narchi M.A., M.A.)
Jonas Narchi M.A., M.A. is working on a critical edition, translation and commentary of Anselm of Havelberg's Epistola apologetica from the period between 1138 and 1146. In this letter of defence, Anselm attempts to justify the status of the canons regular in the face of criticism from the ranks of the monks. The concrete occasion is an incident in the diocese of Halberstadt, which affects Anselm primarily as Bishop of Havelberg (acting 1129-1155), but also fundamentally in his identity as a canon regular: Petrus, provost of the regular canonical monastery of Hamersleben, resigns and enters the Benedictine monastery of Huysburg. A dispute then breaks out between the canons, who want to force Peter to return, and the Benedictines under abbot Ekbert, who justify the conversion with the more meritorious way of life of the monks that live detached from the world. With the Epistola apologetica, which Anselm addresses to Ekbert, he vehemently advocates the way of life of the canons regular and defends the specific charism of the ordo canonicus. The edition of this letter can not only contribute to a better reconstruction of the new self-understanding of various religious and societal ways of life in the 12th century, but also amends the completed and ongoing work of project part A.1.
Project part B.1 (Researcher: Isabel Kimpel M.A. / Scientific Director: Prof Dr Julia Burkhardt)
The Cistercian monk Caesarius of Heisterbach (ca. 1180-1240) is known likewise to specialists and the wider public primarily as the author of the Dialogus miraculorum (ca. 1214/1219-1223). Another exemplary collection from his pen, the so-called "Eight Books of Miracles" (Libri VIII miraculorum, ca. 1225/27), on the other hand, has received much less attention despite two modern editions. However, their rich narrative material makes the Libri a remarkable source for the political, cultural and religious history of the 13th century. In the four books preserved today, the stories report miraculous phenomena that served primarily for devotion and theological instruction. The aim of the project is therefore to make the Libri accessible in a new edition with a German translation and detailed commentary, to perform codicological, cultural and historical analysis, and to situate them within Caesarius' oeuvre as a whole.
Dr Julia Burkhardt has been appointed full professor of the history of the Middle Ages, with a special focus on the late Middle Ages, at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich in the winter semester 2020/21. She will remain associated with the Heidelberg Research Centre as a cooperation partner and retains the academic supervision of the sub-project "New edition and translation of the Libri miraculorum of Caesarius of Heisterbach".
Completed projects
In his search for the ideal community of human beings, the 13th century Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré came across bees. In his Latin "Book of Bees" (Bonum universale de apibus), he used bees as an example to describe the hierarchies, advantages and disadvantages of social interaction. Enriched with entertaining anecdotes from everyday life in the Middle Ages, his manual was intended to assist the work of the Dominicans as preachers and teachers. "Learning from bees" – this idea already aroused great interest in the Middle Ages, and so the "Bee Book" was copied by hand over one hundred times in the course of the centuries. For the first time, the "Bee Book" has now been published in a critically annotated edition with a German translation as well as an analysis of the work and the history of its transmission.
Julia Burkhardt, Von Bienen lernen. Das Bonum universale de apibus des Thomas von Cantimpré als Gemeinschaftsentwurf (Analyse, Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar), KAI 7, 2020, 1.616 Seiten. Infos unter: www.schnell-und-steiner.de.
Project part B.2 (Dr Volker Hartmann, completed 2019)
The project focuses on the work De regimine principum by the Augustinian hermit Aegidius Romanus (ca. 1243-1316). The work was written around the time of the condemnation of Aristotelianism at the University of Paris in 1277, which also affected the author. Despite the addressee (Philip IV, King of France since 1285) and the fact that the book's title identifies it as a speculum for princes, it was also received and translated outside the courts throughout Europe. With a tradition of several hundred manuscripts, it is one of the most frequently handed down writings in the late Middle Ages. The text's success, which lasted until the 17th century, can be explained by the fact that the author offers a synopsis of the ethically relevant parts of Aristotelian philosophy in the broadest sense. Its demands were directed not only at princes but also at their subjects. The author's reflections on the king's official powers are partly in obvious contradiction to the statements in his later, much better researched writing De ecclesiastica potestate (ca. 1302), in which he advocates the idea of papal universal rule. The project provided a modern complete translation and the transcription of a selected manuscript of the text.
Aegidus Romanus: Über die Fürstenherrschaft (ca. 1277-1279): Nach der Handschrift Rom, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, cod. borgh. 360 und unter Benutzung der Drucke Rom 1556 und Rom 1607 hg. von Volker Hartmann, Heidelberg: heiBOOKS, 2019, 1.313 Seiten. https://doi.org/10.11588/heibooks.569. Download unter: https://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/heibooks/catalog/book/569
The Dresden Research Centre (Director: Prof Dr Gert Melville)
The research centre in Dresden is dedicated to the material-based study and analysis of monasteries and religious orders as initiators of Modernity. It shows the contribution that the vita religiosa made to the formation of specific European models of order by redefining both the relationship between the individual and the community and the relationship between rationality of organization and transcendental orientation towards meaning, whereby the normative structure of monastic life is at the centre of interest. The corresponding literature from the period from the 11th to the 13th century will be surveyed and analysed in the narrow legal sense on the one hand, and in the broader hortatory sense on the other.
The focus is on texts in which the cultural interpretative power of the monasteries becomes programmatically tangible in a distinctive way: Exhortatory writings and didactic tracts, monastic or religious rules and statutes as well as their commentaries, which determined the legal order of the communities. Such writings were intended to have an inward effect and yet were always related to the world.