Lucian Shepherd

Project title:  

From Creation to Apocalypse. Re-imagining Biblical Space-Time in German Spiritual Compilations, c. 1200

Project Summary:  

Literary beginnings of the German vernacular in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries have only recently come under closer scrutiny. Overshadowed by the profusion of religious writings in Latin from scholastic and monastic settings, and the surge in courtly romances translated into the vernacular, these predominantly spiritual texts have frequently been relegated to the status of being embryonic, “pre-courtly”, and considered largely from a pragmatic point of view. In the face of this lingering standing in scholarship, this project draws attention to a cluster of spiritual compilatory manuscripts which represent a significant proportion of the few witnesses of early German-language literary culture and consist overwhelmingly of texts in the vernacular. It intentionally looks beyond conventional demarcations of period and genre to explore what continuities and innovations may be found across this group and asks in what ways the poetic and the material operate in dialogue with one another.

Focusing on Klagenfurt, Landesarchiv, Cod. GV 6/19, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2696, and Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, mgo 345, the texts present across each engage with Biblical narratives, liturgical and didactic commentary, and forms of prayer and spiritual meditation. Consequently, there is a pervasive interest in conceptions of space and time. By poetically constructing sites of spiritual significance on the page and in the mind, these texts experiment with what the experience of reading the codex can bring about. Likewise, the folding of Biblical history into the present moment and the imminent, eschatological future can be understood as poetically and spiritually productive in equal measure, playing with modes of synchronicity, stasis, and cyclicality. Hence, this project aims to better situate the place of these compilations within the physical, spiritual, and literary landscape of the German-speaking lands and reappraise their complicated textuality and materiality.