Catalogue of the Old High German and Old Saxon Glossed Manuscripts. A Primary-Source Based Analysis Providing Online Access to the Supplementary Manuscripts

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Stefanie Stricker
• Subject Area: Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics ; Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics ; German Medieval Studies (Medieval German Literature)
• Term: from 2013 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 244785171

The „Katalog der althochdeutschen und altsächsischen Glossenhandschriften“, published in 2005 and funded by the German Research Foundation, made accessible the sources of the 1300 manuscripts known at that time, which are of immense importance for scholars of language history. Previous to the initial funding application, the full data collected in the catalogue were transferred into a relational online-database, which was improved significantly during the two funding phases and positively peer-reviewed by experts of the Old High German research community. In the second funding phase, the structure of the database was improved in particular by optimizing the options available in the search engine and by re-arranging the connection and presentation of manuscript- and gloss-data. A register of all glossed texts and authors was established, which constitutes a necessary groundwork for the cooperation with the ‘Handschriftencensus’ and, furthermore, led to considerable data cleansing and standardization. In addition, the data in itself was enriched extensively: since the printed catalogue was published, 193 new glossed manuscripts have been identified and included into the database – 48 of them alone since the last project proposal. In this way, the current state of knowledge is made available to the Old High German research community immediately. Recently published academic literature has been screened and, in part, included into the database. Finally, strategies for the medium- and long-term availability of the collected data have been developed and discussed with experts in the field during a conference on the subject of digital preservation held in Bamberg.We are applying for a renewal of the project because the 193 manuscripts found since 2005 require further processing, organization, and preparation and because all recent scholarship on the topic of glosses should be entered into the database to keep it up to date. Furthermore, we would like to respond to suggestions from the research community in order to further improve the functionality of the online database. Last but not least, the adopted measures concerning the digital preservation of the data have to be implemented.The necessity to continue work on the project arises from the central importance of glosses as sources for Old High German scholarship. In this research area, BStK Online is a crucial reference and research tool for projects like Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (Leipzig) or Boethius in Early Medieval Europe (Oxford). The same holds true for our collaboration with the Handschriftencensus, since we have agreed to connect the two databases and to display the descriptions of the glossed manuscripts only in BStK Online in the future. The importance of a database that remains up to date and continues to develop both for the Old High German Research Community and as an instrument for manuscript research makes a continuation of the project indispensable.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Rolf Bergmann