Colophons in medieval German manuscripts

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Margit Dahm
• Subject Area: German Medieval Studies (Medieval German Literature)
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449436113

Like the current project, the proposed continuation project aims at a systematical collection and investigation of colophons in German-language manuscripts from the Middle Ages in order to gain a better understanding of the scribes and their central role in medieval text production. Colophons, therefore scribal additions, which usually appear at the end of manuscripts or the texts they contain, mainly provide pragmatic information about the production of the manuscript, in particular the names of the scribes or the place and time of origin. In addition, colophons can include various forms of commentary, for example, on the person of the scribe or the process of writing. Colophons thus prove to be crucial parts of the manuscripts allowing the scribes special opportunities and important sources for their understanding of the text and their self-conception. There is still a lack of documentation of colophons in German-language manuscripts in German studies, as well as research that systematically deals with colophons beyond their codicological and biographical content. In order to close this research gap, the colophons of a significant part of the German-language manuscript heritage of the 12th-15th centuries were recorded, provided with various metadata, annotations and categorizations and compiled in a digital data collection as part of the current project. To evaluate the data, a web app was configured with specifically tailored evaluation options for various categories, including the different semantic contents, which will be available in open access from the summer of 2024. As part of the continuation project, a quantitative and qualitative expansion of the research program is to be undertaken. Firstly, the collection is to be extended to other areas of the German-language manuscript heritage, and manuscripts after 1500 are to be catalogued; the aim is also to complete the image documentation. Secondly, a comparative study of colophons in a representative selection corpus of 15th-century prints is to be carried out on the basis of the existing infrastructure. By comparing the colophons in manuscripts and incunabula, continuities and changes in the content and design of these paratexts can be traced. That is to say, questions on the history of the book can be addressed and further insights into the interferences and between manuscript and early print as well as the cultural-historical comparison of the instances of scribe and printer in the time of the media change will be made possible. Thirdly, additional instruments for the evaluation of research data in the database/web app are to be set up and the already established cooperation with central research repositories such as Handschriftencensus and Handschriftenportal is to be expanded for the purpose of the mutual documentation of research data.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants