Soon after I arrived in Freiburg on June 12th, 2018, it turned out that the archival part of my project, which was my main reason for going to Germany over the summer, was going to be truly fruitful. Using the extensive collection of German manuscript catalogues at Freiburg university libraries (many of them not kept by any American university library), I was able to identify a range of late medieval manuscripts containing previously unstudied monastic devotional allegories interesting for my research project. To narrow down the immense corpus of material I encountered, I focused mostly on 15th and 16th century textile and architectural allegories, and spent the largest parts of my first month in Germany going through this material and transcribing the texts I am planning to edit and analyze as part of my dissertation. Since my academic advisor, Kathryn Starkey, spent part of the summer in Freiburg, too, I was able to rely on her academic guidance and expertise while doing this work.
Apart from a range of manuscript sources kept in Heidelberg, St. Gallen, Karlsruhe, and Cologne, the Bibliothèque des Dominicaines in the Alsatian town of Colmar proved to be an extraordinarily important collection for my research, in particular because large parts of the 15th and early 16th century library holdings of the Alsatian female monastic communities came to Colmar after the Reformation. Thanks to the friendly support of the curators at Colmar, I was able to work with this almost unstudied collection and also take photographs of all material relevant for my dissertation. Inn addition to my work at Colmar manuscripts, I had to make a week-long trip to the German State Library in Berlin, where another collection of medieval manuscripts transmitting the texts I am working on are stored. In Berlin, I was also able to look at a range of visual depictions of medieval allegorical textiles and buildings exhibited in the Berlin Museums, in particular in the Bode Museum and in the Kunstgewerbemuseum. On the whole, these archive trips provided me with an invaluable wealth of textual and visual material for my dissertation project. Without the support by TEC, I would have not been able to do this kind of in-depth study of unpublished sources scattered over a range of different libraries and institutions.
Apart from doing archival work, I met with many other scholars in the field over the course of the summer. For example, Stefan Matter (University of Fribourg, Switzerland), who is currently leading a research group on late medieval prayer books, was in Freiburg as part of an academic exchange and invited me to attend a workshop on medieval devotional literature in late August. At this event, at which most of the German medievalists working on medieval prayer were present, fascinating discussions about this field of research and the possibilities for further research unfolded.
Furthermore, I presented my work in a seminar taught by my advisor as well as Martina Backes (Freiburg), and participated in an excursion to the Swiss Abegg Stiftung organized in the context of this seminar. The Abegg Stiftung is internationally known for their famous collection of medieval and early modern textiles. For obvious reasons, having a closer look at these objects, which constitute the material foundation of many of the allegories I am working on, was of great interest to me and led to valuable insights for my dissertation project. Thanks to the friendly support of the curator Evelin Wetter, it was also possible for us to have a look at some items from the Abegg collection, among them impressive liturgical textiles, which are not on public display.
Finally, after I had left Freiburg in late August, I was able to present my findings on textile devotional allegories in the context of a workshop on “Things in Medieval Literature, Society, and the Visual Arts” at the Freie Universität Berlin on September 10th and 11th, 2018. During this interdisciplinary workshop, organized by Jutta Eming (FU Berlin) and Kathryn Starkey (Stanford), I got valuable feedback on my work and was able to present what I had been doing over the summer to an international audience of medieval scholars. After this inspiring end and highlight of my summer project, Kathryn Starkey, my Stanford colleague Mareike Reisch and myself embarked on a two-day excursion to the medieval monasteries of Wienhausen and Ebstorf as well as to the medieval collection of the Landesmuseum in Hannover, where, again, I came across fascinating visual depictions of the allegorical material my research is focusing on. Directly after this excursion, I returned to Stanford on September 15th.
Besides my second dissertation chapter, which I plan to finish this quarter, two publications will result from this summer’s work. First, I spent large parts of my second month in Freiburg finishing an article for a volume of essays titled “The Diversity of Medieval Religion” (‘Vielfalt des Religiösen im Mittelalter’) and edited by Bent Gebert (University of Constance) and Susanne Bernhardt (University Freiburg). This German language article, in which I explore one particular allegorical treatise I worked on in Freiburg is now with the editor. It is titled “Eintauchen und Einverleiben: Die Wirtschaft des Leidens Christi: Die Andachtsübung
Wirtschaft des Leidens Christi aus dem Straßburger Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Nikolaus in undis.” Furthermore, the Berlin workshop will result in an English language volume of essays edited by Jutta Eming and Kathryn Starkey, to which I will contribute an article on allegorical textiles based on the research I did this summer. After a second workshop in Stanford in 2019 as well as a peer review process, the book is scheduled to appear with De Gruyter in late 2020.
Finally, I would like to thank TEC for making it possible for me to do this summer project. Without the generous grant I received, my dissertation work would most certainly be in much worse shape, and both the presentations and publications which stemmed from this summer, as well as the many academic contacts and plans for future collaboration would never have happened. I am very grateful for this chance and actually quite satisfied with the academic outcome of my time in Freiburg.
Björn Buschbeck is a PhD candidate in German Studies at Stanford University.
