Blurred boundaries of Medieval texts: Digital editing and interpreting

The Middle Ages are not the grey intermediary between the classical Antiquity and the Renaissance that they seem to be. This project aims to connect medievalists of various disciplines (medieval Latin studies, individual vernacular studies, history, art history, archeology, musicology and others) to offer a more nuanced picture of medieval written culture in the Czech lands in European context. Special emphasis is placed on medieval literature in its physical aspects: the manuscript transmission, which is in its manifestations and implications surprisingly close to textual transmission in the contemporary digital age. This is true especially as far as the notions of authorship, text and language are concerned – they escape easy definitions, their boundaries are blurred. The medieval material challenges our preconceptions and calls for revision. At the heart of the project there is a course in digital editing of medieval texts organized jointly with the University of Siena, Lyon, Queen Mary in London and Klosterneuburg monastic library, taking place within program Erasmus+ Key Action 2, Strategic Partnership (2014-2017, http://blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk/demm).

Key collaborators

• Hana Pátková

• Jan Čermák

• Michal Dragoun

• Iva Adámková

• Martin Bažil

• Jiří Starý

• David Eben

Selected outputs

• Jan Klápště, The Czech Lands in Medieval Transformation (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

• Martin Nejedlý, Jaroslav Svátek, Marylin Nicoud, edd., Histoires de Bohême (= Médiévales 67: 2014).

• Lucie Doležalová, Obscurity and Memory in Late Medieval Manuscript Culture: The Case of the ‘Summarium Biblie’. Medium Aevum Quotidianum, Sonderband 29. Krems: Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, 2012.