The preacher and his text

This project will concern the historical investigation of early medieval sermons. Although there has been a long history of studying their origins, older investigations mostly neglected this textual genre, claiming that sermons had little historical value. But this view disregards the fact that sermons took many different forms and, above all, were written, copied and distributed more than any other historiograhical and hagiographical text. Additionally, in the last few decades many new historical questions and methods have developed that are more suitable and helpful for investigating this type of source. These modern studies allow us to consider different sermon types, various receptors of the sermons, such as readers and listeners, and the multiple reasons for sermon creation, and discuss the relationships between orality and literacy, between Latin and the vernacular, between liturgical and private use. The sheer number of extant manuscripts containing sermons, however, allows a new and different approach, namely to look at the ways in which sermon texts or collections were formed and reformed, copied and modified and thus to see in more detail how different monastic communities used these texts. This project, therefore, is not concerned with determining the original authors of the sermons or the dates of initial creation, but rather with the unknown compilers who recopied and modified them, who collected these texts with other texts and who, in the process, built up a panorama of moral principles. As a result, sermon collections helped different groups to define their position in society. Sermons exposed ideals, crafted moral principles, constructed models for conflict resolution and formulated identities. The study of manuscripts containing sermons takes into account not only the saints and their creation, biblical quotations and moral themes, but also reveals the role of the saints and the meaning of the Bible and of moral themes within society at large. Bavaria in the eighth and ninth centuries is especially suitable for such a study. First, Bavarian libraries contained, both at that time and now, many sermon collections of the Church Fathers and numerous miscellaneous manuscripts that included sermons along with other texts. Second, because Bavaria underwent many politcal, social and cultural changes, one can discern the effect these changes had on the construction of manuscripts. This has already been demonstrated for hagiographical manuscripts in the completed FWF project, "Identity and Sanctity in Early Medieval Bavaria". This current study will be based not only on the results of the older project, but will also include new questions concerning the long- neglected subject of sermons.

This project will concern the historical investigation of early medieval sermons. Although there has been a long history of studying their origins, older investigations mostly neglected this textual genre, claiming that sermons had little historical value. But this view disregards the fact that sermons took many different forms and, above all, were written, copied and distributed more than any other historiograhical and hagiographical text. Additionally, in the last few decades many new historical questions and methods have developed that are more suitable and helpful for investigating this type of source. These modern studies allow us to consider different sermon types, various receptors of the sermons, such as readers and listeners, and the multiple reasons for sermon creation, and discuss the relationships between orality and literacy, between Latin and the vernacular, between liturgical and private use. The sheer number of extant manuscripts containing sermons, however, allows a new and different approach, namely to look at the ways in which sermon texts or collections were formed and reformed, copied and modified and thus to see in more detail how different monastic communities used these texts. This project, therefore, is not concerned with determining the original authors of the sermons or the dates of initial creation, but rather with the unknown compilers who recopied and modified them, who collected these texts with other texts and who, in the process, built up a panorama of moral principles. As a result, sermon collections helped different groups to define their position in society. Sermons exposed ideals, crafted moral principles, constructed models for conflict resolution and formulated identities. The study of manuscripts containing sermons takes into account not only the saints and their creation, biblical quotations and moral themes, but also reveals the role of the saints and the meaning of the Bible and of moral themes within society at large. Bavaria in the eighth and ninth centuries is especially suitable for such a study. First, Bavarian libraries contained, both at that time and now, many sermon collections of the Church Fathers and numerous miscellaneous manuscripts that included sermons along with other texts. Second, because Bavaria underwent many politcal, social and cultural changes, one can discern the effect these changes had on the construction of manuscripts. This has already been demonstrated for hagiographical manuscripts in the completed FWF project, "Identity and Sanctity in Early Medieval Bavaria". This current study will be based not only on the results of the older project, but will also include new questions concerning the long- neglected subject of sermons.