Inscriptions Eferding and Krems

With the increased accessibility of new sources for historical research, the range of specific aspects of urban historiography has been enlarged over the last decades. One kind of sources has so far been neglected to a large extent: inscriptions. They constitute a special medium of literacy in which script and the object it was written on form a sythesis of content and design. The messages transported include simple, often spontaneously produced "witnesses of memory" as well as representative artefacts of high artistic rank. Located in the public urban space, inscriptions appear as writing in a very special context and are addressed towards a wide public of readers. Thus, they are - together with more conventional historical sources in archives and libraries - important for understanding and reconstructing historic structures. For all kinds of cultural studies (including e. g. all historical disciplines, history of art, philology etc.) medieval and early modern inscriptions provide rewarding source material, once they have been systematically collected and painstakingly edited. The planned project aims on the one hand at a commented critical edition of the rich complex of epigraphic monuments of the towns of Eferding and Krems, both situated on the important trading route of the Danube, according to the guidelines of the inter-academic edition series "Die Deutschen Inschriften". On the other hand the inscriptions will be taken as a basis for specific questions in social and cultural, history of art, history of mentalities and palaeography of inscriptions, narrowly connected to similar epigraphic projects treating the upper section of the Danube between Passau (Bavaria) and Vienna. The use of epigraphic sources in reconstructing regional historic structures is to be regarded as an all new methodical attempt.

The river Danube always has been one of the main European traffic routes. As a consequence, not only did the economy flourish along its shores, but also cultural exchange took place continuously and neighboring territories and cities influenced each other constantly. With respect to the Austrian part of the Danube, the greatest influence was exercised during the Middle Ages by the patriarchal bishopric of Passau, later increasingly by Vienna and the rising town of Linz. The importance of this region is apparent in the inscriptions that have been preserved, which reflect multifaceted developments in history, art, religion and mentality, social structures and the economy. To methodically and comprehensively collect this type of source, to analyze and make it available to the scientific community is only possible within an edition of the inscriptions in the framework of the inter-academic edition series "Die Deutschen Inschriften". Normally this can only be achieved for a clear-cut stock of inscriptions. Consequently the uncovering of interregional connections is only possible in a limited sense. The now-completed project for the first time provided the chance to analyze and make accessible in close cooperation the inscriptions of two main centers of the region (Eferding and Krems) and at the same time precisely and explicitly to ascertain similarities, differences and interferences. Furthermore in the course of the project a particular type of tomb, the monumental knight`s memorial, was subjected to a supra-regional analysis of its development, its characteristics and the information resulting from these. A large number of still existing monuments were analyzed in close interdisciplinary collaboration between historians and art historians concerning the correlations of text and illustration. An important result was the identification of two outstanding and prolific workshops of stonecutters, to which a considerable number of monuments could be attributed. This was accomplished by comparative methods such as paleography, stylistic analysis and heraldry (form of the coat of arms). The results of the project are mainly the manuscripts, which are to a large extent completed: the edition of the inscriptions of the district of Eferding and a monograph on the development of the monumental figurative memorial in the upper Danube region.