Extension of the reference text of "The Twenty-Four Elders" of Otto von Passau on the basis of the manuscript Karlsruhe, Landesbibliothek, Cod. St. Georgen 64 to a hybrid edition with research on sources and vocabulary.
Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
Final Report Abstract
The project focuses on the Christian tract 'The Twenty-Four Elders or the Golden Throne of the Loving Soul'. This tract was written in the late 14th century by the Franciscan Otto of Passau from Basel, whose vita can only be outlined from the few biographical sources available. In terms of scope and distribution, the 'Twenty-Four Elders' is one of the most important late medieval devotional books. The tract, which also found its way into print, was particularly popular in southern Germany in the 15th century. The title of the tract is due to the fact that Otto divides his teaching into twenty-four chapters. Each chapter is put into the mouth of one of the twenty-four ‘Elders' from the Revelation of John, who according to biblical information are placed around God's throne. The constant addressee of the ‘Twenty-Four Elders' is the 'Loving Soul' who, although she never speaks herself, is, according to the prologue, the actual initiator of the tract. She is instructed by the ‘Twenty-Four Elders' at her own request about the various aspects of a truly Christian life, but also about the relationship between man and God. A special focus is placed on the relationship between merit and grace. Themes include the status of man as the image of God, the proper form of repentance, confession and penance, or the importance of conscience. Despite its length ‒ in the oldest surviving manuscript Ka1 from 1383 it comprises 230 folio pages ‒ the treatise has been handed down for the most part in its entirety. This is probably largely due to the strong coherence features that Otto integrated into the 'Twenty-Four Elders'. Thus, the chapter entrances are designed as an abecedary and the text is interwoven with numerous cross-references. This primary reception as a coherent treatise is remarkable precisely because the tract is itself a thematically organized compilation of numerous quotations from authorities. Otto transferred these originally Latin texts more or less freely into the vernacular, supplemented them with his own additions and combined them into a new structured text. In his activity, therefore, the functions of translator, compiler, commentator and author overlap. Despite the great importance of the 'Twenty-Four Elders' for the history of piety in the late Middle Ages, Otto's treatise has received relatively little attention in research. This is probably due to the lack of a reliable edition that meets modern philological criteria. The project has remedied this desideratum by creating a clearly structured digital edition, which is publicly accessible via Internet.
Publications
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Anfänge moderner Textgestaltung. Zu Gliederung und Zitierweise in den ‚24 Alten‘ Ottos von Passau. In: Editionen deutscher Texte des Mittelalters – Aktuelle Projekte. Beiträge des Festkolloquiums zum 80. Geburtstag von Rudolf Bentzinger am 22. August 2016. Hg. von Eva Rothenberger, Martin Schubert, Elke Zinsmeister (Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt, Sonderschriften 50). Erfurt 2019, S. 89‒99
Elke Zinsmeister
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Otto von Passau: Die 24 Alten digital
Lydia Wegener, Elke Zinsmeister, Jens Haustein & Martin Schubert
