'Political archaeology' in high and late medieval Bavaria and Austria. Eugippius's Vita Severini and its reception in medieval manuscripts.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Martin Wagendorfer
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2014 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 257833817

The project intends to describe the reception of Eugippius's Vita Severini (one of the most important texts for the history of early medieval Bavaria and Austria in the 5th century) in the high and late middle ages based on the manuscript transmission. Whereas the literary reception of the Vita is well explored, the textual tradition is not. That's why the project aims to record all manuscripts of the Vita written (or verifiably used) north of the Alps in the middle ages in the form of detailled manuscript descriptions in order to gain information about date and point of origin of the manuscripts, their users, glossators, annotators and commentators, and subsequently to draw conclusions concerning the Vita's exploitation for political and ideological aims. The vita obviously has not only (as known yet) been used by the bishops of Passau in order to confirm their claims for an own archbishopric; but rather could the high number of texts copied in the 12th century refer to the intention of the dukes of Austria to increase the honor Austriae and their own claims for a "Landesbistum" identifying the by Eugippius several times mentioned Favianis (today's Mautern) with their ducal residence Vienna (so did also the historiographer Otto von Fresising, a son of Leopold III, margrave of Austria, in his Gesta Friderici). Furthermore the Vita seems (to a greater extant than hitherto realized) also to have been read as an hagiographical text in the middle ages (which was its original purpose). Therefore the project wants to look into the glosses added to the text by its readers as well as in the texts combined with the Vita in each manuscript.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants