New critical edition of Abbot Wilhelm of Hirsau's vita

• Applicant: Dr. Denis Drumm
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 422724299

Abbot Wilhelm of Hirsau's vita has been frequently used by scholarsof medieval history studying the history of the famous monastery ofHirsau as well as the history of monasticism in the eleventh andtwelfth century. Although this text has often been considered asimportant, there are no thorough examination of this source as awhole. Because of this gap, central questions concerning dating,authorship and intention of the text have remained unanswered orvague. This is aggravated by the fact that scholars are forced to workwith a critical edition which was published in 1856 and contains onlyfour of the thirteen manuscripts known today. Such an edition is notconsistent with today's scientific standards. Therefore, it is the goal ofthis project to create a modern critical edition of the Vita of AbbotWilhelm of Hirsau in order to replace the old one. As we haverecourse to three times the number of manuscripts than were knownin 1856, we can establish a much more reliable text. Because of theincreased amount of manuscripts, we can also make statementsabout the transmission of the manuscripts or the dependenciesbetween them. In addition to this, the project examines thecodicological contexts of the manuscripts. Also, the Vita will becontextualized according to new researches in the field ofmonasticism in order to avoid blanket judgements. Through newknowledge and paradigm shifts in the way we look at monasticcommunities and new assessments of other Hirsau sources, we canachieve a new understanding of the Vita in general. Concurrently,there will be an examination of linguistical dependencies and textualediting based on this context. Altogether, it is a central goal to makethe text scientifically usable and to create an up to date understandingof the Vita.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants