Otloh of St. Emmeram: Author and Copyist Critical edition of „Libellus de doctrina spirituali“, „Liber de cursu spirituali“ and other minor works

• Applicant: Dr. Gaia Clementi
• Subject Area: Medieval History ; Greek and Latin Philology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508016569

Otloh of St. Emmeram (about 1010-1070) is one of the outstanding figures of his time and shaped his intellectual and spiritual environment.The project aims at a new edition of his writings „Libellus de doctrina spirituali“ and „Liber de cursu spirituali“ as well as other minor works. The writings have survived in autograph codices. Otloh himself copied his texts and annotated them. However, the textual interventions of the monk are not recognizable in the currently available reference editions, since they do not have any critical apparatus. The editions are also outdated, inexact and do not have any further information (such as Otloh’s source texts). In the new critical edition, special attention will therefore be paid to the apparatus, from which the author's corrections, annotations or later additions will become clear. A philological-historical commentary will identify Otloh's source texts (quotations, allusions) and parallel passages in other Otloh's works and explain facts needing explanations. The edition will be published in the MGH Publication Series „Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters“ and a digital version will be freely available on the MGH Publication Server. An edition like that will in the first place be useful to philologists, because with its help it will be possible to distinguish between the original version of Otloh's writings and later textual interventions. A careful study of these textual interventions will then have advantages for scholars who are interested in the monk's idiosyncratic personality: it will reveal Otloh's work on his texts, which will shed light on his reflections or the progress of his thinking. Purely formal changes, e. g., speak for the monk's meticulousness. Conceptual redesigns, on the other hand, should be evaluated in the context of Otloh's theological visions or his ideal of monastic life.While transcribing the manuscripts for the new critical edition, special attention will be paid to palaeographic details that are essential for distinguishing Otloh's hand from other hands. The typical characteristics of Otloh's way of writing, both in the text itself as in corrections or annotations, can be then assigned more certainly. In the interest of manuscript cataloguing, his hand will become more clearly identifiable by means of such findings. The autobiographical component and the admonishing tone, that can be detected in Otloh's writings which are going to be edited, give clues for further literary, historical, philosophical discussions.A website at the BAdW will provide information about the project and further studies on Otloh. The various areas (philology, palaeography, codicology, literary and historical studies, theology, hagiography, philosophy), that have already interested the community of scholars in Otloh, will find a digital forum.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants