Sermon in context: Function and functionality of vernacular sermon in the Late Middle Ages

这项名为“背景预测”（Predigt im Kontext）的研究项目旨在整合收集了数十年、以不同方式和地点出版的中世纪手稿的广泛信息。其目的是探索中世纪布道的综合组合的功能，并阐明这些功能是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。为此目的，该项目着重分析约450份手稿中多米尼加传教士迈斯特·埃克哈特和/或约翰·陶勒所传的讲道（以目录和版本提供）。分析的统计和实证结果在一个逐渐发展的在线数据库中公开提供，该数据库提供了广泛的不同搜索选项。收集到的数据使我们能够汇集现有文本版本中已有的手稿的详细资料和对（修道院）图书馆馆藏的研究。这些大量的资料有助于详细了解中世纪讲道传播的背景和联系。侧重于具体的中世纪媒介——手稿及其汇编——以及“讲道”这一体裁的许多不同功能，为传统版本提供了一种有条理的选择，传统版本侧重于作者和单个传教士的“作品”的识别。一般来说，中世纪的方言布道并不像我们的现代版本所暗示的那样，是作为单一作者的集合传播的。通常我们会在手稿中发现它们按主题或仪式顺序排列（根据教会日历），直到中世纪晚期，旧材料的新汇编才向某些既定权威提供虚构的组合分配。除了关注中世纪对作者身份和认证的理解这一重要的冲突领域外，该项目还提供了对“布道”类型的系统检查。因为它的简洁，文学产品布道暴露于手稿中文本组合的最多样化的模式，作为传播的物理媒介。“语境中的预言”项目的目的是统一、具体和分析这些传播特征，以便准确地描述讲道及其集合的功能变化。因此，我们将能够更准确地了解文本的接受者、他们的意图和他们的文学文化。

The research project "Predigt im Kontext" aims to unite widespread information on medieval manuscripts that has been collected for many decades and published in different ways and places. Its intention is to explore the functions of a comprehensive portfolio of medieval sermons, and to elucidate how these functions changed in the course of time. For this purpose the project focuses on analyzing the transmission of sermons (made accessible in catalogues and editions) attributed to the Dominican preachers Meister Eckhart and/or John Tauler in approximately 450 manuscripts. The statistical and empirical results of the analysis are made publicly available in a gradually developing online-database, which provides a wide range of different search options. The collected data makes it possible to bring together detailed information on manuscripts already available in existing text editions and from studies on the holdings of (monastic) libraries. This amount of data facilitates a detailed insight into the contexts and connections of medieval sermon transmission. The focus on concrete medieval media - manuscripts and their compilation - and the many different functions of the genre "sermon" offer a methodical alternative to traditional editions, which are focused on authors and the identification of the "opus" of an individual preacher. Spoken in general, medieval vernacular sermons are not transmitted as single author collections, as our modern editions suggest. Usually we find them ordered thematically or liturgically (according to the church calendar) in the manuscripts, and it is only late in the Middle Ages that new compilations of old material offer fictitious allocations of the portfolios to certain established authorities. In addition to focusing on this important area of conflict concerning the medieval understanding of authorship and authentication, the project offers systematical examinations on the genre "sermon". Because of its brevity, the literary product sermon is exposed to the most diverse patterns of combination of texts within the manuscripts as physical media of transmission. It is the intention of the project "Predigt im Kontext" to unite, specify and analyse these characteristics of the transmission in order to describe precisely the change of functions of sermons and their collections. Thus we will be able to obtain a more accurate picture of the recipients of the texts, of their intentions, and their literary culture.