Kaiserchronik: Literature and History in the German Middle Ages

《皇帝编年史》（Kaiserchronik）是中世纪文学的伟大丰碑之一。这本书记录了从最早期到世纪的罗马和德意志国王和皇帝的统治，展现了一幅宏伟的历史画卷，其中讲德语的民族及其统治者在古代历史舞台上扮演着演员的角色，并继承了罗马作为西方基督教首都的遗产。这本书约于1150年在德国完成，《皇帝编年史》是同时写的两部受英国和盎格鲁-诺曼世界王朝启发的历史作品：蒙茅斯的杰弗里的《不列颠国王史》以引发中世纪对亚瑟形象的迷恋而闻名，还有《罗马人》，这是泽西出生的诗人韦斯根据杰弗里的历史改编的。与《皇帝编年史》一样，这些历史按照时间顺序叙述了国王和统治者的功绩，并利用过去来证明当代政治安排的合理性，培养文化认同感。然而，《凯撒编年史》并不像杰弗里和韦斯那样广为人知，尽管它是第一部用欧洲语言写成的诗歌编年史，尽管它对文学、语言学和历史研究都很重要。该项目将确保工作的形象，它应得的。该项目小组是总部设在剑桥，并聚集了国际上杰出的专家在中世纪文学，语言和历史领域的英国和德国。在五年的时间里，他们将制作出有史以来第一个完整版的《皇帝编年史》：不仅是12世纪的原版，还有1200年和1250年前后的两次重大修改--这证明了这部作品对中世纪读者的持续意义。这三个版本将并排印刷，为了使全世界的学者都能查阅德文文本，将附有英文译本，以及全文介绍和评注（也是英文）。除了三卷共约1800页的学术版外，该项目还将制作一个便宜的单卷版供学生使用。除了编辑工作外，项目小组还将研究编年史的文学和历史背景：它产生的12世纪背景，以及它在接下来的四个半世纪里经久不衰的吸引力的原因（最后一份已知的手稿可追溯到1594年）。结果将流入版本的介绍和评论，也将在国际会议和学术期刊的特刊上向更广泛的中世纪研究界介绍。总的来说，该团队的研究成果将使我们全面了解Kaiserchronik在如此长的一段时间内所产生的非凡文化共鸣，并对中世纪德国文学发展中历史写作的地位进行变革性的重新评估。《皇帝编年史》的50份原始手稿保存了下来--对于这类作品来说，这是一个非常高的数字。由于其地理和年代分布，它们构成了一个宝贵的数据来源，特别是文学和语言学者。为了充分利用这些手稿，该项目将对所有手稿进行加密，并通过巴尔的摩约翰霍普金斯大学谢里丹图书馆的中世纪曼彻斯特数字图书馆开放获取。这个网站（与法国国家图书馆合作）已经拥有最著名的中世纪爱情寓言《玫瑰罗曼史》的数字手稿，将保证Kaiserchronik和该项目的持续国际曝光。

The Kaiserchronik (Chronicle of Emperors) is one of the great monuments of medieval literature. Chronicling the reigns of Roman and German kings and emperors, from the earliest times to the twelfth century, it projects a magnificent historical sweep in which the German-speaking peoples and their rulers feature as actors on the stage of ancient history and heirs to the legacy of Rome as capital of the Christian West.Completed around 1150 in Germany, the Kaiserchronik was written at the same time as two works of dynastically inspired history from Britain and the Anglo-Norman world: Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, famous for sparking off the medieval fascination with the figure of King Arthur, and the Roman de Brut, an adaptation of Geoffrey's history by Jersey-born poet Wace. Like the Kaiserchronik, these histories recount the exploits of kings and rulers in chronological order, and use the past to justify contemporary political arrangements and foster a sense of cultural identity. Yet the Kaiserchronik is nothing like as well known as Geoffrey and Wace, despite the fact that it is the first verse chronicle to have been written in any European language and despite its importance for literary, linguistic and historical studies alike. This project will secure for the work the profile it deserves.The project team is based in Cambridge and assembles internationally outstanding experts in the fields of medieval literature, language and history from the UK and Germany. Over five years, they will produce the first-ever complete edition of the Kaiserchronik: not just the original, twelfth-century version, but also the two major reworkings of it that were made around 1200 and 1250 - testimony to the work's continuing relevance for a medieval readership. The three versions will be printed side by side, and in order to make the German text accessible to scholars worldwide, it will be accompanied by an English translation, plus full introduction and commentary (also in English). As well as the scholarly edition in three volumes, totalling around 1800 pages, the project will produce an inexpensive single-volume edition for student use.In addition to the editorial work, the project team will research the literary and historical background to the chronicle: the twelfth-century context from which it emerged, and the reasons for its enduring appeal over the following four and a half centuries (the last known manuscript dates from 1594). The results will flow into the introduction and commentary of the edition, and will also be presented to a wider medieval research community at international conferences and in special issues of academic journals. Taken together, the team's research findings will yield a complete understanding of the extraordinary cultural resonance of the Kaiserchronik over such a long period of time, and offer a transformative reassessment of the place of history-writing in the development of German literature in the Middle Ages. Fifty original manuscripts of the Kaiserchronik - an unusually high number for a work of this kind - have survived. Because of their geographical and chronological spread, they constitute a precious data source in particular for literary and linguistic scholars. To make them fully exploitable, the project will digitize all the manuscripts and place them on open access via the Digital Library of Medieval Manuscripts, Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. This site, which (in collaboration with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) already hosts the digital manuscripts of the most famous medieval love allegory, the Roman de la Rose, will guarantee sustained international exposure for the Kaiserchronik and the project.