Friday 19 – Saturday 20 May 2023

To celebrate the life and scholarship of Nigel F. Palmer, Professor of  German  Medieval Literary and Linguistic  Studies at the University of Oxford, the academic community honoured his memory with a symposium, which brought together colleagues from around the world. Their presentations spoke to the wide spectrum of Nigel’s intellectual interests, which ranged extensively within the broad scope of the literary and religious history of the German- and Dutch-speaking lands, treating Latin alongside the vernaculars, the early printed book alongside the manuscript, and the court and the city alongside the monastery and the convent.

Friday, 19 May 2023 

10:30-11:30         Weston Library, Visiting Scholars Centre

• Presentation of incunables and blockbooks linked with Nigel F. Palmer in the Bodleian Library by Alan Coates.

13:00-13:45             Taylor Institution Library. Main Hall

• Welcome and introduction. Video by Jeffrey Hamburger in honour of Nigel Palmer

14:00-15:00             Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Racha Kirakosian

• Henrike Manuwald, ‘German-language pericopes between retelling, exegesis and prayer: the case of the Begerin Prayer Book’
• Martina Backes and Barbara Fleith, Extraordinary or conventional? Überlegungen zu einem un­ge­wöhnlichen Bildmotiv im Begerin-Gebetbuch

14:00-15:30             Weston Library. Horton Room: Chair: Henrike Lähnemann

• Erik Kwakkel, ‘The problem of dating medieval manuscripts’.  Recording.
• Victor Millet and Lorena Pérez Ben, ‘‘Fragmentology’ around Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein’.  Recording.

16:00-17:30             Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Almut Suerbaum

• Ben Morgan, ‘Critiquing critique: how Erich Fromm’s reading of Meister Eckhart can transform contemporary conceptualisations of human flourishing’
• Freimut Löser, ‘Latest news on Nigel Palmer’s Meister Eckhart’
• Racha Kirakosian, ‘Philology meets visionary practice’

16:00-17:30             Weston Library: Chair: Martin Kauffmann

• Andrew Honey, ‘‘I believe they were fixed in some low places in the Church, Chapell or House’: further investigations into the glue stains of Douce 248, a blockbook Biblia pauperum of c.1465-1470’. Recording.
• Geert Warnar, ‘The Roman van Limborch in a European framework’. Recording.
• Luise Morawetz, ‘Gregory the Great in Old High German: the newly discovered glosses of MS. Canon. Pat. Lat. 57’.

Saturday, 20 May 2023

A small exhibition of medieval German manuscripts used by Nigel Palmer for teaching Palaeography and History of the Book was on display in the Voltaire Room of the Taylor Institution Library, including the two manuscripts from Erfurt Charterhouse Taylor Institution Library MS. 8° Germ. 1 and MS. 8° Germ. 2 (comment by Balázs Nemes).

10:00-11:30             Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Annette Volfing

• Elke Brüggen, ‘Parzival-Lektüren im komplexen Zusammenspiel von Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentierung’
• Daniela Mairhofer, ‘Almost lost in transmission: the peculiar case of a Staufer song’
• Nikolaus Henkel, ‘Liturgie im Schulunterricht um 1500. Der Osterhymnus ‚Salve festa dies‘ des Venantius Fortunatus und seine deutsche Reimpaarübersetzung’

10:00-11:30             Taylorian Room 2: Chair: Stephen Mossman

• Adam Poznański and Reima Välimäki, ‘Petrus Zwicker’s Cum dormirent homines: transmission history and prospects for a critical edition of a popular anti-heretical treatise’
• Linus Ubl, ‘Palm(er)ing material culture – medieval German manuscripts in the
  National State Library of Israel’
• Astrid Breith, ‘Locked away for love – the Vita Wilbirgis inclusae and the manuscript holdings of St. Florian (Upper Austria)’

13:00-14:30             Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Sarah Bowden

• Jonas Hermann, ‘What gives? Marquard von Lindau and the ›Buch von geistlicher Armut‹’
• Anne Winston-Allen, ‘Sibilla von Bondorf’s art of reform’
• Edmund Wareham Wanitzek, ‘Soror in Christo dilectissima: Learning and exchange in the correspondence of Nikolaus Ellenbog and his sister Barbara’

13:00-14:30             Taylorian Room 2: Chair: Elizabeth Andersen

• Peter Rückert, ‘Bücher zwischen Kloster und Hof. Neues zur literarischen Topographie in Württemberg’
• Monica Brinzei and Giacomo Signore, ‘The rise of ars moriendi at the University of Vienna before the printing press’
• Nigel Harris, ‘“Nach dem text und etwen nach dem sin”. Heinrich Haller und das Cordiale de quattuor novissimis des Gerard van Vliederhoven’

15:00-16:30             Taylorian Main Hall: Chair: Christine Putzo

• Ralph Hanna, ‘On exempla: “Hoc contra malos religiosos”‘
• Peter Tóth, ‘The early history of the Meditationes Vitae Christi: quotations and references’
• Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘Kollektive Autorschaft und Baukastenprinzip. Geistliche Literatur dominikanischer Provenienz um 1300’

15:00-16:30             Taylorian Room 2: Chair: Lydia Wegener

• Sarah Griffin, ‘Unfolding time in a late medieval German concertina-fold almanac (SPKB, Libr. pict. A 92)
• Youri Desplenter, ‘Newly discovered interlinear Middle Dutch translation of the Psalms (c. 1300?). Analysis and contextualization within the Middle Dutch and medieval Psalm translations’
• Wybren Scheepsma, ‘Laudate dominum in sanctis eius: a Limburg sermon with French roots’

17:00-19:00 Old Library of St Edmund Hall

• Exhibition of books related to Nigel F. Palmer

Followed by speeches in honour of Nigel F. Palmer

• The Pro Principal of St Edmund Hall, Rob Whittaker. Recording.
• A performance of a medieval poem by Ruth Wiederkehr, Monika Studer, Claudia Lingscheid-Andersen and Racha Kirakosian
• Words of memory by Eva Schlotheuber and in dialogue by Hans-Jochen Schiewer and Michael Stolz

The event was supported by the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, the Meister-Eckhart-Gesellschaft, SSMLL, Oxford Medieval Studies and St Edmund Hall. Here a link to the call of papers; please contact Henrike Lähnemann if you have any comments on the content of this page.