Abstract: "Reading Fragments: Romantic Philology, Visual Perception, and the Inner History of Reading"

This is the abstract I submitted for the paper I'll be giving in September at the German Studies Association conference in Louisville, Kentucky, in the session "The Cognitive Turn in German Studies (1)." I'll be the official respondent for session (2).

Abstract: "Reading Fragments: Romantic Philology, Visual Perception, and the Inner History of Reading"

While there has been considerable work in recent decades on the social history of reading, the “inner” history of reading has seen little progress or has been declared an impossibility (for example, Bickenbach 1999). This paper proposes one way to approach the cognition of reading diachronically by connecting philological and poetic practices. One of the basic experiments for studying the role of visual perception in reading involves obscuring parts of letters, words, or sentences, and then observing how readers nevertheless successfully decode the text. Such experiments have led to the currently prevailing connectionist models of reading, which see visual, aural, and semantic cognitive structures operating simultaneously in the reading process. These experiments slow down and make conscious acts of decoding that are usually unconscious and automatic. It is therefore noteworthy that the rise of scholarly philology in the 18th and 19th centuries involved much the same exercise in the form of editing manuscript fragments and attempting to reconstruct original texts and codices. Furthermore, this philology coincided with new approaches to reading and literature in the Romantic period, broadly defined. One thinks of Heinrich von Ofterdingen by Novalis, for example, in which the title character’s famous vision of a blue flower functions as a theory of reading: the intense focus on one element of a text leads to a visionary experience that creates a new work. One of the roots of German Romantic literature might be found in an awareness of reading cognition resulting from contemporary philological practice.

Research links you need to know about: Regesta Imperii OPAC (and more on Johannes Wolf)

One of the longstanding frustrations of working in German Studies is the fragmented bibliographic indexing of scholarship published in Germany. For secondary literature published in English, the MLA database is a reasonable place to start, but its coverage of German scholarship has always been spotty, and there hasn't been a German equivalent. It's too easy for books and articles published in German to remain invisible to international scholars.

Recently, however, I've been having increasing success with the Regesta Imperii online catalog. It's particularly good at finding chapters in edited volumes, which has been one of the weakest areas of bibliographic indexing.

Here's one recent find: Bergdolt, Klaus, and Walther Ludwig, eds. Zukunftsvoraussagen in der Renaissance. Harrassowitz, 2005.

There are several useful chapters here, but one particularly deserving of note is Sabine Schmolinsky's "Prophetia in der Bibliothek - die Lectiones memorabiles des Johannes Wolf" (pp. 89-130). Wolf's massive collection is an extremely important source for the study of medieval and early modern prophecies including the Vaticinia de summis pontificibus, Johann Hilten, and several others (not to mention many topics outside the realm of prophecy), and Schmolinksky's extensive article puts Wolf's life and his works into their historical context. It's an important article that fills what was a significant gap in the literature.

Judging a book by its cover: Robert S. Westman, The Copernican Question

I put the page proofs of Printing and Prophecy in the mail today. According to the University of Michigan Press's advertisement in the program for the upcoming German Studies Association conference, the book should be out in September.

Also this week, I came across an addition to the very small number of English-language book directly relevant to the topics I cover in Printing and Prophecy, and it was published just this month:

Westman, Robert S. The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011.Hardcover, 704 pages. ISBN: 9780520254817. $95.00.

I'm already envious of the cover. It's gorgeous. I haven't seen the cover design of Printing and Prophecy yet, but I can only hope for something this beautiful.
I haven't had a chance to read The Copernican Question yet, although I'll need to read it soon. After scanning the excerpt on the University of California Press website and as much as Google Books would let me read, The Copernican Question is looking like a major contribution to the field.

I'm not worried about Printing and Prophecy becoming redundant, however. The two books are looking at some similar materials in similar but not identical time periods, and asking very different questions about them. My focus is squarely on the German-speaking regions, while The Copernican Question has a broader European focus. While Westman's book is examining the intellectual history of Renaissance astrology, I'm primarily interested in prophecy as a rhetorical and communicative framework for authors and genres, and in its expression in the medium of print. Consequently, I spend most of my time digging into works and authors that appear only briefly or not at all in The Copernican Question, while I treat superficially or ignore altogether its main themes--such as Nicolaus Copernicus, who gets nothing more than a passing mention in Printing and Prophecy. Where the two books might overlap, such as on the printing of prognostic pamphlets or on the flood panic of 1524, I suspect that they will be complementary rather than redundant.

This prophecy brought to you by Hartmann Schedel, Andreas Osiander, Sebastian Franck, Christian Egenolff, Twelve Sibyls, and Will-Erick Peuckert

Substantial sections of Chapter One and Chapter Four of Printing and Prophecy are devoted to untangling the development and later history of the prophetic compilations that Christian Egenolff printed in Frankfurt. The original sibylline collections that Egenolff started printing in the early 1530s go back to material from Phillip de Barberiis, Jodocus Eichmann, and Jakob Köbel, to which Egenolff began adding other short pieces, including the Extract of Various Prophecies (compiled from from Lichtenberger’s Prognosticatio and Grünpeck’s Speculum), Johann Carion’s “Hidden Prophecy,” “36 Signs of the Last Day,” and others. The collections printed in 1548-1550 were made much more substantial by the addition of the Prognostication for 24 Years of Paracelsus and the complete Prognosticatio of Lichtenberger, as well as adding a few new shorter pieces. Egenolff’s collections led to a number of reprints well into the 17th century.

Late in the process of publishing Printing and Prophecy, I came across an article I hadn’t seen yet: Will-Erich Peuckert, “Zwölff Sybillen Weissagungen,” Mitteilungen der schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde 29 (1928): 217-57. Peuckert turns out to be approaching the same question, but from the opposite direction. He starts with a 1677 reprint and attempts to determine its sources, eventually noting the 1549 collection of Egenolff. Peuckert identifies a few sources of the minor works more exactly than I had (but not Grünpeck’s “Reformation of Christendom and the Churches,” whose source I had hoped to find along the way), but at that point it was too late to add more than a footnote to Peuckert.

Peuckert notes that the source for the “36 Signs of the Last Day” is Sebastian Francks Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibel, first published in 1531. Peuckert prints both versions in parallel columns, and the identity of the two is beyond doubt.

Thanks to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, I was recently able to check the digital facsimile of Franck’s Chronica. The “36 Signs of the Last Day” occurs at the end of the eighth and final section of Franck’s chronicle, and it’s preceded by several paraphrases of Lutheran polemic prophetic pamphlets:

1. Andreas Osiander’s preface to his edition of the Vaticinia de summis pontificibus (1527)
2. Martin Luther’s preface to the “Brother Claus” letter of Charles de Bouelles (1528)
3. Martin Luther’s Mönchskalb and Bapstesel interpretation (1523)
4. A tract on the Antichrist, borrowed (like much of Franck’s Chronica) from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493, itself a compilation of older sources)
5. “36 Signs of the Last Day”

The interesting thing here is that Sebastian Franck is reading Osiander and other pro-Lutheran prophetic tracts, and that Egenolff drew on Franck for the Antichrist and “36 Signs” sections of his collection, added in 1532.* Franck is not likely to be the original source of the “36 signs,” however, and similar lists of signs were in circulation, including a list of 23 signs printed together with a work by Bullinger in 1541 (VD16 B 9753). Joerg Frell expanded the “36 Signs” with a preface and additional material in 1580 (VD16 ZV 21238).

*Also, while I still disagree that Egenolff’s collections were anti-Roman in tone, Egenolff’s use of Franck makes me 10% less right and Robin Barnes 10% more correct than we were before. Cf. Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, 145.

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The page proofs of Printing and Prophecy are about two thirds finished, and my semester is about two weeks from its conclusion. Posts will continue to be infrequent for a while yet.

The late, late Toledo Letter (again)

A while back, I ran into a 1629 work that seemed to be arguing against the validity of a recently-published edition of the "Toledo Letter," which was a bit surprising, as that prophecy dates to the late 12th century, and Gerd Mentgen's 2005 book Astrologie und Öffentlichkeit im Mittelalter didn't record any appearances after the early 16th century. I didn't see any likely candidates for the edition in question at the time, but this week I ran into it:

Prognosticon. So mit vornehmer Astronomorum Calculation, auff das 1629. Jahr gerichtet / und der Römischen Key: May: zugesendet worden. Neben einem Prognostico so dem ChnrFürsten von Sachsen/ durch gelartte Leute und Astrologos ist zugesand worden. [n.p.], 1629. VD17 23:332291K

The pamphlet is only two leaves, so the "Schlüsselseiten" include the whole work.

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Title art for Printing and Prophecy has been proposed. The University of Michigan Press marketing department wants some detailed information. Page proofs are on their way. Exciting! But since my semester isn't over until July 21, things could get tricky for a few weeks. Posting may be light.

The Prophet Martin Luther

Browsing through Robert Kolb's For all the Saints (1987), I saw that he identifies three writers in the mid-16th century who treat Martin Luther as a foreteller of the future and see Luther's writings as predictions that correspond to their present moment or to the world's end. "How many more examples of Lutheran writers treating Luther as a prophet are there?" I asked myself. So I turned to VD16/17 to see what a quick search would turn up.

I thought it would only take a moment.

Instead, it turns out that there is an explosion of Luther-as-Prophet after 1550 from the most esteemed and the most marginal writers of the time. Even excluding works that merely praise Luther as a prophet, there are several dozen editons. A preliminary search finds the following, in roughly chronological order:

1. Johannes Timann (Amsterdamus), Prophetiae aliquot verae... (1550, plus another Latin edition and a German translation in 1552)
2. Georg Buchholzer, Drei Sermon D. Martini Lutheri... (1552)
3. Anton Otto, Etliche Prophecezsprüche D. Martini Lutheri... (1552)
4. Andreas Musculus, Weissagung D. Martini Lutheri... (1556)
5. Martin Glaser, Hundert und zwanzig Propheceyunge oder Weissagung... (1557, with an expansion to 200 prophecies in 1574, and a reprint of the 120 prophecies in 1628)
6. Georg Walther, Prophezeiungen D. Martini Lutheri (1559)
7. Ein newes Lied...Prophecey D. Lutheri seligen von dem damals noch verborgenen / numehr aber geoffenbarten Eseln...(1560)
8. Nicolaus von Amsdorff, Ein Predigt aus den Schrifften Lutheri uber die Propheten gezogen... (1562)
9. Eyne Prophetische warninge / und gelick alse eyn Testament D. M. Luthers (1562)
10. Basilius Faber, Allerley Christliche nötige und nützliche unterrichtungen von den letzten Hendeln der Welt... (1564, 1565, 1567)
11. Cyriacus Spangenberg, Die Vierde Predigt Von dem grossen Propheten Gottes / Doctore Martino Luthero... (1564, and many other sermons that might just be praising Luther as a prophet)
12. Practica und Prognosticon / Oder Schreckliche Propheceiung D. Martin Luthers... (1578, three 1592 editions, 1593, 1595, 1608)
13. Johannes Lapaeus, Warhafftige Prophezeiungen des thewren Propheten / und heiligen Manns Gottes / D. Martini Lutheri... (1578, 1592)
14. Propheceyunge Doctor Martini Lutheri / von hernach gefolgten Irrthumben... (1579)

I'll stop there, but the list keeps going much farther. Quite possibly someone has already collected all this material and figured out how all the works relate to each other. If not, someone should write an article about it.

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[UPDATE] In fact, Robert Kolb wrote a whole book about it: Kolb, Robert. Martin Luther as Prophet, Teacher, and Hero: Images of the Reformer, 1520-1620. Baker Academic, 1999.

Digital edition of the week

Earlier this week, the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt (Halle) released a digital facsimile of Hans Lufft's 1527 Wittenberg edition of Johannes Lichtenberger's Prognosticatio. This was the first edition of Stephan Roth's new German translation of the Prognosticatio, and the edition to which Martin Luther contributed a preface, so it's an essential source for the study of Lichtenberger and prophetic texts in the 16th century. There hadn't been a digital version available until now, so even very recent articles had needed to cite Luther's preface from Aby Warburg's edition, which Warburg included as an appendix to his 1919 "Heidnisch-antike Weissagung in Wort und Bild zu Luthers Zeiten."