Heidelberg University Publishing

This study explores how the understanding of the Byzantine emperor as a sacred or divine figure changed in the Middle Byzantine period. It is based on close readings and studies of three medieval Passion relics held in Constantinople: the Mandylion, the relic-reliquary ensemble of the Limburg Staurotheke; and the Holy Stone. Accompanied by English-language translations  of medieval Greek source texts pertaining to these relics, Sprecher demonstrates that the Passion relics in this period served to focus and narrow an understanding of the emperor not only as divinely appointed and anointed ruler, but also in surprising ways as being somehow divine himself.

‘Digitising Heritage’ presents new interdisciplinary studies about the diverse manifestations of heritage in digital form, in museums, academic institutions, politics, and history. Individual contributions span across literary studies, forensics, physics, sound studies, law, postcolonial studies, archaeology, migration and museum studies. How can researchers and practitioners make effective use of digital technologies to foster a sustainable heritage engagement? To what extend can critical heritage concepts find expression in the digital age? The volume answers these questions in a multimedia format that combines audio, video, 3D graphics and technologies.

This volume presents the first pan-Mediterranean panorama of Late Antique mortuary practices, combining and contextualizing an abundant dataset of archaeological and epigraphic evidence. In 17 contributions, a group of international specialists discusses funerary evidence from 14 Late Antique landscapes, in order to show the high diversity of microregional and local customs in funerary cultures as well as the significance of global trends. In this volume various new methodological approaches are applied: the materiality of epitaphs and tombs, their visibility, their accessibility, their perception, their setting within shifting spatial environments, as well as their crucial role within social practices. Therefore, this book fundamentally reshapes our understanding of mortuary habits and the commemoration of the dead during the transitional phase of the Long Late Antiquity.

In 1215/1216, Thomasin von Zerklaere composed his Welscher Gast (“The Italian Guest”), the earliest comprehensive book of court etiquette written in German. Up until the Early Modern Age, the work was frequently copied and widely disseminated. Its uniqueness lies not least in the fact that it was, from early on, transmitted together with an extensive cycle of images. This volume brings together studies from Art History, Literary Studies and Musicology into the sources, the didactic concept, the transmission of images, and the reception of Thomasin’s poem as well as into how it might be employed in present-day German language and literature classes. It proposes to replace the author-centered approach to the Welscher Gast with an approach that consistently focuses on the history of its transmission.

In Western cultural history, 'tradition' is one of the central concepts to describe processes of reception and their impact. Especially in literary studies, traditions are often claimed by stating, for example, that a particular text stands 'in the tradition' of another text. Nevertheless, coherent theoretical reflection is often lacking. This volume approaches the general question "What is tradition?" and the more specific question "How can one adequately speak about literary traditions?" by theorizing the premises of the concept and by discussing its theoretical capacity on the basis of case studies from various constellations throughout literary and cultural history.