Martin of Tours is one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages and, accordingly, his hagiographical afterlife is tremendously rich. In the twelfth century, Martinian studies flourished again and Guibert Martin of Gembloux ( 1213) was an outstanding collector of ancient and modern material about his favourite patron, which he used as a basis for various works of his own. In the centre of this biographical and didactical project Guibert placed two rhythmical poems, which he dedicated to the life of Martin (Libellus panegericus) and an impressive series of his venerators (Libellus de...

Hilduin (c.785-c.860), abbot of Saint-Denis in Paris and archchaplain to Louis the Pious, was one of the leading scholars and administrators of the Carolingian empire. He was the first to translate the mystical Greek writings of the pseudo-Dionysius into Latin; he then identified this Dionysius with the first bishop of Paris of that name, and assigned his episcopacy and martyrdom to 96 A.D. Hilduin composed a life of St Dionysius in prose and verse: the prose work has not been edited since 1580, and the verse work - a major new Carolingian Latin poem - has never before been printed. Both...

In Erzählte Bewegung. Narrationsstrategien und Funktionsweisen lateinischer Pilgertexte (4.-15. Jahrhundert), Susanna Fischer analyzes the function and structure of the genre of pilgrimage narratives from a literary point of view. The first part of the book is devoted to theoretical reflections and a systematic analysis of characteristic elements of pilgrimage narratives. Interpreting the texts from a narrative perspective, she focuses not only on formal characteristics but also on narrative structures and thus takes a closer look at the poetics of pilgrimage narratives. Through the...

From a modern point of view, the four volumes of the Atlantica of Olaus Rudbeck the elder (1630-1702) seem to be not only the climax of Gothicism, but a key example of an early modern polymath. In Odins Imperium Bernd Roling reconstructs Rudbeck’s immense influence at Scandinavian universities, the debates he provoked, his manifold reception in early modern academic culture and the role Rudbeckianism played as paradigm of science until the Swedish romanticism of the 19th century. Taking into account all branches of science, Bernd Roling illustrates in detail Rudbeck’s majestic impact on...