MITT

Mobility of Ideas and Transmission of Texts Vernacular Literature and Learning in the Rhineland and the Low Countries (ca. 1300-1550)

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

Mobility of Ideas and Transmission of Texts is a joint PhD programme (2009-2013) that studies the medieval transmission of learning from the ecclesiastical and academic elites of the professional intellectuals to the wider readership that could be reached through the vernacular. The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low Countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages. Here, the great fourteenth-century mystics Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Jan van Ruusbroec and their contemporaries produced a sophisticated vernacular literature on contemplative theology and religious practice, introducing new lay audiences to a personal relation with the Supreme Being. The project seeks to develop a new perspective on this literary culture by looking at the readership, appropriation and circulation of texts in the contemporary religious and intellectual contexts. The programme unites expertise in the fields of medieval philosophy, religious studies, manuscript studies and Dutch and German literature, to provide structural training for interdisciplinary and international research in one of the medieval aspects of European culture of lasting merit. The training programme is built on a number of current research projects in which all full partners (Antwerp, Freiburg, Lecce, Leiden and Oxford) participate simultaneously, thus offering an adequate international infrastructure for a series of coherent PhD projects on medieval literature and learning that require a broader academic framework than the national literatures and other concepts of the modern tradition of academic disciplines. The programme prepares a new generation of medievalists for international careers in academic research, education and the presentation of the medieval cultural heritage.

Introduzione (Teaser)

Examining how earlier texts and ideas were transmitted from an intellectual to a general audience provides insight into new perspectives of literary culture.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

In the later Middle Ages, intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low Countries was vibrant. This region spans modern day Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The mystics of the time include Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler and Jan van Ruusbroec. Together with their contemporaries, they gave theology and religious practice a rich language that reached a general audience.

An EU-funded project, http://www.mitt-itn.eu/ (MITT), examined a new perspective on the literary culture of that time and subject matter to understand how texts were circulated in contemporary, religious and intellectual contexts. The work united expertise in medieval philosophy, religious studies, manuscript studies, and Dutch and German literature.

Researchers worked on individual research projects divided into themes. The projects focused on texts, manuscripts and text collections with a multidisciplinary approach. Most of the projects will result in dissertations that are within the field of transnational circulation of literature.

New views on the interconnectedness of intellectual cultures have arisen as a result of the project. The work also led to the creation of a new book series of peer-reviewed monographs.