An Anonymous Collection of Middle Low German Devotional Prose of the 15th Сentury from Lübeck (the National Library of Russia, MS. Nem.Q.I.310)

Abstract

This paper examines the role of stereotypical semantic and syntactic structures (topoi, biblical quotations, rhetorical devices) in late medieval collections of devotional vernacular prose. The compositional structure of such collections is extremely unstable and is subject to various editorial changes in process of their handwritten transmission. However, the analysis of stereotypically used textual elements can reveal essential conceptual und historical connections between different neighboring texts. The material under consideration is a collection of Middle Low German devotional and allegorical treatises preserved in the handwritten codex of the third quarter of the 15th century from Lübeck (nowadays the National Library of Russia, MS. Nem. Q.I.310). The paper also includes a short overview of history and the present state of philological studies of German medieval manuscripts in Russia.