Project Manager
Sandquist Öberg, ChristinaAmount granted
40 000 SEKYear
2012
Medieval church paintings with integrated captions, usually in Latin, form an important part of our cultural heritage. These often insufficiently considered texts provide invaluable information about the medieval world of concepts and ideas. However, the texts of the language tapes have only been documented to a limited extent. Nor have they been philologically examined and evaluated except in exceptional cases. For our time, however, they often provide a key to the interpretation of the paintings and their function and thus deepen our understanding of the works and their authors. This is clearly demonstrated by the only example of Albertus Pictor already examined. It is extremely important that similar pioneering work, also of international importance, is also carried out for other late medieval church painters. This disparate material in terms of time and execution presents new challenges, not least when it comes to identifying the models used. The current project aims to investigate the texts of such church painters in 70 churches in Uppland, a politically and ecclesiastically central region at that time. The work will result in a linguistically elaborate edition with translation, comments and individual and summary analyses of all preserved language tapes. Thus, the results of the project will significantly increase the knowledge of a long-neglected genre in medieval Latin and promote the accessibility of this textual treasure also for researchers in related fields as well as for the interested public.