Margins at the Centre

The project “Margins at the Centre” focuses on the Carolingian period and investigates how Latin and the Bible were studied in the East Frankish Kingdom from roughly 830 to 900 CE. The main evidence is provided by annotations of varying content and length, which were added by contemporary teachers and readers into the margins of a specific corpus of manuscripts. As for the study of Latin, the project aims to analyze the Latin and Old-High-German glosses which Otfrid of Wissembourg and at least one further scholar added to the text of Priscian’s Institutiones Grammaticae contained in the manuscript Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 50 Weissenburg.

A digital edition and an interpretation of the roughly 2.000 concerned annotations will be completed and made available for further research. This edition will enrich our knowledge about the reception of Priscian’s grammar in Carolingian Europe and shed light on the methods and contents of the teaching of Latin as a foreign language in the ninth century.