Edda
Auditorium
Kathrin Chlench-Priber
Runes, Medicine, and the Devil. The Storage of Secret Knowledge in a Late Medieval Pharmacopoeia (Prague, Národní knihovná, XXIII.F.129)
Tuesday, September 15, 2026, at 16.30
Edda auditorium (E-103)
The Prague manuscript in question was compiled in the 1470s in the area around Lucerne, in what is now Central Switzerland. It is a pharmacopoeia which contains a wealth of medical prescriptions and blessing formulas, some of which also include magical elements. Of particular interest is a ritual for summoning the devil — the oldest known in the German language. However, it is not only the content of the compendium that is interesting, but also the fact that the author encodes parts of his recipes using Scandinavian runes. There is nothing comparable in German-language manuscripts from the Middle Ages, and Scandinavian runes are in general a rarity. The lecture will introduce the contents of this peculiar manuscript, and will give a possible explanation for the usage of a runic cipher by the author.
Kathrin Chlench-Priber wrote her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Bonn on astronomy in the late Middle Ages, and her habilitation thesis at the University of Bern on the prayers of Johann von Neumarkt. Since 2021, she has held the Chair of Medieval German and Nordic literature in Bonn. Her current research interests include historical knowledge, pragmatic and spiritual literature, and computer-assisted textual criticism.
The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.
The University of Iceland Centre for Medieval Studies
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