History
Further information: galdrThe Merseburg Incantations are the only surviving instance of ostensibly pre-Christian, pagan, Old High German literature.
The incantations were recorded in the 10th century by a literate cleric, possibly in the abbey of Fulda, on a blank page of a liturgical book, which later passed to the library at Merseburg. The incantations have thus been transmitted in Caroline minuscule on the flyleaf of a Latin sacramentary.
The spells became famous in modern times through the appreciation of the Grimm brothers, who wrote as follows:
- Lying between Leipzig, Halle and Jena, the extensive library of the Cathedral Chapter of Merseburg has often been visited and made use of by scholars. All have passed over a codex which, if they chanced to take it up, appeared to offer only well-known church items, but which now, valued according to its entire content, offers a treasure such that the most famous libraries have nothing to compare with it...
The spells were published later by the Brothers Grimm in On two newly-discovered poems from the German Heroic Period (1842).
The manuscript of the Merseburg Incantations was on display until November 2004 as part of the exhibition "Between Cathedral and World - 1000 years of the Chapter of Merseburg", at Merseburg cathedral. They were previously exhibited in 1939.
Read more about this topic: Merseburg Incantations
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the good of evil. Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)