It is conventional to separate medieval European literature into the categories of ‘religious’ (‘geistlich’) and ‘secular’ (‘weltlich’), the latter category consisting of works that do not explicitly concern religious subjects, stories and practices. Yet the boundary between these categories is never straightforward in the context of the medieval West. Secular literature is grounded firmly within a Christian worldview in the context of both production and reception, and stands in dialogue with more explicitly religious material.

This project will interrogate the categories of ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ and investigate literary production in a time of religious and social change. At its heart is a comparative investigation of how twelfth-century narrative works tackle religious content, practices and meta-narratives, which will allow us to open up new perspectives on the techniques, functions and challenges of vernacular literature. We propose a range of approaches, including: close reading; investigations of religious ‚framing‘ in indivudal texts and manuscripts; historical narratology; the exploration of intertextual and thematic relationships between secular narrative and more didactic, theological or biblical writings in Latin and the vernacular; and praxeology.

The project is divided into three interlocking strands. Strand A explores the kind of creative thinking about religious topics that is enabled by secular narrative, and the literary possibilities it offers for intellectual engagement with religious thought. We consider here what happens when theological practices and problematics are transposed into narrative and are discussed without concrete frameworks of theological discussion in a new, literary form. Strand B focuses on time and space, central aspects both for the construction of narrative literature and for religious thought. Strand C considers the ways in which the fluid categories of the religious, sacred and secular are manifested or ‘embodied’ in non-human things, taking into account the agency of these things and how they relate to (or challenge) secular or religious norms.

Sarah Bowden/Susanne A. Friede, „Zum Problem der ,Heilsgeschichte': Raumzeitliche Situierungen der Alexanderfigur in deutschen und französischen Texten des 12. Jahrhunderts“, in: Poetica 55 (2024), 29-64.

Marc Schäfer, „Martyrium und lignage-Konstruktion in der Naissance du chevalier au cygne (Elioxe)“, in: Das Mittelalter 29 (2024), 343-359.

Sarah Bowden/Lea Braun/George Young (Hgg.), Narrating Time in the Twelfth Century. Sonderheft der Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures 10 (2023).

Sarah Bowden/Susanne A. Friede/Andreas Hammer (Hgg.), Sacred Space and Place in Arthurian Romance. Arthurian Literature XXXVI, Woodbridge 2021.

Susanne A. Friede (Hg.), Autour du Graal. Questions d’approche(s), Paris 2020.
 

Sarah Bowden/Annette Volfing (Hgg.), Punishment and Penitential Practices in Medieval German Writing, Woodbridge 2018.
 

Susanne A. Friede/Michael Schwarze (Hgg.), Autorschaft und Autorität in den romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, Berlin 2015.
 

Sarah Bowden, Bridal-quest Epics in Medieval Germany: A Revisionary Approach, London 2012.
 

Susanne A. Friede, Die Wahrnehmung des Wunderbaren. Der Roman d’Alexandre im Kontext der französischen Literatur des 12. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen 2003.
 

Sarah Bowden, „Das Beichtwunder Karls des Großen“, in: Elke Koch/Nina Nowakowska/Julia Weitbrecht (Hgg.), Konfigurationen des Wunders. Texte, Praktiken und Funktionen in Spätantike, Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (to be published in 2023).
 

Marc Schäfer, „Beweisverfahren im ,saintisme sermon‘ – Selbstautorisierung und Inspiration in der Chanson d‘Antioche“, in: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 73 (2023), 21-46.
 

Sarah Bowden, „Spaces of remorse: penitential allusions in Iwein“, in: Arthurian Literature 36 (2021), 105–24.
 

Susanne A. Friede, „Das umkämpfte Jahrzehnt. Narrative Strategien der Polemik in französischen Texten von 1175 bis 1185“, in: Anna Kathrin Bleuler/Manfred Kern (Hgg.), Poesie des Widerstreits. Etablierung und Polemik in den Literaturen des Mittelalters, Heidelberg, 2020, 53-70.
 

Susanne A. Friede, „Un Évangile du graal? Réflexions intergénériques face à quelques romans du graal (Conte du Graal, Première Continuation, Roman de l’Estoire dou Graal)“, in: Catalina Girbea et al. (Hgg.), Miroirs arthuriens entre image et mirage. Actes du XXIVe congrès international de la Société Internationale Arthurienne (Bucarest, 20–27 juillet 2014), Turnhout, Brepols 2019, 87-107.
 

Susanne A. Friede, „Spiritualität und Sinnstiftung in der Queste del saint Graal“, in: Brigitte Burrichter/Matthias Däumer (Hgg.), Aktuelle Tendenzen der Artusforschung, Berlin 2013, 261-277.
 

Sarah Bowden, „A False Dawn: the Grippia Episode in Three Versions of Herzog Ernst“, in: Oxford German Studies 41 (2012), 15–31.

5th May 2023: Workshop with Bent Gebert (Konstanz) on "Religiöse Codierung als Forschungsproblem in der Mediävistik" at RUB

23rd  September 2023: Double lecture by Sarah Bowden and Susanne A. Friede  at the conference "Schreckliche Sehnsucht. Apokalyptisches Erzählen in der Vormoderne" held by Lea Braun (Berlin) and Sarah Lehner (Vienna)

8th-9th December 2023: 1st workshop of the working group at RUB

December 2023: Publication of a special issue of Interfaces: A Journal of Medieval European Literatures on  Narrating Time in the Twelfth Century (co-edited by Sarah Bowden)
 

20th June 2024: Doctoral researcher's workshop at KCL on "Consent in Global Late Antique and Middle Ages"

21st-22nd June 2024: 2nd workshop of the working group at KCL

1st July 2024: Organisation of a section at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds by Sarah Bowden (participation by Marc Schäfer) on "Landscapes of Sanctity"

15th July 2024: The project team organises a panel on "Sacred Secular Objects" at the Congress of the International Arthurian Society

26th February 2025: The project team organises a panel at the 20th Symposium of the German and Austrian Medievalists' Society (title: Between sacred secular authorisation and the ,self of characters' - names and namings in texts and paratexts of the 12th century)