Edition of all Meisterlieder in Regenbogens Langer Ton

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Martin Schubert
• Subject Area: German Medieval Studies (Medieval German Literature)
• Term: from 2015 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 275364019

The project compiles an edition of all the known >Meisterlieder< in Regenbogen's >Langer Ton< in digital and printed form. With this edition, a significant part of songs attributed to the poet Regenbogen or delivered in his >Töne< will for the first time be made accessible for further usage. These >Töne<, which mean the metrical and musical stanzaforms, passed on from the High Medieval Sangspruch to the Late Medieval Meisterlied, combine texts of different authors, eras and genres; they therefore build an adequate basis for further research and overall cross sections. The >Töne< passed on under the name of Regenbogen belong to the most widely spread forms of medieval lyrics. They form the largest not systematically ed-ited field of the >Meisterlied< tradition. In its way, it can only be compared with the late tradition of Frauenlob. However, in the case of Regenbogen, there is no reliable early transmission, and therefore almost no criterion for discussions about authenticity. For this reason, the editor cannot rely on >as old as possible< corpora if it comes to Regenbogen. Instead, a larger cross section must be applied to gain an insight into the stratification of the manuscript tradition, which FRIEDER SCHANZE considers an >important avail< (SCHANZE 1989, Sp. 1083). The importance of the Regenbogen-Töne for the late Middle Ages appears best in their broad reception. Altogether 1500 stanzas come to our hands, which are passed on in 62 manuscripts and early prints from allover the German-speaking countries. Until today, only one third of these 1500 stanzas have been edited. The songs in the >Langer Ton<, which are only deficiently made accessible, are going to be edited in the course of the project. The >Langer Ton< enfolds a large spectrum of genres and topics typical for Meistersang, with a strong focus on reli-gious themes. Containing 829 stanzas in 174 songs, the textcorpus is well manageable during the course of the project. The editors will use the database of the DFG-project >Lyrik des hohen Mittelalters< (LHM); online as well as printout publication will be derived from this database. The corpus can be regarded as representative; therefore the edition may build the basis for developing further philological, cultural and genre-based scientific questions. While earlier editing-projects - due to the overwhelming number of manuscripts and texts - could only concentrate on small parts of the corpus, this project compiles for the first time a significant amount, by combining a printedition with digital ressources.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Jens-Dieter Haustein