Organised by the Dahlem Humanities Center (DHC) in cooperation with EXC 2020 Temporal Communities.

Lecture by Temporal Communities Distinguished Fellow of Global Literary Studies Kathryn M. Rudy. The lecture will be held in English.

Late medieval Christians believed that words and images would protect their spiritual and physical health.  This presentation focusses on a single manuscript prayerbook made in the Southern Netherlands around 1445 which contains numerous texts and images which help to ward off the bubonic plague (London, British Library, Ms. Add. 39638), and considers the structure of its contents. Specifically, the manuscript contains numerous talismanic prayers with supernatural words interspersed with crosses. Despite the fact that these texts fell into the realm of condemned practice, as indicated by contemporary sermons, such supernatural formulas appear in a large number of devotional manuscripts. How did they function? How do signs of wear in manuscripts reveal the lived experience using talismanic manuscripts in the late middle ages?