Bridget of Sweden digitally. Making St Birgitta’s revelations in Old Swedish accessible

Time period:

1 January 2016 – 31 December 2018

Project leader:

Henrik Williams

Project member:

Marco Bianchi, Ingela Hedström-Bolton, Roger Andersson, Zeth Alvered

Funder:

Riksbankens Jubileumsfond

Type of award:

Research infrastructure

Total funding:

3,801,999 SEK

St Birgitta’s revelations and other writings form the basis for much research on medieval Sweden. Her texts were translated into Latin for international use and the originals were lost almost entirely. But in Scandinavia vulgate versions were needed and the Latin version was therefore retranslated back into, for the most part, Old Swedish. Studies on language and theology, as well as the history of agriculture, ideas, gender, mentalities and social conditions etc, have been based upon these texts.

The research infrastructure to date consists of G. E. Klemming s edition (1857–1884). It is impressive but now obsolete and insufficient:

1. Klemming’s edition is not complete: he was not aware of all the textual witnesses and used the ones he did know in an inconsistent and partly inadequate manner. His edition should therefore not be used as the basis for scholarly studies; a modern, critical edition is needed in both printed and digital form.

2. Klemming was a traditional editor and in principle he valued manuscripts only as sources of the most original text version. Modern philology has also drawn attention to the great importance of individual manuscripts as sources for understanding the contemporary reception and use of the texts’ contents. Close transcriptions are therefore needed of all the manuscript witnesses as well as high-resolution digital pictures. These must be published and made accessible on a permanent internet site which allows fast and flexible searches.