Diebold Lauber s workshop in Hagenau produced hand-written illustrated texts in the first half of the 15th century. Up to now they have been studied mainly in relation to their serial production. They are thought to be nicely painted but with the wording largely copied with little consideration of its content. The studies in this collection are therefore concerned not only with the relationship between text and picture but primarily with the quality of the text and the editorial task of the thoughtful scribe which has as yet been very inadequately researched."

The subject of the volume is the Jena Manuscript, created around 1350 and restored in 2008, the most important manuscript for the transmission of German Sangspruchdichtung and its melodies. The volume contains contributions on the restoration itself, on questions of the location of the manuscript in linguistic and literary history, on the arrangement of the codex and it notation practice. In addition, it documents those manuscript fragments which research has connected with the history of the genesis of the Jena Manuscript on the basis of the stage of their linguistic development and the texts they contain.