The medieval court, whether that of a king, prince or bishop, and the monastery are focal points for the production of vernacular literature in the period 800-1500. The studies collected here discuss a wide range of topics, drawing also on Latin literature and the history of art, and present a conspectus of the most influential approaches to the study of medieval literature in German.

The studies and selected texts in this volume focus on literary and cultural life in Strasbourg during the late middle ages. The compendium might be regarded as a cultural topography of the southwestern portion of the German-speaking realm during this period. It explores the connections between book production, urban culture and lives of religious devotion."

Jim Reed has taught German language and literature at the University of Oxford since 1961 and retires on 30 September 2004. This collection of essays in his honour consists of contributions from friends and pupils, and is principally concerned with Goethe, Heine, Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, and Brecht. The themes and approaches represented are those with which Reed himself has engaged in many of his own publications, beginning with Thomas Mann: The Uses of Tradition (1974) and The Classical Centre: Goethe and Weimar (1980), and which is summed up in the title given to his recent collection of essays -Humanpraxis Literatur-."

The German bible codes in the library of the Franciscan monastery in Freiburg im Aoeechtland represent the end point of a series of compilation processes that span a time period from the year 1300 up to the middle of the fifteenth century. The monograph examines the bible translations of the "Freibuger pericopes" within the context of the text and image tradition of some of the first German bible prints (plenaria) in connection with the German-language literature of the city of Freiburg. The work thus presents an important contribution to the literary history of liturgy, as well as to the history of devoutness and cultural history.

The articles in this volume take their bearings from an approach to historical communication theory based on linguistics and literary studies. They examine communicative aspects of medieval literature in the following fields: texts as a dialogic medium (author-audience, text-user), dialogic speech (dialogue proper), conversational conventions in dialogue (address, politeness, language regulation) or monologue as dialogue, "dialogue" between texts (intertextuality, e.g. adoption of linguistic patterns, motifs, formulaic expressions, scene types, etc.), and dialogic principles effective in the transmission of texts (mobility of texts, image and text).

This volume is the fruit of a symposium held in Roscrea (Ireland) in 1994 and concentrates on literature in praise of the Virgin Mary, chronicles, manuscripts, illustration and editing procedures. Also dealt with are Yiddish Bible translations, religious plays and various literary forms of veneration of the saints. The authors referred to range from famous names such as Mechthild von Magdeburg, Der Stricker and Priester Wernher to less familiar figures like Wilhelm MA1/4nchner (cleric in Engelmairszell near Pfaffenhausen on the Ilm). The collection also includes an edition of the text "Von der seligen Schererin" (early 15th century), which relates the visions and aural visitations experienced by a married woman in her normal family surroundings.

Paradisus anime intelligentis is the Latin name of one of the most important late medieval collections of German sermons, about half of which comprises sermons by Meister Eckhart. The studies deal with the theological programme of the sermons, the manuscripts, their transmission and processing, together with selected individual texts. The volume is completed by a study of a contiguous collection, the KAlner Klosterpredigten [Cologne Monastic Sermons].