Gold, Julia
Congratulations on passing the colloquium
on 4 March 2014.
Dissertation topic:
"`Von den vnholden oder hexen` des Ulrich Molitoris - Untersuchungen zu Text und Kontext eines humanistischen Hexereitraktats. With an impression of the German first edition (1489)."
Scholarship: "Würzburg-Stipendium" of the Graduate School for the Humanities (1 June 2008 - 30 November 2011).
Contact address at the University of Würzburg:
Chair of German Philology
Ältere Abteilung
Am Hubland
97074 Würzburg
First supervisor: Prof. Dr Dorothea Klein
Second supervisors:
Prof. Dr Volker Honemann (University of Münster)
Class in the Graduate School: Middle Ages and Renaissance
Doctorate in the Graduate School since SS 2008.
Abstract:
My dissertation project deals with the early New High German witch treatise "Von den vnholden oder hexen", which was written in 1489 by the Constance jurist Ulrich Molitoris for his sovereign Duke Siegmund of Tyrol.
In addition, the Latin-language text entitled "De laniis [lamiis] et phitonicis mulieribus", which was written at almost the same time, will also be compared. Methodologically, the work is based on a socio-historical approach to literature. The embedding in the socio-historical context of the treatise includes the question of the historical persons, namely the sovereign Duke Siegmund of Tyrol, the mayor of Constance Konrad Schatz, the chancellor Konrad Stürtzel and Ulrich Molitoris in his function as a lawyer, as well as the author Molitoris and the witch trials before the treatise was written, to which he refers. Based on these considerations, the second step of my dissertation centres on the precise analysis of the text (content, line of argument, characters, etc.). The explicit statements made in the text will be analysed and questioned as to their general validity regarding the period. The sources used by Molitoris are to be analysed in a third step; they are just as relevant for understanding the text as the author's working method, which is expressed in the form of the treatise in the form of a polylogue. In a fourth step, the image-text relationship within the treatise is analysed. In addition, the rich and long-lasting reception will be analysed; here the causes of this success will be investigated.
The dissertation will conclude with an evaluation of the results and the associated question of how Molitoris' treatise should be evaluated in the context of contemporary witchcraft literature (paradigmatically, the "Malleus maleficarum"). The author's deliberately emphasised rational approach to the topic while simultaneously assuming a collective of "evil women" is the focus of my consideration. It would then also be possible to draw conclusions about the characteristics of specialised literature on the threshold between the late Middle Ages and the early modern period.
