Research results

I made a new little discovery today. If you don’t care about my work and research, you can stop reading here.

It’s pretty obvious that my thesis is not going to revolutionize the world. But I’m not even sure it is those great discoveries that I want. Most times it is the little, personal things that are exciting. So, here we go, the discovery of the week:

In the medieval manuscripts I’m working with there are a few calendars (lists of names of saints and church feasts, guiding the reader to how and when to celebrate them). One of the calendars, in a manuscript now in Berlin, has at a later stage been used as a diary – a later owner has written in on which days other nuns passed away. There are not many names added, only five or so, but it is still quite exciting (although old news). Well, mostly it’s not the whole names written out but only the initials. An older researcher (back in 1914, when someone last looked at this stuff), interpreted the initials K O to be the sister Kristina Olofsdotter. In the monastery’s memorial book her death is recorded in September 1526. The date in the manuscript is however July 1625 (so 100 years and a few months off). This old scholar argued that this was a mistake by the scribe, and that it should say 1526 (he does not, however, try and explain the change from July to September.)

Well, it sounded a bit too far fetched to me. Mainly because the name Kristina was always spelt with a C. The name Katarina however, was always written with a K. Thus, the sister whose initials were inserted in the manuscript must have been called Katarina, not Christina. So, a brief check of the number of sisters who were called Katarina O, reveals that there were only two of them. One of them was the last abbess, elected in 1594. The monastery was closed by the king a year later (this is after all well after the reformation), and in 1596 she left together with four other sisters for the birgittine daughter-abbey in Danzig. A little bit of research showed that a necrology (‘list of dead’) from the Danzig abbey still exists. In the necrology a Katarina Olofsdotter is said to have died in Danzig in July of 1626!!! My date and year! So, it was not a mistake by the scribe – Katarina died in 1626. One of the five (!) last nuns of Vadstena must have brought this manuscript with them when they went abroad, no longer wanted in a country that had turned its back on Catholicism. And when their last abbess died in 1626, her death was recorded in the calendar so that she would be remembered by future generations. All of a sudden everything became very close and personal. Here I was, working on a manuscript that must really have meant something to these people. I love my research!

1 comment:

Elise said...

How cool is that?! And why is my material not that rewarding?