The correspondence of B and H. Pez OSB (1709 - 1715)

The project aims at the critical edition of the letters from and to Bernhard and Hieronymus Pez OSB between 1709 and 1715. These two brothers were monks in the Benedictine monastery of Melk in Lower Austria and worked on the critical edition of medieval texts on ecclesiastical and Benedictine history as well as on the history of the Austrian territories. These editions, which partly are still in use today, were based on years of research in various libraries and archives in Austria and Southern Germany. In order to obtain information on manuscripts in all parts of Europe, the two brothers started a correspondance with scholars (partly from their own order) in Austria and Southern Germany as well as in France and Italy, but also in the protestant part of Germany. This correspondance does not only offer an insight into the methodology and the self-image of the historical-antiquarian sciences around 1710, but it also provides a lot of information on the erudite network of the Res publica litteraria and the distribution of medieval manuscripts in 18th -century Europe. These details are of considerable interest to medieval studies and codicology. The edition of the Pez-correspondance will take these aspects into account by focussing the commentary (persons, texts and monuments) mainly on 18th -century prints and unpublished material in the literary bequests of the various correspondents (book catalogues, copies and extracts, quite frequently, of lost sources). Moreover, additional studies will deal with firstly, the tensions between monastery, erudite community and court, to which the brothers found themselves exposed, secondly, the different medieval reference fields of the Pez` editions and the formation of identities and canons connected with the process of editing; and finally with remarks in the scholars` letters revealing their vision of their own "craft", its sense and its implicit and explicit rules.

The project aims at the critical edition of the letters from and to Bernhard and Hieronymus Pez OSB between 1709 and 1715. These two brothers were monks in the Benedictine monastery of Melk in Lower Austria and worked on the critical edition of medieval texts on ecclesiastical and Benedictine history as well as on the history of the Austrian territories. These editions, which partly are still in use today, were based on years of research in various libraries and archives in Austria and Southern Germany. In order to obtain information on manuscripts in all parts of Europe, the two brothers started a correspondance with scholars (partly from their own order) in Austria and Southern Germany as well as in France and Italy, but also in the protestant part of Germany. This correspondance does not only offer an insight into the methodology and the self-image of the historical-antiquarian sciences around 1710, but it also provides a lot of information on the erudite network of the Res publica litteraria and the distribution of medieval manuscripts in 18th -century Europe. These details are of considerable interest to medieval studies and codicology. The edition of the Pez- correspondance will take these aspects into account by focussing the commentary (persons, texts and monuments) mainly on 18th -century prints and unpublished material in the literary bequests of the various correspondents (book catalogues, copies and extracts, quite frequently, of lost sources). Moreover, additional studies will deal with firstly, the tensions between monastery, erudite community and court, to which the brothers found themselves exposed, secondly, the different medieval reference fields of the Pez` editions and the formation of identities and canons connected with the process of editing; and finally with remarks in the scholars` letters revealing their vision of their own "craft", its sense and its implicit and explicit rules.