This autumn and winter, the MGH are again proud to invite you to our evening lectures, this time exclusively in online format. In the series „Zurück zu den Quellen“ we have two new lectures, one dedicated to Johannes Trithemius and his Cathalogus illustrium virorum, and the other to unorthodox and forbidden texts in the Early Middle Ages. On the occasion of the completion of the edition of the Constitutiones of Emperor Ludwig IV, we will take stock of the emperor’s constitutional importance. In the series „Vorträge zur Geschichte der Mittelalterforschung“, three lectures focus on the biographies and contemporary context of three persons of the recent past who were connected with the MGH. (For information on how to register for the lectures, please read the instructions at the end of this page).
Thursday, 30.10.2025, 6 p.m.: Die Biogramme des Trithemius im Reich Maximilians I. – von der monastischen Reform zur humanistischen Nationalisierung (Trithemius‘ biograms in the German Empire under Maximilian I – from monastic reform to humanist nationalisation)
Online Lecture (Zoom) by Prof. Dr Arno Mentzel-Reuters
In late-15th-century Heidelberg under the chancellor and later bishop Johann von Dalberg (1455-1503), a scholarly circle formed itself merging Italian Humanism with monastic reform movements (Carmelites, Bursfeld union). The common point of reference for this circle was the theory of the „immaculate conception“, a theory opening a theological alternative to the scholastic dichotomy between via antiqua and via moderna that had been proposed by the Council of Basle and condemned by the Dominican order.
It was in this constellation of persons and ideas that Abbot Johannes Trithemius of Sponheim (1462-1516), prompted by Jakob Wimpheling, composed his Cathalogus illustrium virorum, a collection of 321 biograms presenting a panorama of German scholarly achievement going back to the Early Middle Ages. Trithemius‘ work inspired the vision of „Germania“ as an ecclesiastic and worldly excellent intellectual republic situated along the axes Utrecht-Basel and Cambrai-Erfurt. This utopia had a short-lived flowering under Emperor Maximilian I, but was soon side-lined by the beginning of the Reformation.
Arno Mentzel-Reuters is the head of the MGH archive and war for the last 25 years director of the MGH library. He taught the subject German Language and Literature of the Middle Ages at the University of Augsburg. His publications cover a range of subjects focusing on the reception of the Middle Ages in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Teutonic Order, Humanism and Reformation, and book culture in the industrial age.
Thursday, 27.11.2025, 6 p.m.: Abschluss der Constitutiones-Edition Kaiser Ludwigs IV. (1314-1347) (On the conclusion of the edition of the Constitutiones of Emperor Ludwig IV (1314-1347)
Online Lecture (Zoom) by Prof. Dr Michael Menzel
With the publication of volume 7,3 the edition of the Constitutiones of Ludwig IV, the Bavarian (Const. 5-7, 1314-1347) is now complete. The end of the Constitutiones series (911-1378) itself is now also drawing near – only the volumes for Emperor Charles IV remain to be published. At this stage, it is opportune to take stock of the edition of the charters of Ludwig IV, since it now allows us to properly judge the constitutional importance of this emperor, an undertaking that previously seemed impossible for reasons of the incompleteness of the source material. Ludwig was the last king in a series beginning with Rudolf von Habsburg that constituted the brief epoch (1273-1347) of the flowering of the late-medieval elective monarchy. Ludwig saw the election by the princely electorate as the decisive factor in the legitimation of kingship and imperial rule and consequently excluded any papal influence in the matter. At his coronation, liturgical aspects were relegated to an accompanying but not fundamental role. With Charles IV, the short age of electoral monarchy in its proper sense came to an end.
Michael Menzel had an Academy professorship for Medieval History and Landesgeschichte (regional history) at the Humboldt University of Berlin from 2003 to 2022 and was director of the Berlin research post of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. He has been a member of the MGH central board of directors since 2012. In recognition of his achievements as director of the Berlin research post and for his editions in the MGH series Constitutiones, Michael Menzel was awarded the MGH Freiherr vom Stein Medal in 2022.
Thursday 11.12.2025, 6 p.m.: „Das bischen Bürokratie“. Lotte Hüttebräuker (1901–1945) – Mediävistin, Direktionsassistentin, Nationalsozialistin („That little bit of bureaucracy“ Lotte Hüttebräuker (1901-1945) medieval scholar, assistant director and Nazi)
Online Lecture (Zoom) by Prof. Dr Claudia Märtl
Lotte Hüttebräuker was the first woman to have a tenured position at the MGH. Entrusted with the edition of the Constitutiones of Emperor Charles IV and organisational responsibilities, she was closely associated with the Monumenta for around a decade (1926-1936). In modern studies on the history of scholarship, her name is mostly mentioned in terms of her affinity to National Socialism. There are few sources to reconstruct her biography, which is probably partly due to her suicide in Berlin in 1945.
The lecture reports on the search for traces to form a fuller picture of the activities and achievements of Lotte Hüttebräuker for the MGH. The results offer interesting insights into the career perspectives of female scholars and the living conditions of people working for the MGH in the Weimar Republic. In conclusion, it will be necessary to re-examine the statements about Hüttebräuker’s political stance and put them into context.
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Claudia Märtl was professor for Medieval History at the Technische Universität Braunschweig from 1995 to 2001; from 2001 to 2020 she held the professorship for Medieval History with a focus on the Late Middle Ages at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität of Munich and was from 2012 to 2014 the commissarial president of the MGH. Her focus of study lies on Latin medieval transmission and the history of the 15th century.
Donnerstag, 29.1.2026, 18 Uhr: Purifying Texts in the Early Medieval West
Online Lecture (Zoom) by Prof. Yitzhak Hen, Ph.D. (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, a vast corpus of potentially dangerous texts was dismissed as unorthodox and unauthorised by Christian scholars and policy makers. These texts exposed their readers to unorthodox systems of thought and belief, and hence should have been eradicated. And yet, although these texts and the world-view they represented were repeatedly questioned, denounced and condemned, they were still read, copied and commented upon by a select group of Christian scholars, who clearly realised the implications of what they were doing. Given the fact that the attitude towards these texts remained negative and reproachful, their preservation and use seem even more intriguing. Yitzhak Hen explores some of the mechanism that allowed the preservation, copying, and reading of such texts in the late-antique and the early medieval West.
Prof. Yitzhak Hen is director of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 2028. In March 2025, the MGH central board of directors elected him as a corresponding member. Yitzhak Hen‘s research focuses on the Early Middle Ages, particularly on the Merovingian and Carolingian Ages. His publications include palaeographic studies, a Hebrew translation of Einhard’s Vita Karoli Magni, and studies on Gregory of Tours and early medieval liturgy. For the MGH, he will be publishing a new edition of Odo of Cluny’s Vita Gregorii Turonensis.
Thursday 12.02.2026, 6 p.m.: Zwischen Ahnenerbe und Misogynie. Der Lebensweg von Maria Neumann (1920–1989) bei den MGH und darüber hinaus (Between Ahnenerbe and Misogyny. The life of Maria Neumann (1920-1989) at the MGH and thereafter)
Online Lecture (Zoom) by Jeremias Fonari, M. A.
As part of the re-evaluation of the history of the MGH, Jeremias Fonari examines the career of the former MGH scholar Maria Neumann (1920-1989). Beginning under MGH president Theodor Mayer with a work engagement for the SS-Ahnenerbe (the SS organisation dedicated to pseudo-scientific research of the past to substantiate Nazi racial theories), she worked at the Monumenta after the war for a short period before being forced into teaching. The lecture reconstructs her hitherto neglected biography and points out connections between the MGH and the Nazi regime, while also revealing the misogyny prevalent at the work place in the post-war years.
Jeremias Fonari is a Ph.D. student in Historische Grundwissenschaften and has worked for the MGH since 2022 in the areas of archive and digitisation. He is writing his Ph.D. thesis on the first coin collectors north of the Alps.
Thursday 19.03.2026, 6 p.m.: „Um Ihren Besuch in Paris beneiden wir Sie sehr …“ – Bernhard Bischoff (1906–1991) in Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit und seine Kontakte in die internationale Gelehrtenwelt („We are very envious of your visit to Paris ...“ Bernhard Bischoff (1906-1991) in the war and post-war years and his contacts to the international scholarly community)
Online Lecture (Zoom) by Jasmin Dorfer, M. A., M. A. LIS
Bernhard Bischoff (1906-1991) is considered to this day as one of the greatest manuscript researchers of the 20th century. Bischoff, who completed his Ph.D. in Munich in 1933, was in contrast to most other German scholars one of the few who were able to quickly gain recognition in international academic circles. His international connections seem to have been largely untouched by the shadow of National Socialism. The question is, whether this was due to the fact that Bischoff behaved faultlessly under the Nazi regime or rather if it was due to the international networks that he had cultivated before the war began and carried him through after the war. Another point in question is whether and to what extent the MGH in the person of Friedrich Baethgen attempted to use Bischoff‘s international credit to the benefit of the Monumenta.
Jasmin Dorfer is a Ph.D. student in medieval history and has worked for the MGH since 2020. She is writing her Ph.D. thesis on early-Hohenstaufen letters and letter collections. Since 2024, she is the head librarian of the MGH library.
To register for the online lectures, please email annette.marquard-mois@mgh.de. You will receive the log-in data one day prior the event.