Research on the Latin natural history encyclopedias, which were compiled in Europe from the High Middle Ages onward, has gained momentum. Numerous studies, to which the research on Bartholomaeus Anglicus from this research center has made a significant contribution, have shown that the encyclopedic movement of natural history, as well as physico-theological knowledge, initiated shortly after 1210 by the reception of Aristotle's writings, not only reached wide circles and gave rise to a flood of different redactions and, in some cases, individual revisions, but also shaped and reshaped Latin and later vernacular sermons. However, a history of the impact of these encyclopedic repositories of knowledge has so far only been possible in its initial stages. That the later edition III[b] of Thomas of Cantimpré's 'Liber de natura rerum' was of great importance for the natural history knowledge of the High and Late Middle Ages is beyond question. But the fame of a still very widespread tradition and a translation into German by Konrad von Megenberg between 1348 and 1350 was not reaped by Thomas of Cantimpré himself, but by a compiler who had already taken possession of his book shortly after 1241, but whose identity was still unknown. - [Author]

Language: German