Edition of the Medulla Gestorum Treverensium

1512 marked a significant year for the city of Trier. At the dawn of the reformation, worshippers for the first time held a pilgrimage to the Trier Cathedral and the Holy Tunic and for one time only a Reichstag was held in the city. Auxiliary Bishop and rector of the Old University of Trier, Johann Enen (ca. 1480-1519) took these historical events as an occasion to compose his Medulla Gestorum Treverensium, a magnum opus now to be digitally edited and indexed at the TCDH.

The Medulla, first published in 1514, is for many reasons particularly interesting for scholars of history. In it, Enen features the founding legend of the city as well as the chronicle of the archdiocese of Trier. His magnum opus hence is one of the first prints of the city history of Trier and constitutes an outstanding source for research within the fields of the history of the state, diocese, and piety. Most importantly, it includes an index of the most significant churches, cloisters, and relics in Trier, making the Medulla part of the genre of 'Heiltumsdrucke', prints focusing on church relics. This genre with its heyday in an era of late medieval and early modern veneration of relics and increasing numbers of pilgrimages has so far not been taken into sufficient scholarly account, neither historically nor philologically.

Within the project "Digital Edition and Indexation of the Medulla Gestorum Treverensium by Johann Enen (1514): The first Module of the Portal of Rhenish Heiltumsdrucke", the TCDH aims to focus not only on Enen’s work. An additional edition of a further smaller tract on relics shall mark the foundation for an extensive, freely accessible website dedicated to the history of Rhenish pilgrimages and their printed instruments.

The project is realised in cooperation with the Trier City Library, Prof Dr Michael Embach (Faculty II; University of Trier), Prof Dr Wolfgang Schmid (Faculty III, University of Trier), the library of the Bischöfliches Priesterseminar Trier as well as the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München; it is supported by the Nikolaus Koch Foundation.