This project is investigating the reception of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem (70 A.D.) in medieval Latin texts between c.600 and c.1200. Since this event appears in thousands of texts, and deploying it was often an exercise in recycling earlier texts, an essential part of this project consists in setting up an open-access database, which catalogues all the occurrences of the event that I can find. Each passage in which the conquest appears gets thus an own entry in the database, an entry that is filled with various types of information, such as basic data on author and work, or information on the manuscripts, or the full text passage (at least a paragraph, sometimes more). The extensive surveys straddle primarily harvesting the full text databases such as the Patrologia Latina, but this is complemented by further sources, including extensive work with manuscripts materials, and here especially unpublished sermon collections and biblical commentaries. The manuscript surveys cover several important libraries throughout Europe, and benefit very much from the fact that an increasing number of manuscripts is available in digitized form. The database counts at the moment roughly 1000 entries, including c.200 that derive from manuscripts; and I surmise that there will be eventually at least 2000 entries. This endeavor thus catalogues where, when, and how the Roman conquest appears in Latin texts between c.600 and c.1200 (and partly beyond this timeframe, notably the Church Fathers, since this material is available in the full text databases). For two reasons, the database will be a promising resource, not only for my own purposes, but also for other scholars:

(1) Cataloguing so many texts, including the dimension of who copied from whom, will create a large textual archaeology of the Middle Ages; it becomes, therefore, possible to investigate textual traditions and networks in a much more methodologically sound way.

(2) The Roman conquest is a vector for broaching many pertinent dimensions of medieval scholarship, such as apocalyptic beliefs or anti-Jewish sentiments; this database can thus serve as a rich resource for shedding new light on these broader subjects.

Link

https://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/forschung/historische-identitaetsforschung/projekte/weitere-projekte/conquest-of-jerusalem