This workshop focusses on the practices and settings of knowledge production and transmission within various cultural and linguistic traditions of the medieval world. By examining a wide range of texts and manuscripts from different periods and regions of medieval Eurasia, the workshop aims to shed new light on how knowledge of various kinds (historical, legal, theological, philosophical, technical) was acquired, disseminated, preserved, and re-interpreted in medieval cultures. 

Thematic emphases include, but are not limited to: a) the materiality of surviving manuscripts; b) the compilation strategies, the rise of new emphases, and the sociocultural relevance of text collections; c) the paratextual elements and marginal additions in the manuscripts as evidence of the creative interaction of medieval scholars with the received tradition; d) the institutional framework in which knowledge was preserved and organised (scriptoria, libraries, schools, institutions of higher learning); e) and the teaching methods employed, ranging from didactic poetry to extensive prose commentaries. 

The workshop aims to facilitate discussions and exchange between the invited speakers and the participants in the LAB on relevant methodologies and theoretical frameworks, and to enrich the ideas and research questions driving our work.
 

Program

Subject to Change

Friday, 24 April 2026

09:30 – 10:00 Welcoming Address | Claudia Rapp
Opening Remarks | Cinzia Grifoni, Maria-Lucia Goiana

10:00 – 11:00 Session 1 | Chair: Adrian Pirtea
Philip Forness, Shaping and Organizing Knowledge Through the Formation of Homiliaries from Greek to Syriac to Arabic

11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break

11:30 – 12:30 Session 2 | Chair: Till Stüber
Johanna Jebe, Monastic Knowledge and Knowledge about Monasticism: History-of-Knowledge Perspectives on Religious Change in the Carolingian World

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 14:30 Session 3 | Chair: Francesca Fiaschetti
Pascale Hugon, On the Shoulders of Buddhas: Negotiating Authority and Creativity in the Medieval Tibetan Buddhist Tradition of Learning

14:30 – 15:00 Coffee break

15:00 – 16:00 Session 4 | Chair: Andreas Rhoby
Floris Bernard, Floating Among the Stars: Didactic Poetry on the Astral Sciences in Byzantium

16:00 – 16:30 Concluding Remarks | Nikos Zagklas
Discussion

19:00: Dinner for Invited Guests

Abstracts

Participants

Floris Bernard | Ghent University
Francesca Fiaschetti | ÖAW
Philip Forness | KU Leuven
Maria-Lucia Goiana | ÖAW
Cinzia Grifoni | ÖAW / Universität Wien
Pascale Hugon | ÖAW
Johanna Jebe | Universität Tübingen
Edit Anna Lukács | ÖAW
Adrian Pirtea | ÖAW
Claudia Rapp | ÖAW / Universität Wien
Andreas Rhoby | ÖAW
Till Stüber | ÖAW
Nikos Zagklas | ÖAW/ Universität Wien
& the members of the IMAFO Lab “Shaping Knowledge in the Middle Ages. Texts, Manuscripts, Contexts“

The workshop is organized within the framework of the Lab “Shaping Knowledge in the Middle Ages: Texts, Manuscripts, Contexts“, with financial support provided by the Institute of Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.