PD Dr. Lenka Jiroušková

University of Freiburg
Latin Philology

Junior Fellow
October 2013 – July 2014

E-Mail: jirouskova@mittellatein.uni-freiburg.de

Last Update: 31.08.2014

Curriculum Vitae

Lenka Jiroušková was born on January 24, 1971 in Česká Lípa (Czech Republic). After graduating from high school she was working as a teacher at the local primary school until she started her studies at Charles University in Praha in 1990 (Subject: Czech Studies/Bohemistics, from 1991 additionally Latin). Additionally, from 1993 she studied at Masaryk University, Brno (Subjects: Latin and Medieval Latin). After her state exam (1995 Latin in Brno, 1997 Bohemistics in Praha) she worked at the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic (Institute for Classical Studies) in Praha from 1998-2002.

A one-year scholarship from the Bavarian ministry of education and cultural affairs and a three-year PhD bursary from the research training group “Kulturtransfer im europäischen Mittelalter” (Cultural transfer in the European Middle Ages) at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg lead to her PhD in Medieval Latin in 2003. She stayed at Erlangen as an academic assistant and through a scholarship, while at the same time teaching at Charles University in Praha (Subject: Old Czech Literature).

Since November 2005 Jiroušková has been working as assistant professor (since 2011 as a “Akademische Rätin auf Zeit”) at the University of Freiburg, Seminar for Latin Medieval Philology. In the summer semester of 2012 she worked as deputy for the professor at the same department. At the same time, she habilitated in Medieval Latin and received venia legendi of the University of Freiburg.

Both her dissertation and her habilitation have received awards for outstanding scientific achievement (see publications).

Selected Publications

Der heilige Wikingerkönig Olav Haraldsson und sein hagiographisches Dossier: Text und Kontext der Passio Olavi (mit kritischer Edition), BRILL, Leiden/Boston [Monographie; im Druck; als Habilitationsschrift ausgezeichnet 2103 mit dem Forschungspreis der School of Language & Literature im Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)].
„Prague“, in: Regeneration: A Literary History of Europe, 1348-1418, hg. von David Wallace, Oxford University Press [Kapitel über die mehrsprachige Literatur im mittelalterlichen Böhmen in der ersten englischsprachigen Literaturgeschichte mittelalterlichen Europas; im Druck].
Středověké učení o lásce v humanistickém hávu? Andreas Capellanus, jeho traktát De amore, a rukopis pražské Národní knihovny XIV.E.29 [Mittelalterliche Liebeslehre in humanistischem Gewand? Andreas Capellanus, sein Traktat De amore und die Handschrift der Prager Nationalbibliothek XIV.E.29], in: Studie o rukopisech/Studien über Handschriften 39 (2009; erschienen 2010), S. 113-155.
Die Visio Pauli. Wege und Wandlungen einer orientalischen Apokryphe im lateinischen Mittelalter unter Einschluß der alttschechischen und deutschsprachigen Textzeugen, Brill (= Mittellateinische Studien und Texte 34), Leiden/Boston 2006 [Monographie; 2007 ausgezeichnet von der Stiftung Humanismus heute mit dem Günter-Wöhrle Preis für eine herausragende Dissertation].
Klaus Herbers, Lenka Jiroušková, Bernhard Vogel (Hg.), Mirakelberichte des frühen und hohen Mittelalters, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (= Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters, Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gedächtnisausgabe 43), Darmstadt 2005.

FRIAS Project

The Legend of the Ten Thousand Martyrs in Text and Image: A Study of its Reception in the German-Czech Late Medieval Cultural Milieu

The project examines the reception in the German-Czech cultural milieu of the popular hagiographical narrative, “The Legend of the Ten Thousand Martyrs,” and the veneration in Late Medieval Bohemia of the saints commemorated in the legend. The history of this legend, which is attested in textual and iconographic renderings, reveals the dynamic cultural contacts between the German and Czech communities in late medieval period. Based on the premise that the cult of the Ten Thousand Martyrs was transmitted to Bohemia from German-speaking areas (Bavaria and Austria), the Old Czech and Latin manuscript versions of Bohemian provenance are examined vis-à-vis the German versions of the legend. Textual study of the narrative is complemented by an analysis of the iconographic representations of the saints in manuscript illuminations and, especially, in mural paintings found in Bohemian churches, monasteries and castles. Furthermore, textual and iconographic accounts of the legend are contextualized in the history of the political, religious and cultural contacts between the German and Bohemian milieus. The work will be published as a monograph that will also feature the first critical edition of the Latin and Old Czech versions, as well as images of all known iconographic representations, of the legend in Bohemia.