Ritualised Practices: Signs – Formulas – Formularies

This workshop is dedicated to ritualised practices. Here, pictorial and linguistic signs, to which a transformative meaning is attributed, play a central role. The workshop will focus on the underlying principles evoked by, for example, certain formulas, prayers, recipes, and artefacts. Particular attention will be paid to pharmacological texts and manuscripts preserved in the Basel University Library, including early vernacular evidence in Old High German. These texts bear witness to knowledge transfer practices, which, at the same time, represent a linguistically ritualised performativity.