Susanne Ehrich: Die ,Apokalypse‘ Heinrichs von Hesler in Text und Bild. Traditionen und Themen volkssprachlicher Bibeldichtung und ihre Rezeption im Deutschen Orden

• Jeffrey F. Hamburger

At the heart of this conscientious, if limited, study lies the makings of a substantial article. Whether the material, which stems from a dissertation (University of Regensburg, 2008) suffices for a book is largely a matter of academic convention and publishing protocols. As all too often, a great deal of space is devoted primarily to the ‘Stand der Forschung,’ of which, in this case, there is great deal of relatively recent vintage: not only Volker Honemann’s commentary accompanying the microfiche facsimile of the two illuminated copies of the work in Toruí, which until the early 1990’s were believed to have been lost in WWII, but also Sabine Jagodzinski’s monograph on all three illuminated manuscript (Stuttgart, 2009). Ehrich offers some fresh insights without, however, achieving the broader purview that an ostensibly interdisciplinary study of this type requires if it is to achieve its larger goal, namely, of reconsidering the different ways in which the Apocalypse was received and reworked in both texts and images addressed to largely lay audiences over the course of the fourteenth century.