Materiality: Magically Effective Script-Bearing Artefacts

The network’s first colloquium will explore the issue at the heart of its research: the materiality of script-bearing sources and artefacts intended to exert an influence on reality. We will begin with insights into the earliest forms of magical writing, traverse our way through examples of Old Norse incantations and rune amulets with verbal magic, before finally exploring Middle High German literature and the function of language in interactions with artefacts, amulets, and ‘spells’.