Phillip Landgrebe M.A.

• 2014-2017: bachelor’s degree in history with minor in sociology at the University of Kassel
• 2016-2017: tutor in the Department of Sociological Theory, University of Kassel
• 2016-2020: student assistant and tutor in the Department of Medieval History, University of Kassel
• 2017: internship at the Deutsches Historisches Institut Rom
• 2017-2020: master’s degree in “Geschichte und Öffentlichkeit” (History and the Public Sphere) at the University of Kassel
• 2018-2019: semester abroad at the Università degli Studi di Firenze
• 2020-2024: research associate in the Department of Medieval History, University of Kassel
• April 2023 – present: research associate in the DFG project “Burchard’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae. Edition and Historical Reception”, until 12/2025 at the University of Kassel and since 01/2026 at the Technical University of Darmstadt

• Manuscript studies
• Late medieval travel literature
• Church and monastic history
• Pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the late Middle Ages

Practices of reception. Burchard of Monte Sion's Descriptio terre sancte in the 14th to 15th centuries

The doctoral project examines the manuscript tradition of the Descriptio terre sancte by Burchard of Monte Sion. With over 100 manuscripts still extant today, mostly from the 14th and 15th centuries, the Descriptio was one of the most frequently read accounts of the Holy Land in the late Middle Ages. At the same time, the work is a milestone in the development of medieval travelogues, as Burchard not only incorporated the holy sites into his narration of the Other, but also compared his diverse textual sources with personal observations. According to recent research, the Descriptio, which is traditionally divided into a long and a short version, can also be subdivided into different families within these versions, which were also repeatedly mixed during the transmission process.

The focus of the study is on individual copies of the tradition as evidence of their production and editing contexts. Between 1300 and 1500, the Descriptio underwent not a transformation, but rather a variety of processes of change, which adapted the content, layout and material of the text carriers, as well as their usability, to the needs of new recipients. Burchard’s work thus bears witness to how various scribes and users made the popular text their own and constantly transformed it on both small and large scales. The doctoral project explores how the work was used, what the intentions were, and why it underwent such enormous changes.

Editorship

• Ingrid Baumgärtner, Mapping Narrations – Narrating Maps. Concepts of the World in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, ed. by Daniel Gneckow, Anna Hollenbach and Phillip Landgrebe (Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture 34), Berlin/Boston 2022.

Essays

• Arabische Muslim_innen und der Nationalsozialismus und die Bestände des International Tracing Service (IST). Published in Lernen aus der Geschichte on 31 July 2017.
• Der Reisebericht Dietrichs von Schachten (opens in new tab), in: ZHG 123 (2018), pp. 177–198.
• Die neun Helden in der Konstanzer Konzilschronik, Tl. 1-3. Published in Heraldica Nova from 13 January to 7 February 2022.

Reviews

• Hieronymus Münzer, Itinerarium, ed. by Klaus Herbers (Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Reiseberichte des Mittelalters 1), Wiesbaden 2020, in: Francia Recensio 3 (2022).
• To Jerusalem and Beyond. Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Latin Travel Literature, c.1200–1500, ed. by Martin Bauer, Philip Booth u. Susanna Fischer (Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung. Beihefte 19), Heidelberg 2023, in: Das Mittelalter 29, 2 (2024).

Conference and Summer School Reports

• 4. Italientag der Universität Kassel (Geschmackssachen: Essen und Politik in Italien). Published in H-Soz-Kult on 11 June 2018.
• 318. Hessisch / Mittelrheinisches Kolloquium des Konstanzer Arbeitskreises für mittelalterliche Geschichte. Published in H-Soz-Kult on 14 September 2021.
• Workshop “Neue Ansätze der digitalen Quellenerschließung”. Published in H-Soz-Kult on 18 July 2024.
• Together with Antony R. Henk, Michele Marchioni, Melanie Noack und Karen Schneider: Review: 9. Alfried Krupp-Sommerkurs für Handschriftenkultur an der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig. Published in Mittelalter – Interdisziplinäre Forschung und Rezeptionsgeschichte on 27 November 2024.
• Binding It All Together – A Review of the 2025 Summer School in Digital Palaeography. Published in Wissenschaftsblog Digital Palaeography on 15 September 2025.

• Die Flucht vom Festland auf die Inseln und die urbanistische Erschließung der Inseln und Sümpfe; Über die Flucht: Geschichte und Ästhetik eines Traum(a)s am Beispiel Venedigs, study course, German Study Center in Venice, 23 Sept. 2019.
• Cultural Techniques in the Descriptio’s Reception; Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terrae Sanctae. Toward a Critical Edition and Beyond, Minerva–Gentner Symposium, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, 28 Nov. 2022.
• Excerpts of Burchard’s Descriptio; workshop of the DFG project Burchard's Descriptio Terrae Sanctae: Edition and Historical Reception, University of Kassel, 12 July 2023.
• Die zwischen 1939 und 1945 ins Wolfhager Land verschleppten Zwangsarbeiter. Namen und Schicksale nicht in Vergessenheit geraten lassen; inauguration of a memorial site at Wolfhagen Cemetery, Arbeitskreis NS Zwangsarbeit und Friedhof Wolfhagen, 16 July 2023.
• Von Handschrift zu Handschrift. Zur Descriptio terrae sanctae des Burchard vom Berg Sion im späten Mittelalter; Europa entangled 400–1600, research colloquium, University of Frankfurt, 4 Feb. 2025.
• Name und Autorität. Zuschreibungsprozesse in der Rezeption der Descriptio terrae sanctae des Burchard vom Berg Sion; 20. Symposium des Mediävistenverbands e. V., University of Salzburg, 26 Feb. 2025.
• Annotationen und Textproduktion im Wolfenbütteler Cod. Guelf. 354 Helmst.; Annotationen als Forschungsfeld. Praktiken – Materialität – Kontexte, workshop, University of Kassel, 23 July 2025.
• Excerpting and Ordering Geographical Knowledge: Dietrich Engelhus’ Collection in Ms XIII 859; Stratigraphies of Knowledge, Memory, and the Self: Notebooks in the Medieval Euro-Mediterranean World, conference, Historical College Munich, 12 Dec. 2025