Manon Marlene Koch M.A.

September 2025 – present: scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship Foundation)

May 2025 – present: PhD candidate in medieval history at the University of Kassel (supervisor: Prof. Dr. Ingrid Baumgärtner)

2024 – 2025: exposé scholarship, University of Kassel

2024: intern at the German Historical Museum (DHM), Berlin

2022 – 2024: master’s program “Geschichte und Öffentlichkeit”, University of Kassel, master’s thesis: “Am Rand. Marginalien in der Descriptio Terrae Sanctae von Burchard vom Berg Sion”

2022 and 2023: project assistant at the Stadtmuseum Kassel, (for four months in each case)

2022: intern at the Stadtmuseum Kassel

2020 – 2024: student assistant and tutor at the Department of Medieval History, University of Kassel

2019 – 2022: bachelor’s program in “History and German Studies”, University of Kassel, bachelor’s thesis: “Ein aggressives und brutales Islambild? Die Gestaltung der Initialen in Biblianders Koranausgaben von 1543 und 1550”

2019 – 2021: research assistant to Manuela Strube (SPD), member of the Hessian State Parliament, Kassel

2016 – 2019: bachelor’s program “Teacher training for special education”, University of Cologne, bachelor’s thesis: “Mentoring für Geschwister von Kindern mit Autismus-Spektrum-Störung”

2014 – 2016: bachelor’s program “Organic Agriculture”, University of Kassel

Traces of Reception in the Margin. On the Manuscript Transmission of Burchard of Mount Sion’s Descriptio Terre Sancte (Working Title)

The Holy Land can be regarded as a central point of reference for Christian–Latin thought and action. In particular, the Descriptio Terre Sancte, written by Burchard of Mount Sion in the 1280s, shaped conceptions of the region’s geography, topography, and ethnography well into the early modern period, as evidenced by numerous manuscripts and early printed editions. While previous studies have focused primarily on the text itself and its many variations, the extensive marginal notes have remained largely unexamined. Yet these marginalia offer unique insights into the structural and thematic engagement with the work: religious and secular readers inscribed themselves individually into the manuscripts via the margins.

The aim of this dissertation project is therefore to bring together two areas that are still insufficiently researched and to gain new insights from each in relation to the other: the widely and variably transmitted account of the Holy Land by Burchard of Mount Sion, and the marginal commentary found in late medieval Latin manuscripts.

To gain new perspectives on the work’s history and reception, the project will systematically record, categorize, and analyze the marginalia in selected manuscript witnesses. The investigation sheds light on a largely neglected type of source and helps to develop further methods of marginalia research. Moreover, the project seeks to contribute to ongoing discussions on digital editions and to enhance our understanding of the broader field of medieval travel and pilgrimage literature.

Manon Koch, Am Rand. Marginalien in Handschriften der Descriptio Terrae Sanctae, in: Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch. Internationale Zeitschrift für Mediävistik und Humanismusforschung 61 (2026), Vols. 1-2,

Co-Editor, Digital Self Study Course Medieval History, University of Kassel, available at: https://openmoodle.uni-kassel.de/course/index.php?categoryid=28.

Marginalien und Burchards Descriptio. Eine Annäherung: DFG-Workshop “Annotationen als Forschungsfeld”, University of Kassel, 22. July 2025.

Many Small Traces. Marginal Notes in Burchard of Mount Sion's Descriptio Terre Sancte : Ringvorlesung an der Faculty of Arts, Univerzita Karlova, Prague, 30. April 2025.

Glosses and excerpts – work in progress, together with Phillip Landgrebe: DFG-Workshop, University of Kassel, 12. July 2023. [Publication Forthcoming]