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Find of the month

An S-initial of St Sebastian from the 12th century

In a parchment manuscript written in Weingarten Abbey in the first third of the 12th century and later brought to Fulda, there is a pen and ink drawing of St Sebastian (fol. 155r) to decorate an S initial. Sebastian is depicted at the time as a bearded soldier with two arrows of his martyrdom in his left hand. His status as a saint is symbolised by the palm branch in his right hand and the punched nimbus around his head. The designation of the codex as a lectionary(Lectionarium officii) means that texts were included in it for the readings of the service according to the feast days of the church year.

As St Sebastian's feast day falls on 20 January, his life story was recorded for this month. The heading "In natale sancti Sebastiani" is followed by the beginning of the text: "Sebastianus vir christianissimus Mediolanensium eruditus civis vero Narbonensis oriundus Diocletiano et Maximiano imperatoribus ita carus erat ut principatum ei primae cohortis traderent et fuis eum aspectibus iuberent semper astare". Loosely translated, this means: Sebastianus, a deeply religious man and learned citizen from Milan and Narbonne respectively, was so dear to the emperors Diocletian and Maximian that they gave him command of the first cohort and ordered him to always be present at their meetings.

Sebastianus was therefore a Roman soldier and bodyguard to the two emperors. After professing Christianity and helping other Christians, he was sentenced to death by the pagan emperors, with the sentence to be carried out by archers. Sebastianus survived this ordeal, was nursed back to health and professed Christianity again before Diocletian. The emperor then ordered him to be beaten to death with clubs. His body was later thrown into the main sewer(Cloaca Maxima) and buried in the oldest Christian catacomb on the Via Appia. The church of San Sebastiano fuori le mura, one of the seven pilgrim churches that were to be visited by all Roman pilgrims from the Middle Ages onwards, was built over his grave.

The entire manuscripts can be viewed on the "FulDig" digitisation portal. Further information on the manuscript can also be found in the catalogue of theological manuscripts in the HLSB, which is also available on "FulDig".

Research-related service of the month

OPEN-ACCESS.NETWORK ENTERS ITS THIRD FUNDING PHASE

The Germany-wide open-access.network project is once again receiving support from the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space for the third funding phase from 2026 to 2028. The aim is to secure the platform in the long term and stabilise the nationwide open access infrastructure. The project partners - including the University of Konstanz's Communication, Information and Media Centre, the Hanover Technical Information Library, the SUB Göttingen, the Helmholtz Open Science Office and the Open Research Office Berlin - are contributing their expertise to further advance the open access transformation.
Thanks to the funding, existing services and tools can be further developed, the community strengthened and the integration of open access into academic practice secured on a sustainable basis.
In short: researchers at our university benefit from a reliable, long-term open access infrastructure - centrally bundled here.