An indulgence prayer for Mary of Swords

The Thalbach Prayerbook is not a tidy manuscript. It isn’t richly illuminated, and its pages don’t draw they eye with color and beauty the way we’ve come to expect from early modern devotional books. Instead, it is a deeply personal collection: copied mostly by a single female scribe in the late sixteenth century, filled with vernacular prayers and translated services, and clearly designed to sustain the “poor sinner” (sündarin) who gathered them together. Its very roughness makes it valuable, because it gives us a glimpse into the lived devotional practices of Bregenz during the Counter-Reformation.

One of the striking texts is the prayer to Mary as the Schmertzen muter—the Mother of Sorrows (fols. 90–92). The opening strophe lingers on Simeon’s prophecy in Luke 2:25–35: “a sword will pierce your very soul.” The text imagines Mary’s dread at hearing this prediction,and repeatedly asks Mary to help the devotee share in the pain of various stages of her story of loss.

This prayer is, to my eye, particularly important because it echoes the woodcut chosen as paste-down at the very front of the volume: Mary’s heart being pierced by multiple swords, a visual shorthand for the Seven Sorrows. Its placement is also telling—it appears as a single but extended prayer between two Marian services, following the Advent offices and preceding the standard weekday prayers to the Virgin. In other words, we encounter it within a systematized framework of devotion. That element of ritual repetition is reinforced internally by its structure: every strophe ends with the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria.

From there, the prayer walks through key moments of Mary’s suffering: losing the child Jesus in the temple, seeing him bound and beaten, watching him hoisted on the cross, and cradling him in death. The language is tender and anguished, but it is also functional. The prayer-giver suggests in strophe 3, for instance, that just as Mary sorrowed over Jesus’s captivity as he was beaten, she can help “protect me from the wickedness and vice of the evil spirit” (behalt mich vor der boßhait und läster der bößen gaist). Because Mary’s sorrows mirror the devotee’s struggles, empathy itself becomes salvific – a way to transform suffering into protection against evil.

What’s especially interesting to me in this context is the prayer’s ending. The penultimate strophe focuses on the individual, asking Mary to intercede for my most earnest soul and to help in “all my pain”, but the final petitions widen out to the collective: “release us from all our afflictions.”

du behaltest mynaller ermeste sel / … yn alem mynen schmerzen... // ... von aller unser trübsäl erlöß uns

This shift from “me” to “us” happens frequently in the Thalbach collection, by my impression, in about a third of the prayers. It suggests to me a devotional rhythm where private petition blends into communal concern, aligning the voice of an individual sinner with her monastic responsibilities to the wider prayer community. She’s praying for herself, in other words, but that prayer also addresses the needs of her peersbe they fellow monastics, fellow residents of Bregenz, or, as sometimes specified, “all believing souls.”

This prayer reinforces that shift from the personal to the communal intervention, for it is capped by a Collect that places Mary firmly in her intercessory role. The collect appeals to her “eingebornen Sohn”her only-begotten Son for mercy. In this way, the swords that pierce Mary’s heart do double duty: they are emblems of her individual grief, but also reminders that suffering binds a community together. The Thalbach Prayerbook, however humble in appearance, is saturated with this kind of imagery. Mary of Sorrows emerges as both intimate companion in suffering and powerful advocate before Christ, her pierced heart a channel through which the afflictions of “me” and “us” alike might be transformed.

NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION:

I follow the idiosyncratic spellings of the source, but supply punctuation in my translations.

RESOURCES:

• Indulgence Prayer ...von dem schwert des scharffen todes dines kind criste [INC: ge[g]rütz sÿestu ain müter Jesu crist EXPL: so befiechen mir uns verschmäch nit unser gebett yn unser nottürfigkait aber von aller unser trübsäll erlöß uns du gesegnet Junckfrow maria amen.], from the Thalbach Prayerbook, Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesbibliothek Hs 17, fol. 90-92.
• For a review of another prayer from the Thalbach Prayerbook, see https://silencesandsounds.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-verbal-vocative-change-ringing.html

Among the many studies of the Seven Sorrows, see:

• Cynthia J. Cyrus, “Printed Images in a Thalbach Manuscript Prayer-book of the Sixteenth Century.” Journal of the Early Book Society 23 (2020): 173–82.

• Dagmar Eichberger, “Visualizing the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Early Woodcuts and Engravings in the Context of Netherlandish Confraternities,” in The Seven Sorrows Confraternity of Brussels: Drama, Ceremony, and Art Patronage (16th–17th Centuries), ed. Emily Thelen, Studies in European Urban History 37 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015), 113–143.

• Christiane Möller, Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen und Doen Pietersz: Studien zur Zusammenarbeit zwischen Holzschneider und Drucker im Amsterdam des frühen 16. Jahrhunderts, Niederlande-Studien 34 (New York: Waxmann Verlag, 2005).

• Carol M. Schuler, “The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Popular Culture and Cultic Imagery in Pre-Reformation Europe,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 21 (1992):5–28.

• Carol M. Schuler, “The Sword of Compassion: Images of the Sorrowing Virgin in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art,” PhD diss, Columbia University, 1987.

The Verbal Vocative: Change-Ringing Patterns of Marian Address in Der Herr ist mit dir

Imagine a prayer that goes on and on (and on and on), praising Mary in every imaginable way – her virtues, her role in salvation, her intercessory power – layered up with both Latin and the vernacular. That’s exactly what a sister of the women’s convent of Thalbach in Bregenz copied into her Prayerbook during the Counter-Reformation. This prayer isn’t merely words on a page. It's designed to be a rhythmic, repetitive, almost musical meditation intended to draw the devotee into an intimate encounter with Mary. Short vocative lines pile up while the regular Latin refrains echo repeatedly, creating a devotional experience that teaches both prayer-giver and her audience by the shaping of affect – through rhythm, phrasing, and structural repetition. What follows is a closer look at how this multi-section Marian prayer works, how it structures attention, and how it combines reflection, rhythm, and affect to bring the devotee closer to the Virgin.

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In the last third of the Thalbach Prayerbook (Bregenz VLB Hs 17), there are ten folios devoted to a single multi-section prayer to the Virgin (fol. 237–247). It’s a rosary prayer, centered on eleven (!) recitations of ten statements each of the Ave Maria, plus another dozen at the very beginning, so by the end, the devotee will have spoken 122 of them.

In between, the compiler provides “meditations” in strophes of seven to ten lines, each offering anaphoristic variants of Mary’s virtues. Strophes 1–4 establish Mary’s status and role in salvation history (Queen, Virgin, New Covenant); strophes 5–9 emphasize her participatory suffering and intercessory power, and the collect at the end pivots to a direct intercessory “ask.” Thus, like many rosary prayers, the sequence of strophes adopted here creates a pedagogical rhythm. First the devotee experiences awe, then empathy, then personal petition, with the culmination in the Collect with its request for personal salvation.

To my ear, the framing of the prayer is much like a litany, in which the call-out to each of the saints ends each and every time with an “ora pro nobis,” pray for us. But here, instead of the “pray for us,” an ask, the prayerful punctuation at the end of each line serves as a reminder to Maria of her connected status with the divine. The phrase – adopted and repeated 84 times (plus another 122 times in the refrain) – comes from the Ave Maria itself, as Gabriel reveals to her that “the Lord is with thee” (der her[r] ist mit dir):

o kaiseryn und ain künigin aler künig der her ist mit dir

o du lob aler gelobiger sohn der her ist mit dir

o du aler übertreffenlichste künigin der himel der her ist mit dir

o aler tůgenden vol der her ist mit dir...

O empress and a queen of all rulers [kunig], the Lord is with you

O you tribute of the praiseworthy son, the Lord is with you

O you exquisite queen of heaven, the Lord is with you

O you who are full of all virtues, the Lord is with you...

In that first strophe, notice that the devotee repeatedly addresses Mary with the intimate “du” form; this is a Mary seen in deeply personal terms as an intimate of the prayer-giver. Moreover, the similar beginnings and endings of lines make for an almost meditative incantation. As we see further down, the prayer consists of slight variations on a set of common themes. One or perhaps two lines per stanza might vary the form, but once a stanza establishes a pattern, the other lines tend to reinforce it. (See Table 1, below)

The effect is like change-ringing in a bell tower, where a set of fixed patterns is subtly shifted with each repetition to create movement and variation within a strict structure. Each line both mirrors and modifies the last, so that the rhythm feels familiar yet never static, drawing the devotee’s attention deeper into the text. This interplay of repetition and variation turns the prayer into a dynamic, almost musical experience, in which the voice, the mind, and the imagination are guided through the nuances of Mary’s virtues and roles.

Table 1: Marian Attributes and Repetition Patterns in Der Herr ist mit dir (Thalbach Prayerbook, fol. 237ff)

As Table 1 shows, the various strophes work their way through elements of the Virgin’s importance. First, she is important and highly placed, serving as empress, queen, intermediary (Strophe 1). She became so as a Virgin (Strophe 2). Her presence was predicted by the prophets, and can be analogized to the good things that sustain human existence – house, city, garden, fountain, fruit (Strophe 3). She is the beginning of the new covenant, as witnessed by the announcement of the Angel Gabriel (Strophe 4).

Here, the devotee is asked to pause and meditate on what that announcement of Gabriel meant. To support that contemplative moment, the vernacular translation of the Ave Maria is provided.

bis gegrußet vol genad der her ist mit dir / du bist gesegnet ob aler frowen und gesegnet ist die frucht dines lieb Jhesus cristus.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. / Blessed art thou among women, / and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ

That becomes a moment of sectional pause as well, while the devotee recites two decades of Ave Marias, ten in Latin and another ten recapitulating the vernacular version.

Then the latter part of the prayer picks up Mary’s story with her role as mother (Strophe 5) and as co-sufferer or “Mitleiden” with Christ with implications for her salvific role (Strophe 6). She is that “Veritable Virgin” who witnessed the stages of Christ’s suffering, with his flogging, thorns, and crucifixion iterated each in a single line (Strophe 7). Plus, she is the mother who had to handle her own son’s body, who attended to its anointing and then was consoled through recognition of him as arisen again (Strophe 8), Thus, she is the veritable mother of the recognized Christ, positioned through events to intercede in his judgment (Strophe 9).

Having laid out the whys of Mary’s existence – her special status as Virgin, as new covenant with God, as enduring mother who walked the road of the Passion with her son – the devotee is now prepared for the Collect.

The collect, as expected, pivots to the intercessory ask: “ that you will shield me and protect me from the pain of eternal damnation and make me to be conveyed into the eternal joy of eternal bliss.” But before that, it amps up the rhythm of repetition with fifteen very short apostrophe lines:

o du gebenedieste / o du aler süsseste / o du aler tugenhaffigiste / o du aler erwirdigiste / o du aler senffmütigeste / o d[u] aler edleste / o du aler kostbariste… junckfrow maria

o you most blessed / o you all sweet / o you all-virtuous / o you all knowledgeable / o you all gentle / o you all noblest / o you all precious… Virgin Mary.

These short vocative lines, stacked one after another, build a kind of rhythmic crescendo, until at last Mary is called upon as “the giver of God now” and at the time of judgment, hence her capacity for intercession.

ASSESSMENT:

The use of vernacular alongside the familiar Latin refrain suggests a teaching and contemplative function for the Thalbach prayer. It seems designed to help the devotee internalize not only the words but also their meaning, a practice encouraged in late medieval lay devotion. Moreover, the prayer repeatedly reveals Mary as full of enumerated virtues, unfolding them in a rhythmic sequence that combines intimacy of address with theological weight. The prayer must also have been fun to write; one can imagine dreaming up lists of closely-related concepts about Mary and then sliding them around in the structure until they fit nicely.

Structurally, the prayer resonates with rosary practice while also standing apart from it in somewhat quirky ways. The eleven recitations of ten statements resemble the praying of multiple decades, though the Thalbach version is unusually elaborate, and yields 122 invocations in total. More striking still, the prayer suddenly shifts the devotee into the vernacular for part of her Hail Marys, only to return again to the standard Latin. This bilingual pivot is not typical of the rosary prayers I’ve seen, and it hints at a distinctive local or pedagogical aim.

Similarly, the alternation between Mary’s virtues and her life events recalls the early Dominican “Psalter of the Virgin,” in which repeated Hail Marys were paired with meditative reflection on her life (Winston-Allen). Yet the Thalbach prayer differs in its form: nearly every line concludes with “the Lord is with you,” creating a cumulative effect more akin to a litany than to a conventional rosary decade. The proliferation of epithets, brief apostrophe lines that acclaim Mary in superlative terms, further intensifies its litany-like quality. We hear nearly the same thing over and over and over again.

I see this prayer as a hybrid devotional tool. To my eye, the prayer functions both as rosary AND as vernacular meditation. Its repetition works on several levels. It reinforces memory, so that the words lodge themselves in the mind. It shapes affect, drawing the devotee into contemplative intimacy with the Virgin (du...du...du). And it creates an important verbal rhythm, guiding voice and body into patterned devotion, one which speeds up like an orchestral codetta at the end.

This prayer from the Thalbach Prayerbook thus reveals how rhythm, repetition, and affect interwove in late medieval piety. Prayer practice, as exemplified here, is more than a recitation of words. Instead, it employs rhythmic and formal structures to shape the voice, the mind, and the heart toward a more intimate knowledge of Mary and her intercessory power.

NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION:

I follow the idiosyncratic spellings of the source, but supply punctuation in my translations.

RESOURCES:

Der Herr ist mit dir [INC: o kaiseryn und ain künigin aler künig der her ist mit dir EXPL: von dinem lieben sun Jhesu criste der da regirett mit got dem vatter und mit got dem hailigen gaist und du Junckfrow maria mit ym yn der ewigen glory amen.], from the Thalbach Prayerbook, Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesbibliothek Hs 17, fol. 237–247.

Anne Winston-Allen, Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages, Penn State UP, 1997.

When the Gestapo Came for the Sisters

In June 1945, just weeks after World War II ended in Europe, Bishop Paulus Rusch of Innsbruck wrote a sworn account of how Nationalsocialism had targeted the Catholic Church in Tyrol and Vorarlberg. Buried in the Nuremberg Trial records, his testimony gives us a stark glimpse of what happened to nuns and other women religious under Nazi rule.

The crackdown began early. Already in Spring 1938, the ever-popular Corpus Christi processions were banned, and over the course of the summer Catholic schools shuttered, and priests began to be jailed. This crackdown extended to charitable work. One priest was imprisoned simply for giving bread and coffee to two hungry Dutch prisoners. Such gestures of compassion were deemed “favoring elements foreign to the race.” But by 1939, the regime turned directly against convents.

The Nazis expelled the Dominican Sisters of St Peter’s in Bludenz, closed their convent, and partly demolished the interior of their church. The Innsbruck Sisters of Perpetual Adoration fared worse; they were dragged out of their cloister one by one by Gestapo officers. Their church was seized and turned into a military installation.

This parallels actions elsewhere; Convent churches were closed, desecrated, or turned to military use. In Bregenz, the Abbey of St. Gallus saw its church gutted; at Mehrerau, the abbey and sanatorium were seized. And yet one local consultant, a Josef Gschwilm, thought it was funny; he liked to dress up as a priest and get himself photographed during these monastery closures (Pichler 253).

Layfolk were impacted just as dramatically. Across Vorarlberg, 348 Catholic associations and congregations were disbanded (Pichler 252).

Even schools for girls -- the lifeblood of these communities and the social safety-net for orphans -- were dissolved. In Bregenz alone, the three girls schools of Thalbach, Marienburg, and Riedenburg were all forced to close. In short, the infrastructure that had sustained Catholic belief and practice for generations was systematically dismantled.

These stories remind us that the Nazi assault on faith was not abstract. It reached into classrooms, chapels, and convent walls, stripping women of their vocations, demolishing sacred spaces, and silencing communities of prayer.

What Bishop Rusch called “the fighting of Nationalsocialism” was, for these sisters, a fight simply to exist. And yet, exist they did. Though their convent walls were broken and their schools closed, their witness of faith and service endured beyond the war years -- a quiet defiance that outlasted the regime that tried to silence them.

NOTE ON SPELLING:

I follow the one-word, no-hyphen spelling of “Nationalsocialism” adopted in the Nuremberg Trial documents.

SOURCES:

Meinrad Pichler, Das Land Vorarlberg 1861 bis 2015, Geschichte Vorarlbergs Bd 3. Wagner Universitätsverlag, 2015.

Bishop Paulus Rusch, “The Fighting Of Nationalsocialism In The Diocese Of The Apostolic Administration Innsbruck-Feldkirch, Of Tyrol And Vorarlberg,” translated and published in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, vol. 5, aka the “Blue Series” of the Nuremberg Trials (1945), books.google.com/books?id=iGN2rIerJR0C&pg=PA1077

Writing with scissors and tape

Today was a good reminder to me of my own childhood training as a writer. I was taught the sunflower approach to paper organization: a series of notecards arrayed in a lovely pattern surrounding my seat on the floor. Ah, beauty. At the center, I sat with the thesis. Topics ran along each of the outward-bending rays. I could sort the order within each line of cards before picking them up to move to the typewriter. What emerged was (supposedly) a logical progression of ideas – happily generated by the simple act of sorting.

You would think in these days of computer-assisted writing practices that I would have outgrown such practices, but at heart, I’m a geographical thinker. I like to put things into spaces where they belong. This piece belongs on THAT side of the table. (Yes, I’m older now; I sometimes use a table and chair instead of sitting for hours on the floor. Not without some regret.)

I have learned to work faster in at least some ways. I come at that whole “gathering of information” with a different set of tools – notes in files, especially spreadsheets (see my notes on managing bibliography by spreadsheet); rough drafts on computer with comments in the margins; slidedecks and tables for managing visual information, and so on. I sometimes write (in ink) on cards the size of business cards, but not the 3x5 card, my once-upon-a-time most favorite tool. In other words, my information comes in various sizes and textures, and you would think that I’d just plug each bit into a proper outline and move on.

But no, that doesn’t fit with how my brain works. No, I like to use externalities to represent the internalities of my thinking. Which brings me to this morning.

I have a continuity draft of a collaborative article – the complete article, with footnotes, and I am fairly sure that I agree with our conclusions. (Always a positive step.) The argument, however, tended to spin from idea to idea since they all intersect with one another. Clarity? Missing in action! Bits of detail would pop up in one part of the discussion, and we’d have to mention them again over there. Bah. I’ve read plenty of articles like that, but would prefer not to inflict one of my own on the reading public.

To be honest, I put two afternoons into trying to tackle our edits in a mature scholarly way – with comment boxes and line edits. I’ve had dental surgery that was more fun.

So I gave into my impulses, pulled out the coffee pot, and hefted my lovely kitchen scissors. I took our draft and cut it into strips. Each sentence or two became a “thing,” and the “things” moved around the table. I got to about page four and realized that I actually could start seeing a shape to it.

I grabbed some of those business-card blanks and started jotting notes. Again, it was one note per card, so those could join the fray, moving hither and thither. I looked. I pondered. And then I grabbed my computer and wrote up the hook paragraph. It *resembles* the first paragraph that we’d had in the rough draft, but it gets at the content with a different tone and a clearer purpose.

I celebrated this early-morning productivity with a social-media toot, as one does, and then took my walk and tended to the day’s weeding.

In the second sit-down of the day, I moved a bunch of papers around. The completed bits went face down on the table, and then moved down to the bench. I sorted out content areas and used my lovely blue felt-tip pen to write cards about our findings. What were key topics? What caught my eye? What phrases stuck in my memory? This was largely an “away from the draft” process – my goal was to understand what my morning brain thought was most important about what we’d done. 

I think this kind of process is important. They say the devil’s in the details, but I wanted to know the choreography of the paper, not its flutter of words and details. For instance, a large chunk of the paper was represented by the word “Chart.” Right? I know exactly what content that covers, and what it does for the paper. I didn’t need to workshop its words, or even its paragraphs. I just wanted to know where in the paper it needed to emerge for the reader’s attention.

So I played a weird kind of scholarly solitaire, moving this strip onto that card, and shuffling those three cards into a different order, and looking through the remnants for that fact that was cool but didn’t belong but could illuminate this bit over here. I didn’t do the whole paper – like I said, I’d stopped cutting strips around the end of page 4. But I felt like this gave me control over the broad outlines of what we were doing.

At this point, I did two things. First, I made a list in an open document about what points I thought were mission critical, in the order in which I’d decided they probably should go. Now if a windstorm came up and blew through my open screen door and messed up my beautiful collage – which wasn’t yet taped down! – I would still have a record of the morning’s work.

Next, I wrote the framing paragraph. So and so has done this; that other person added that. We build on this by doing these things. Strategically, this paragraph defines the state of the scholarly conversation and the gap we are filling. Plus, it provides a bit of a road-map to what is about to follow. I didn’t polish this paragraph – I still have reminders like INSERT SCHOLAR K and QUOTE / RESPOND as placeholders. (The shouty caps are important. You never want to leave those reminders in a draft at the moment of submission!) But the reminders are just pointers to details, and most of that information already exists in extractable form in the continuity draft. That kind of cut-and-paste can come later. The goal for the day was simply to start creating the pathway for the reader – to onboard them to what they’re about to read.

And then it was time to turn to other things, the regular meetings and emails and urgent questions from students that are to Monday what peaceful murmurs are to hiking. True, I’d rather be hiking, but as Mondays go, I’d call it a success.

The take-away? Returning to your writing roots can be a remarkably soothing way to break through a paper-writing hurdle. As they say, writing is hard. The trick I used this morning was to avoid “writing” by reframing it as a slicing-and-sorting task. I *like* slicing and sorting. It was a pleasant way to get 777 words up and on their way. Of course, my co-author will need to sign on. But I think she’ll like it. After all, clarity counts!

And, at the end of the day (or at least the end of the morning), it turns out that scissors and tape weren’t just tools for rearranging text, but for restoring perspective. My humble kitchen tools turn out to be a tangible reminder that clarity in writing often begins with clarity in thought.

Asian Sojourn 2: Kathmandu: parade rest!

From Delhi, I traveled to Kathmandu, Nepal, where we had a hotel just two blocks from Durbar Square. My host picked me up from the airport, hallelujah, and drove me across town in his very, very small car through the very crowded and monsoon-wetted streets. Once to the hotel, he gave me the standard orientation to drinkable water (and undrinkable); the various amenities, including generous outlets right by the bed and a swivel fan; and a few pointers on where I might want to go the next day.

The view from my bed was rather stunning, since our hotel faced the Atko Narayan Temple; in this rendition, you can see the edges of my window:

It was a delightful location, and one of the days of our stay, there was a festival, so I got to observe the ceremonies with burning offerings, bell ringing, chanting, and the like. No pictures, though; I didn't want to be intrusive.

After a lovely, lovely night's sleep topped off with a productive dose of jet lag (love my kindle, love that I can do highlighting on my kindle, made SO much research progress at 2a.m.!), it was time to face the city.

Being a first-time tourist in Nepal, I started with Kathmandu Durbar Square, as one does, by paying my entrance fee and getting my long-term visit card (hint: bring along your passport and a passport photo when you first show up; your fee will last until the end of your visa), and then went touring. I never did master the names of all of the square's buildings, but I was fond of the carvings and the architecture, and enjoyed spending a GREAT deal of time looking at all the intricate details.

 

But my leisurely pace was interrupted when the courtyard started filling with soldiers -- soldiers carrying drums! It seems the military band was under review. Setting up took some time, but they eventually got themselves ordered. I did notice that they formed up as much in the shade as they could (and who could blame them?). Eventually, however, their commander shifted them back to the center of the courtyard and out into that bright, warm sunlight. 

While there was some tootling around beforehand, the flag ceremony introduced the drums and winds.

 

After a good deal of speechifying (all in Nepali so I can’t report the content!), the unit marched out. 

 

There must have been some activity outside of the palace, because it was at least 10 minutes before the soldiers passed by on the outside on parade, music whirling along with them as the percussion kept steady time.

Watching the first portion of a parade, even a small one, made me think about those commonalities with my hometown experience. I too have been in groups which have crowded toward the shade while wearing an unpleasantly heavy uniform; outdoor performance environments are not always optimal. Sure, dark fabrics with heft and weight look impressive, but there’s a reason science-fiction often references temperature-regulating textiles! (And I in my short-sleeves was grateful to be recording from the shade, and I was seated on the steps, not standing or moving around!)

In all, about 45 minutes elapsed while I watched the group. I had time to think, in that idle way, about the meta-messaging of such events. The pride and perfectability of formation was a signal of the kind of discipline the group represents, and was reinforced by two different leaders, the quieter of which got quicker movements from the group. The (memorized) music spoke to a regularity of rehearsal. The timbres seemed familiar even if the instruments per se were not. The winds reminded me of fifes, though I never got a good look at the instruments since I was trying to stay out of the way and not be THAT tourist. Still, the fife and drum type combination has a lasting appeal in the military world, so the whole experience was weirdly familiar, for all that I was on the far side of the globe.

In all, my first full day was a great success. The chance encounter with the pass-in-review meant that I managed to hit the “urban soundscape” button right out of the gate with "real music," not just the sounds and noises of the city. And historically-oriented me was truly delighted in the architecture, carvings, and museum displays. 

I’m not one for crowds, but I’m genuinely glad that we chose to stay down by the “busy old center” for this part of our trip. 

Note: These events took place July 1-2, 2025.

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RESOURCES: ARRIVING IN NEPAL 

• My flights into Nepal were limited to a single carry-on (7 kg total), and a checked bag of 20 kg total (44lb). I had known to pack with those limits, but I know others had been caught out.
• When you arrive, there's a screening that includes watches and gold jewelry as well as electronics and so forth; be prepared to stand in that line a longish moment since others may have buried those items at the bottom of their bags. There are signs in English with instructions.
• I did the Nepal "visa on arrival" process, and I filled out all of the paperwork of step one right there in the arrival area, though you can do part of it online up to 15 days in advance (if you print out your results). I had brought sufficient US cash to pay for my tourist visa, but I did use the airport ATM to get my first batch of Nepali rupees (since I had to pre-pay the hotel upon arrival). It is also possible to get a taxi from the taxi desk in the airport (which is what Nissa did when she arrived), and the cost is regulated so you don't have to worry about negotiating in your travel-weary sleep-deprived state.
• We each had an e-SIM purchased from trip.com; I used the airport wifi to log in and claim it. Even sleep deprived it was an easy process: scan the QR code and click where it tells you.
• We stayed in a distinctly budget hotel, Nirvana Kuti by Durbar Square -- really just three apartments, one per floor, with a bathroom, hallway sink, and small kitchen area with a kettle and (drinkable) water dispenser as well as a wash-up sink. The rooms were basic but spotless, and cheap, cheap, cheap! The space had comfey beds; fan but not AC; robust WiFi as long as the power was on; but no on-site services. There's a little convenience store right next door for all your snacking needs. However, for all that it was a plain-jane (and budget-friendly) location, our host Bobby was one of the highlights. A Nepali native who had studied for three years in Australia, he was super friendly, interested in cross-cultural conversations at his daily check-in, and incredibly helpful with arrangements and recommendations. (For instance, he took us a couple of blocks over to buy umbrellas at local rather than tourist prices!) We liked the place and its location so much that we stayed there again upon our return. NOTE: there is a second hotel of the same name, so use your map and navigate to the one by Atko Narayan Temple...
• We ate several times over by Freak Street, where every other shop is a restaurant. My favorite was the Ginger Cafe (I got the veg khaja set, very yummy!) which is technically located on a cross-street, Phalchasa Galli. I was the only non-native in the restaurant.

Using Research Questions -- Defeat data-hoarding and discard the chaff!

In many ways, I am a data-dragon. I like to collect a lot of “just plain information” about a thing, hoarding up data-points like that mouse pressing the lever for “just-one-more” bits of pleasure, and ignoring the grander work of feeding (or contextualizing) my work. This is genius in the research phase; I’m really good at ferreting out significant and interesting quirks of past practice.

That skill is, however, less helpful when it comes time to “write a scholarly article” phase of existence.

Alas and alack, people don’t just want to hear about “cool stuff I found.” Instead, we scholars are expected to tie those interesting observations into meaningful interpretations, both in dialogue with the scholarly conversation and in the intellectual heavy-lifting of meaning-making as a historical act. We don’t just get to be antiquarians, building out a collection of items from the past, but are required instead to be curators, interpreting and signposting the important elements of the array of information and how they connect to the bigger conversations of the discipline.

So how does one decide what parts of the research findings just belong to the “cool stuff” stack, and what is going to make the case for a scholarly argument? The answer lies in the research question.

Research questions don’t just lie around like pebbles on a beach. They too are part of that intellectual work that one does, going from topic and bibliography to outline and prose. If implemented early on, they can save a lot of extraneous work by showing which threads of the investigative fabric are not going to fit into the finished garment. A good research question shows what’s necessary to the scholarly argument, and what deserves to be put into the “trash” folder. (Sob. Even though it’s inherently interesting.) Deciding what NOT to say is a real skill as a scholar.

What makes a good research question? 

Well, first of all, it’s answerable with the evidence available (or reachable within a timely fashion). It’s all well and good to talk about spirituality as a driver in memorial donations, but if you don’t actually have any surviving indications of spirituality in the documents that come down from that institution or town, you probably need to revisit your question.

Likewise, the research question should be specific but significant. While I may personally be interested in “what memorial endowments were established in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Bregenz,” the likelihood of other readers caring is … low, very low. There aren’t any stakes – no doorknobs to the literature, no sense of why Bregenz matters beyond itself, nor how these endowments help us understand bigger themes. One can also err (as students often do) by being too broad. “How did memorial endowments shape religious life in late medieval and early modern Europe?” If I chose to take on something that broad, I’d have to wait and get back to you a decade from now.

A good research question facilitates connections to the literature, engaging with what’s been done, and -- especially happily -- with what hasn’t been done. Finding gaps and spaces for the “yes-and…” of scholarly contribution is a part of the gig. In the abstract, that kind of work is reflected in the allusions to scholarship. The research question typically implies a particular scholarly space inhabited by peers. For me, that’s often an intersectional space, where two subsets of scholarship come together to illuminate one another in exciting ways.

To that end, the research question moves thinking away from the descriptive (what happened / what endowments were founded in this time) toward the more stimulating landscape of the analytical. What does this case show us? Why were some endowments copied near-verbatim by other parishioners, and others just sit out there as onesies, a single unreplicated idea about how a memorial should function?

Finally, a good research question strikes a balance between being open-ended but inviting a (somewhat) complicated answer. There needs to be a need for an argument, in other words. “Did medieval Bregenz citizens use music in their memorial endowments?” “Yes.” Somehow, that didn’t make word count.

So where does that leave me? 

My current working research question is this:

What role did sound, song, and graveside ritual play in establishing memorial endowments as legitimate forms of leadership giving in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Bregenz?

Does it pass the smell test?

1) answerable with the evidence available: yes, I have several dozen examples of endowments focused around two case studies that could be used in this investigation.

2) specific but significant: There’s a claim to be made about historical leadership giving that (to my eye) illuminates both the musicological assessment of memoria AND tests the theories of charitable giving currently in circulation through historical case studies...

3) facilitates connections to the literature: … and in that way facilitates scholarly engagement rather robustly

4) moves from the descriptive toward the analytical: definitely requires some slice-and-dice assessment and some significant time to be spent teasing out the implications of “mere data points”

5) Balances the open-ended and the complicated answer: Yup, there’s plenty of space to consider social nexus, posturing, leadership-followership dynamics, and so on. In fact, there’s so much space that I may need to tighten the question as I get through the writing.

But for now, it means that many of those “onsies” endowments are off my plate. The literature on chaplains and performances? Also not strictly important here. (But that has a home in another study with a different question.) Institutional history of the parish church? Interesting only, perhaps, in passing.

In other words, the research question is taking on its task as a winnowing device, separating the wheat from the chaff. Or perhaps, given the imagery with which I started, it is combing through my dragonish data-hoard, and teasing out the gems from the guff.

 

IMAGES:

• “In dragon's form Fafner now watches the hoard.” Siegfried & The Twilight Of The Gods, by Richard Wagner, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham; translated by Margaret Armour. London: William-Heinemann, 1911, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/49507/49507-h/49507-h.htm#siegpl007

• “The Chaff separated from the Grain after threshing and winnowing.” CC-BY Archibale Isolation, 2005, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bruts_de_r%C3%A9colte_et_grains_d%C3%A9cortiqu%C3%A9s_de_sa_bale.jpg

QUICK FOLLOW-ALONG:

Today I learned that “Fafner” (the sometimes-a-dragon with his hoard) and “faffing about” (wasting time or dithering by doing things in a disorganized or inefficient way) are not, in fact, related concepts. The OED tells us that the verb “faff” is attested in 1788, in the writing of William Marshall, agricultural writer and land agent. Neither data-hording like a Fafner nor faffing about inefficiently are helpful when you’re faced with a writer’s deadline. Use the research question to solve both problems!

Asian Sojourn 1: The Hotel That Wasn't There (Delhi)

Travel: It broadens the mind and expands one’s skills. It calls up the excitement and energy of the unfamiliar. And it sometimes has those little hitches that become the stories that one tells.

So, back at the end of June, I went from Nashville all the way to Kathmandu, but being a budget conscious traveler, I went by way of India. Booking through Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi was several hundred dollars cheaper than the next available route. I should have wondered why.

The first reality is that India requires a visa since even transit travelers have to enter the terminal and collect their luggage before flying on. But this was to me a “no big deal” situation; my layover was 18 hours, and that meant hotel and bed as a rest-up for all that traveling. Plus a shower. It’s the little things, right?

I diligently filled out all the paperwork (there was only minor swearing involved; I had already navigated getting my visa from mainland China so operated from the perspective that “you can’t scare me!”), and got myself the eVisa (tourist class) in a timely fashion. I booked a hotel room about 3 miles from the airport, and prepped and packed for my grand adventure.

A couple of airports and nearly two days of travel later, we landed in Delhi. Oooooo, so exciting! This was my first trip to Asia, and Delhi was my first airport to navigate in that part of the world. I made it through passport control and through customs.

There was a bit of a hiccup when my travel phone had some trouble hooking to the airport wifi. Since all I needed to do was get to the hotel and back, I figured I didn’t need a phone plan; my hotel had wifi and besides, I only wanted to sleep. But, of course, you can’t contact Uber if you don’t have access to the internet. Rather than futz with it any further, I just got my $25 in Rupees out of the ATM and headed to the airport taxi stand.

There, I showed my hotel’s address to the loud and enthusiastic sales person. She quoted me a price that was ten times what I expected to pay with an Uber, so we negotiated down. And down. And – “hey, the next counter might be able to help me if that’s as low as you can make it” – down once again. Once the price was reasonable, I agreed, paid up front, and followed my cab driver out to his vehicle. It was about 9:30 at night; it was raining; the traffic was something fierce. What a great adventure, right?

Of course, his English was limited and my Hindi is non-existent, but my hotel address was written on the paperwork. Off we went. We drove most of the way there and he started getting concerned about which hotel exactly we were going to. I showed him the address from my (not-connected-to-anything) phone. Then I worked at finding its location on my downloaded google maps. Then we got into the “call the hotel and let them give directions” stage of the adventure.

I couldn’t call on my own phone, obviously, and it was a hoot and a holler getting into his; it kept locking as he’d pass it back to the backseat. In the meantime, there’s traffic every which-way; the windshield wipers move from smear to smoosh; and the honking and shouting might be a bit on the over-stimulating side for the overseas traveler. But I finally dialed the hotel.

And the number was disconnected.

Round about we went again. I pulled my reservation up, and dialed the second number.

It too was disconnected.

By now we were to the street on which I was purportedly staying. It is a busy street and crowded with people shopping and talking and generally hanging out. There are still cars and trucks and bikes and what-all driving, passing, edging in.

And then our saga got interesting. Every dozen buildings or so, my taxi driver would pull over and hop out to ask where my hotel was. There was some gesturing and some conversational nodding, and then he’d get back in the car and drive a bit further. In the meantime, I was craning around to see the wonderful street chaos. Touristing from a cab at 11p on a rainy evening. That’s travel for you.

Delhi Street Scenes

 But we kept not arriving, and not arriving. And then my cab driver explained that he didn’t know where my hotel was. He called his dispatcher. They too found that the hotel phone numbers had been disconnected. By now I was a bit disconcerted. I had prepaid the hotel; it had good reviews. But it was nowhere to be seen.

After a couple more curbside conversations, the driver called his dispatcher again. This time they tried to tell me that the hotel couldn’t be found, and I needed to stay in one of their hotels. Oh, heck no. I had already paid. We argued. I finally said they needed to take me back to the airport if they couldn’t deliver me to my hotel.

My driver turned around, but he did try a couple of more conversations. Finally he came back from one and said that he’d found someone who could walk me there. At last! So this nice young man came over and helped me with my luggage as we dodged traffic to get across the street. We walked up the alley and there it was:

The nameless hotel that was not my hotel. No name on the door. No name on the street.

This, he said, was my hotel. Well, I countered, I prepaid. The desk clerk was like, “okay, we have a room.” He took my information. Well, I said, my room includes breakfast. “Okay,” he confirmed, “we have breakfast.” So what’s a weary traveler to do? I accepted the room key, and went up to the air conditioned space. With a bed. And a bathroom with a shower.

Was it my hotel? Not if the pictures were any guide. But it was a hotel with a bathroom and AC and wifi. This met my basic “I have 18 hours and want to use them sleeping” needs. I went with it. I used nameless hotel’s wifi to update my family, and nameless hotel’s wifi to lodge a complaint about my missing hotel with trip.com. And then, I lay down on that lovely, padded, horizontal surface. And I slept deeply and with joy.

The next morning I had breakfast at the hotel buffet. It wasn’t the deluxe one of the place that I’d booked, but it had several foods unfamiliar to me (and tasty they were, too!), and it had chai. I had three cups.

And then it was time to pack back up and make my way to the airport. The clerk at the front desk got me a ride (for cheaper than the taxi had been, too), and I was driven back to the airport. I won’t say much about the vehicle, but it made me want to reach into my luggage and pull out the duct tape around my water bottle. Not exactly up to code by my measures, but then, code is different in different places. And the driver and his colleague were lovely. And I made it back to the airport with plenty of time.

So I can say I’ve been to Delhi. I never did go walking around because I wasn’t entirely sure that I would recognize the nameless hotel when I got back – or that my luggage would still be there if I did go out. But the nameless hotel never charged me extra, and trip.com provided an apology and “trip points” for the inconvenience and stress of the missing hotel.

Me, I not only got a good night’s sleep, but I got a story to tell!

(This story details events of 7/1 to 7/2/2025.)

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RESOURCES:

To arrange for the travel visa to India, as a US citizen (in Summer 2025), I used this site: https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/. (You can ignore the pop-over advertisement for student visas; just close it!)  You'll get an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) form, which you'll need to print out and bring. You present the ETA at the Immigration check, and voila, you've arrived in-country!

And, of course, I don't have a hotel to recommend from this segment of my journey. Bwahaha.