Wissen und sein Gebrauch im Spätmittelalter. Einige Grundsäzliche Überlegungen am Beispiel von Beschreibungen der Iberischen Halbinsel

The Middle Ages are generally considered as a time where literary production that can be regarded as scholarly adhered to the ideals of ordo and norm. But is this still true for the 15th century? Investigations undertaken in the context of a thesis at the University of Potsdam suggest the contrary: In scholarly descriptions of the Hispania, a number of diff erent strategies of processing information from older works could be identifi ed. Th ey range from simple citation over a careful review of established knowledge all the way to generating new information based on older texts or even applied knowledge.