Nordischer Weÿraúch : Ein exklusiver Geschenkband mit geistlicher Lyrik

Nordifcher Wejraúch oder Zúfammen Gefúchte andachten vom Schwedifchen Fraúen Zimmer (Nordic incense or collected devotions from the room(s) of the queen at the Swedish court) is one of the most beautiful books in the Uppsala University Library. The manuscript, written in the hand of Aurora von Königsmarck around 1690, contains twenty-two religious poems in German. They were composed by herself, her sister Amalia Wilhelmina, and their cousins Ebba Maria and Johanna Eleonora De la Gardie. There is also one poem signed with the initials A. M. G., but her identity has never been disclosed. The young countesses von Königsmarck and De la Gardie belonged to the highest ranks of the Swedish nobility. There is very clear evidence that the book was a personal and exclusive gift to the Swedish queen Ulrika Eleonora the Elder, married to King Charles XI.

The goal of the present edition is twofold: Volume I contains the poems in facsimile and with a diplomatic transcription. Volume 2 brings a commentary and extensive contextual analyses of the poems and the exquisitely bound manuscript. These contextualizations comprise courtly, political, religious, literary, linguistic, socio- and gender-historical perspectives.