Alexandra Mehnert, Member of the European Parliament, visits the cathedral city of Merseburg and signs a declaration in support of the Merseburg Magic Spells on their way to becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site
While the first verse was spoken to release prisoners from their bonds, the second was intended to bring about the healing of a foot injury.
The strictly formed sayings reveal the special sonority of the Old High German language. By means of repetition, synchronisation and final incantation, a magically compelling aura of the speech is sought. It is noteworthy that the Merseburg spells are the only known testimony of Old High German language in which figures of the Germanic world of gods (Wodan, Balder, Friia, Volla, Sunna, Phol, Sinhtgunt) appear.
It is now thought to have been recorded in the first or second third of the 10th century. The Merseburg spells were named after the place where they were found. The lines were first discovered in 1841 by the historian Georg Waitz, who is widely known in the scientific community, in the library of Merseburg Cathedral Abbey. He himself refrained from publishing the spells and left them to the Grimm brothers for editing. Jakob Grimm chose the Merseburg spells as the subject of his inaugural lecture at the Berlin Academy of Sciences on 3 February 1842. Grimm praised the surviving manuscript as a "... treasure" that "no library in Germany ... has anything to offer."
The Merseburg Spells are displayed in the Spell Vault in Merseburg Cathedral. presented in facsimile. Here, visitors to the cathedral can take a close look at the spells, their origin, tradition and translation.
Back in 2021, the Vereinigte Domstifter and Dr Wolfgang Beck from the Institute of German Literature at the University of Jena submitted an application to have the Merseburg Magic Spells inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. This was unanimously accepted by the German nomination committee "Memory of the World" in September 2021. In autumn 2025, the spells will be submitted by the Federal Foreign Office to the UNESCO Secretariat in Paris.
A lot of support is needed to achieve the goal of becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On 6 February 2025, Alexandra Mehnert, Member of the European Parliament, visited Merseburg and Merseburg Cathedral. She was presented with the original Merseburg spells and then signed a declaration of support for the spells on their way to becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After signing the declaration, Mrs Mehnert said: "The Merseburg Magic Spells and everything I was able to learn here are alive with all the players, the town, the schools and the United Cathedral Founders, and that impresses me very much". The director of the United Cathedral Foundations, Dr Holger Kunde, emphasised that "by signing the declaration of support, he hopes that Ms Mehnert will continue to accompany the application process and support it in the European context".
Explanation
The Merseburg Magic Spells - a European text from Saxony-Anhalt on its way to becoming a World Heritage Site
The Merseburg Spells from the Merseburg Cathedral Abbey Library (Cod. I, 136) are the oldest Old High German text document and thus an important testimony to the development of German and other European languages. In terms of content, they reflect the religious and magical ideas in the centre of Europe before Christianisation. The context of transmission, a Christian composite manuscript, provides evidence of the continued influence of magical practices as well as efforts to Christianise Europe. The recording of the sayings characterises the transition from an oral to a written culture. These aspects - magic, Christianisation, increasing literacy - place the Merseburg spells in a global context of human development that justifies their inclusion in the Memory of the World Register. The UNESCO Memory of the World Register contains documentary evidence of exceptional value for the history of mankind. Germany has 30 entries in the register, including the Nebra Sky Disc.
In autumn 2021, the United Cathedral Foundations launched the application for the inclusion of the Merseburg Magic Spells in the World Documentary Heritage. On 28 September 2021, the German nomination committee unanimously decided to include the spells on the list of prospective applications. It is now possible that the spells will be submitted by the Federal Foreign Office to the UNESCO Secretariat meeting in Paris in autumn 2025.
In Merseburg Cathedral and in Merseburg, the spells have been at the centre of interest as a valuable testimony to the past since their discovery in 1841. Since then, numerous publications, lectures, exhibitions and initiatives have been dedicated to the spells. A feasibility study is currently investigating the extent to which the Merseburg spells can be utilised for tourism and education. The aim is to revise the existing exhibition in the Spell Vault and give it its own shell. Independently of this, the Merseburg Magic Spells are to be presented to both locals and tourists in future as a central unique selling point for Merseburg and the central German region.
The Vereinigte Domstifter are hopeful that Saxony-Anhalt will be able to adorn itself with another World Heritage title in the foreseeable future.
To achieve this goal, all partners in Europe, the federal government, the state and the city need to pull together to give the valuable cultural heritage of the Merseburg Magic Spells the status it deserves as a world documentary heritage.
Conscious of the cultural traditions of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, which are of crucial importance for European identity, I am committed to defending the interests of the Merseburg Magic Spells at European level and to accompanying them on their way to becoming a World Documentary Heritage.
Alexandra Mehnert
Members of the European Parliament
