Dr Sabine Ines Rauch

Curriculum Vitae

In 2003, Sabine commenced her Magisterstudium at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster with a major in English philology and minors in medieval and modern history (awarded in 2014). During this course of studies, she went on an Erasmus exchange year to UCD Dublin in the academic year 2008/09 and, subsequently, enrolled in the MA in ‘Medieval Literature’ at UCD Dublin (awarded in 2010). She further developed her MA research project by undertaking a PhD which she began at UCD Dublin in 2011, before finishing her Magisterstudium. This research was funded by the Irish Research Council with an IRCHSS Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship. During this time, Sabine tutored in the second-year core module ‘Reading Medieval Literature’ of the BA programme in the School of English, Drama & Film (UCD Dublin) for two years, and she also held a lecture in the same module ‘Reading Medieval Literature’. She completed her doctorate in 2016.

Beside her academic career, Sabine had several contracts with the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen in the years 2009-2011 as well as some contracts with the Stadtarchiv Münster in 2013. Her work for these archives involved transcribing handwritten register books into an online database and cleaning of ca. 100-year-old documents.

Sabine is employed as a research assistant for the ECHOE project (Electronic Corpus of Anonymous Homilies in Old English).

Research Interests

Sabine’s interests lie in the medieval period in general, which is reflected by her academic education in both history and philology; additionally, she has a keen interest in codicology as well as in palaeography. Her main focus as a medievalist is on the Old English period. Sabine’s most current research is on patristic number symbolism in Anglo-Saxon England, which includes literary sources in Latin and Old English and visual sources such as illustrations in manuscripts.

Select Papers

• ISAS, Honolulu 31 July – 4 August 2017: ‘Patristic Number Symbolism in Anglo-Saxon England – Byrhtferth’s Manual on Symbolic Numbers’


• Oxford Talks, Medieval Research Seminar, Oxford 19 October 2016: ‘Patristic Number Symbolism in Anglo-Saxon England’


• SELIM XXVIII, Vigo 15-17 September 2016: ‘Byrhtferth’s Diagrams of the Enchiridion as mnemonic device for patristic number symbolic concepts’
  6th International Conference on the Science of Computus in the Middle Ages, Galway 8-10 July 2016: ‘Number Symbolic Ideas in Byrhtferth’s Diagrams of the Enchiridion’


• International Medieval Congress, Leeds 4-7 July 2016: ‘Patristic Number Symbolism in Anglo-Saxon Homilies’


• Transitions: Old English Literature Study Day, Dublin 17 April 2015: ‘The ship as a symbol of transition’


• Medium Ævum: Medieval Graduate Conference, Oxford 4-5 April 2013: ‘Number Symbolism in Anglo-Saxon England’

Professional Memberships

• International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England (ISSEME)