Frühmittelalterliche Studien
Zusammenfassungen der Beiträge in englischer Sprache (abstracts)
Elmar Seebold, Alte Runen — Neue Runen, S. 1-6
Unusual forms in runic inscriptions are often neglected, preventing a proper understanding of the runic text. This is shown for the form of the p-rune on the spatha of Berlin (runes found in 2007) und the z-runes of bracteate IK 610 from Uppåkra (found in 2005).
Guido M. Berndt, Aktionsradien gotischer Kriegergruppen, S. 7-52
This study deals with Gothic warrior bands analysed as an example of 'communities of violence' (Gewaltgemeinschaften), i.e., groups that originate from and persist through the use of violence. The analysis focuses on the period between the mid-third and the mid-sixth centuries, for which at least four distinct time periods may be defined. The first period is characterised by Gothic warriors settling the northern coast of the Black Sea; this settlement was the basis for initial raids on the Roman frontier zone and subsequent intrusions into Roman territory. In the second phase, Gothic warriors lived under Hunnic domination, regaining their independence after Attila's death. The third phase was marked by a conflict fought mainly in the Balkans between two competing Gothic warlords (both called Theoderic), whereas the fourth led to the successful transformation of warriors under the Amal Theoderic (now in Italy) into a standing army. This army functioned as a united entity until the Gothic-Roman war. The operating range of Gothic bands changed significantly during these centuries, while their success largely depended on their ability to function as a mobile army, on their capacity for adaptation, and on their willingness to use violence; these qualities ultimately led Gothic warrior bands to prevail in the competition for booty, status, and prestige.
Martin Zimmermann, Glasverarbeitung im frühmittelalterlichen Nord- und Osteuropa, S. 53-85
In the Early Middle Ages, local and regional rulers and merchants around the Baltic Sea and in Eastern Europe asked for glass products which were manufactured and traded under their supervision and protection. Not only the raw glass but also some precious hollow glasses came from the Christian and the Islamic Orient as well as from the Frankish Empire. In trading centres like the Danish Ribe and Haithabu / Schleswig, the Norwegian Kaupang, in Reric / Groß Strömkendorf, Wolin and Szczecin, which were set up within the Slavlands, in the Russian Staraya Ladoga and the Great Moravian Nitra, mostly glass beads were manufactured, in some cases perhaps by Byzantine drilling specialists. On the other hand, the archbishop of Salzburg sent skilled glass artists to the exiled Moravian prince Privina. Under another Moravian ruler glass buttons were made near modern Bratislava in order to be able to participate in the trade along and over the river Danube. Glass produced in Wolin and Szczecin as well as in the Bulgarian plants of Preslav and Pliska was probably made by Eastern glassmakers who experimented with new recipes.
Daniel Carlo Pangerl, Der Königsschatz der Merowinger. Eine interdisziplinäre historisch-archäologische Studie, S. 87-127
Archaeological excavations and written sources of the early medieval period have unveiled interesting testimonies about the Merovingian treasure (thesaurus). This treasure was the moveable property of Merovingian kings, consisting of gold and silver coins, bullions, jewellery and tableware, as well as precious stones, weapons, clothes, church items and relics. The treasure, owned by the ruling Merovingian king, was passed on to his son after the king's death. If the king had more than one male heir, the treasure as well as the kingdom was divided into several parts. The treasure was stored at the royal residence. Treasurers (thesaurarii) were responsible to ensure that the treasure was saved. There are two Merovingian tombs of special interest: Firstly, the chamber grave of king Childeric, discovered in Tournai (Belgium) in 1653; secondly, the chamber grave of queen Arnegunde, discovered in Saint-Denis (France) in 1959. Immensely rich burial goods were found in these tombs, giving us at least a glimpse into the contents of the Merovingian treasure.
Floris Bernard, Asteiotes and the ideal of the urbane intellectual in the Byzantine eleventh century, S. 129-142
Asteiotes is an age-old cultural concept in Greek-speaking culture that gained new importance and vigour in the Byzantine eleventh century, when Constantinople was perceived as the centre of cultural and social life. In many texts written by authors belonging to the intellectual elite, the concept (together with the related concept of politikos) is used to define a certain type of man who is able to combine his education (paideia) with a certain set of behavioural conventions (ethos) that he had assimilated in an unaffected way. Humour, correct pronunciation, physical appearance and sensitivity to social decorum were all aspects related to this concept. Asteiotes found a counterpart in the concept of agroikia, a distinction that was based on a spatial opposition between city and countryside. It is important to note that the concept often had ambiguous ethical overtones, which had to be carefully negotiated.
Jürgen Petersohn, Tusculum — Rom — Braunschweig. Wegmarken der Entstehungsgeschichte der Lupa Capitolina?, S. 143-148
The contribution criticizes the thesis of Johannes Fried, "Die Rückkehr der Wölfin. Hypothesen zur Lupa Capitolina im Mittelalter" (Sitzungsberichte der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Band LXIX Nr. 1, Stuttgart 2011, S. 107-137, with English translation "The She-Wolf comes back: Hypotheses on the Lupa Capitolina in the Middle Ages" S. 139-161), according to which a detour via Braunschweig is suggested to postulate the existence and the image of the hypothetical Tusculane monument of the she-wolf in Rome. Fried stresses that Henry the Lion would have been able to admire the Roman bronze figure in 1155 when he stayed in Rome and her surroundings together with Frederic Barbarossa. However, this paper shows that it would have been impossible for Henry the Lion to enter the historical centre of Rome during the struggles between the imperial army and the Romans at the time of Frederic's coronation. Henry fought against the Romans beyond the Tiber in the Papal suburb of Saint Peter's, whereas in the city of Rome he would have been taken as a hostage, if not killed. Fried's hypothetic detour via Braunschweig does not lead to reliable results. As Otto Gerhard Oexle has shown, the monument in Braunschweig cannot be explained as a copy of a certain model, but as an expression of the genealogical and local convictions of duke Henry himself.
Richard Engl, Die Stadt als Glied des Reiches. Kommunales Selbstverständnis der Barbarossazeit am Beispiel Pisas, S. 149-184
The study examines the political mentality of the northern and central Italian communes in the twelfth century, concentrating on the example of Pisa. Earlier research identified the idea of libertas and the commune's distance from the hierarchical constitution of the Romano-German Empire as a foundation of communal mentality. However, with recent scholarship describing the relationship between the two as more flexible, a reassessment of communal self-concepts seems to be appropriate. This contribution addresses this question by analysing the self-conception of Pisa, one of the early and eminent Italian communes, whose wealth of sources has somehow been overlooked so far, arguing that Pisa's self-conception was based on a hierarchy of values: Honor and salus were valued most, underpinned by faithfulness to the Emperor, stable diplomatic contacts, superiority in war, honourable conduct in conflicts, adherence to treaties, dominance and cooperation in the contado, order and social unity within the city, fair judiciary and well-maintained municipal infrastructure. Regarding the basic elements of this self-conception, Pisa resembled many contemporary cities, especially regarding the role of honor as the most important communal value, instead of libertas. In effect, communes, Emperor and feudal lords shared the same belief in the importance of honour. In this way the communes remained, in their minds, bound to the non-communal world, integrated into the Empire's hierarchy. Struggles for precedence within this order regularly made either conflict or cooperation with the Emperor appear advisable.
Christel Meier, Respice principium. Die Bedeutung des Anfangs im prophetischen Werk Hildegards von Bingen (Taf. I-X, Abb. 1-10), S. 185-207
According to late antique and medieval conceptions of prophecy, the prophet's competence is not restricted to the prediction of future events, but covers all three dimensions of time: past, present and future. Hildegard of Bingen claims this extensive competence for herself in the discharge of her prophetic office. In her writings, the 'prophecy of the beginnings' is of central importance, not only for the substance of her works, but also for their arrangement (referring to Gen. 1 and John 1). The contribution proves this assertion with respect both to her three theological visionary works and to her writings about natural science, to the 'Epistolarium' and the 'Carmina'. The significance of the prophetic analysis of the beginnings for the interpretation of the present and the prediction of the future is finally explained with regard to Hildegard's visual imagination of the return (reditio) of all things to the creator (cf. fig. 1-10 from the 'Scivias' of the Rupertsberg manuscript and from the 'Liber divinorum operum' of the Lucca manuscript).
Katharina Ulrike Mersch, Göttlich legitimierter Eigensinn. Gewissensfreiheit als Option im Umgang mit dem exkommunizierten Ludwig dem Bayern und dem Interdikt, S. 209-238
When pope John XXII excommunicated Louis IV (the Bavarian) in 1324 he imposed a general interdict on the areas ruled by supporters of the Bavarian. In many parts of the empire public celebrations of sacred rites were forbidden, which lead people to argue about the validity and authority to be ascribed to the papal sentences. This article examines the possibilities individuals had to react to the penalties, asking in which ways religious individuality and plurality were being discussed during the precarious period of the first half of the fourteenth century. In this regard, it is necessary to deal with perceptions of freedom of conscience, which could justify deviant behaviour even towards papal penalties. To reveal attitudes located between the contrasting poles of obedience and protest, the term 'Eigensinn' (self-will), established in studies dealing with the history of everyday life in modern times, is applied to the medieval period. This term proves to be useful to describe concepts present in medieval mystical writings referring to scholarly ideas about excommunication, interdict and conscience, while at the same time popularizing those ideas by separating them from scholarly contexts.
Volker Honemann, Erziehung zur Gerechtigkeit — Pro erudicione ad iusticiam. Zu Entstehung und Tradierung des Bildes der hand- und augenlosen Iustitia im Codex Casanatensis 1404 in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Taf. XI, Abb. 11), S. 239-271
The image of the hand- and eyeless Iustitia, of which the codex Casanatensis 1404 is the most remarkable testimony, has hitherto not been researched thoroughly as far as its textual tradition is concerned. Starting from the text which accompanies the image in the Roman manuscript, following its repercussions in the fifteenth-century law book of the Jihlava (Iglau) town-scribe Wenzel, this tradition can be found from antiquity in writings of Aulus Gellius, Diodorus and Plutarch down to John of Salisbury, John of Wales and the allegorical texts produced by the 'English Classicizing Friars' of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Subsequently the image was carried on in texts like the Eisenach law books of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but also in a poem of the Augsburg Meistersinger Daniel Holzmann, which is printed here for the first time. The article also contains an edition of the text of the Codex Casanatensis which interprets the image of the hand- and eyeless Iustitia. A first excursus tries to clarify the difficult problem of the provenance of the Codex Casanatensis (it may originate from Goldberg / Silesia), a second one publishes a German translation of a related passage from Albertanus of Brescia's 'De amore dei et proximi', entitled 'De iudicio contra malefactores'.
Detlef Pollack, Die Genese der westlichen Moderne. Religiöse Bedingungen der Emergenz funktionaler Differenzierung im Mittelalter, S. 273-305
The contribution aims to substantiate the thesis that the emergence of forms of functional differentiation between religion and politics in occidental cultures was to a large extent religiously conditioned, provoked most notably by the claim of dominance staked by the papacy in the Middle Ages. It assumes that forms of differentiation developed in opposition to papal demands for supremacy and control, therefore they should be interpreted as demarcating reactions to such claims. In contrast to classical approaches put forward in sociology, history, and philosophy (Max Weber, Charles Taylor), the contribution advocates not a transformation, but a conflict of positions. The historical validity of that thesis is analysed by taking into account the changes in the relationship between Regnum and Sacerdotium that occurred between eleventh and thirteenth centuries. It is very common to take the Investiture Contest as a starting point for the assertion of a universal process of secularization, if the relationship between religion and politics is at issue (Stefan Weinfurter, Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Franz-Xaver Kaufmann). It is therefore tempting to choose just this time period to check whether and to what extent processes of differentiation between religion and politics can be observed already in the Middle Ages.
Sita Steckel, Differenzierung jenseits der Moderne. Eine Debatte zu mittelalterlicher Religion und moderner Differenzierungstheorie, S. 307-351
The article forms part of an interdisciplinary debate on the differentiation of religion and politics in the medieval period and takes a critical position towards Detlef Pollack's initial contribution. While Pollack's call to re-formulate older differentiation and modernization paradigms in an actor-oriented view should be welcomed and developed within Medieval Studies, a more cautious approach seems necessary. The article argues that Pollack's view remains too indebted to ideas portraying the central Middle Ages as the period of the 'Rise of the West', which have been shaped by nineteenth- and twentieth-century theories of modernization and need to be historicized today. Summarizing more recent historical research, the article points to alternative views of the long-term development of differentiation processes. In its final part, it discusses the differentiation theories of Niklas Luhmann and Pierre Bourdieu as potential frameworks for further comparative work. While Bourdieu's field theory seems adaptable to historical enquiry, Luhmann's theory, which is heavily indebted to older modernization theory, contains a fixed historical core and resists attempts to historicize it. Even so, Pollack's proposal to re-evaluate historical processes of differentiation is important and may provide a forum for fruitful further interdisciplinary debate.
Gerd Althoff, Differenzierung zwischen Kirche und Königtum im Mittelalter. Ein Kommentar zum Beitrag Detlef Pollacks, S. 353-367
These comments on Detlef Pollack's article aim to expand the field of research, showing how phenomena of differentiation, discussed by Pollack with regard to the High Middle Ages, can be found even earlier. In this connection, the intensive conflicts and struggles between kings and representatives of the Frankish church in the ninth century should be interpreted as a part of a historical process leading up to the development of differentiated fields of religion and politics after the Investiture Contest. In the crises of the ninth century, Frankish bishops in particular defined the relation between kings and bishops in a new manner, using Biblical stories and norms. In this way, they strengthened the clerics' function as judges over kings, as well as the obligation of kings to follow clerical advice. These new ways of defining the roles of bishops and kings within God's right order caused a lot of debate, leading to the development of new ecclesiastical self-consciousness regarding the role of the church in the world. This concept was activated and expanded in the Gregorian Revolution, but its beginnings go back to the period starting shortly after the well-known agreement between the Carolingians and the papacy.