Frühmittelalterliche Studien

Band 41

Zusammenfassungen der Beiträge in englischer Sprache (abstracts)

 

Wilhelm Heizmann, Gold, Macht, Kult: Karl Haucks Studien zur Ikonologie der Goldbrakteaten (Taf. I–VII, Abb. 1–26), S. 11–23

Karl Haucks Kontext-Ikonographie opened the way to our growing understanding of the intrigue iconography of the gold-bracteats. He approached the problem from two sides: the iconography of the coins and medallions of the late Roman Empire on the one side and the written traditions of the medieval Icelandic texts on the other. This paper tries to value Karl Haucks near livelong dedication to that subject, exemplifying his achievements by means of the so called Drei-Götter-Brakteaten as visual manifestations of the story of Balder’s death.

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Hagen Keller, Das Ottos des Großen. Das ottonische Reich nach der Erweiterung zum Imperium, S. 43–74

This essay was originally designed as one chapter within a volume which reconsiders the history of the East Frankish-German Empire in late Carolingian and Ottonian times (888–1024). With the death of Otto the Great (973) as a starting point, the essay looks back in a summarizing manner on the reign of the second ruler from the Saxon dynasty, in which a fundamental reorganisation of the post-Carolingian political order took place. Against the backdrop of the current state of knowledge, the author takes a stand on the questions which have been discussed in German historiography, at times in fierce controversies, since the struggle for the nation state. He discusses the principles according to which the protagonists acted in the 10th century and the ways the actions were perceived by their contemporaries. Labelled as „Kaiserpolitik“ (I) and „Ostpolitik“ (II) in the 19th century, these actions and perspectives were misunderstood and misinterpreted in many ways. Subsequently, the article looks at the dominions won by Otto I in the south (III) and points out the basic structures of royal government in the (IV). Under the conditions of his times, the of royal-imperial power in the empire on both sides of the Alps seems to have been the central problem of his reign (V). A problem which Otto the Great passed on to his successors and unsolved.

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Steffen Patzold, Konsens und Konkurrenz. Überlegungen zu einem aktuellen Forschungskonzept der Mediävistik, S. 75–103

Recent contributions in German medieval studies – rightly – emphasize, that ruling was tied to consensual forms of decision making. By means of three case studies from the Early and High Middle Ages this article states that the circle of those great men, who were able to raise a claim on participation in decision making, was relatively small and exclusive but powerful. Therefore, regulating the access to that circle and controlling the composition of its personnel was an important issue in medieval politics. In paying attention to this competitive situation it becomes clear how often speaking and writing about consensus itself was connected to concrete political aims.

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Oliver Becker, Der Dom von Salerno und die Abteikirche von Montecassino: Anspruch und Wirkung zweier Bauprojekte in Unteritalien im 11. Jahrhundert (Taf.VIII–XIII, Abb. 27–50), S. 105–140

The present study revises the relationship between two of the most eminent examples of 11th-century religious architecture in Southern Italy: the Norman cathedral of S. Matteo in Salerno and the Benedictine abbey church of Montecassino. Specifically, this article questions whether S. Benedetto must by necessity have served as a blueprint for the construction of S. Matteo, as it has been put forward time and again in scholarly literature. Three approaches shall be brought forward to tackle the problem: First, the supposed structural similarities between the two churches will be discussed and hence juxtaposed with a number of significant elements that are, on the contrary, decidedly different. Consequently, it will be newly examined to what degree – or whether at all – it is permissible to conclude that the Cassinese church served the cathedral as an architectural model. A key witness in this context is Leo of Ostia who, in his Chronicle, minutely describes the circumstances of the building history and layout of abbot Desiderius’ new basilica and claims the unrivalled importance of the monastic structure in the region. Subsequently, the present author offers a new interpretation of Salerno cathedral being primarily Robert Guiscard’s foundation rather than an architectural manifestation of the reform movement. He gives not only credence to the content of the facade inscriptions, but rather reads them as part of a longstanding monumental epigraphical tradition maintained by the Longobard rulers and exploited by their Norman successors.

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Franz Neiske – Carlos Reglero de la Fuente, Das neu entdeckte Necrolog von San Zoilo de Carrión de los Condes. Ein Beitrag zum Totengedenken der Abtei Cluny (Taf.XIV–XV, Abb. 51–52) S. 141–184

An important fragment of a Cluniac necrology has recently been discovered in Spain. It was written about 1220/50 in the priory of San Zoilo de Carrión de los Condes (dioc. Palencia), the administrative centre of the Cluniac province Hispania. Actually the fragment contains only 84 days of the calendar year with the names of more than 5800 deceased. But the complete manuscript (presumably containing about 25000 names) must have been one of the largest necrologies of the Middle Ages we know about. The verso-pages of the manuscript include the names of Cluniac monks and nuns; more than 80 percent find their corresponding names in the „Synopse der cluniacensischen Necrologien“. The recto-pages present in a very distinctive way the names of friends and benefactors. The names on these pages reveal for the first time the liturgical memory carried out day by day in the abbey of Cluny itself. They permit a better interpretation of many – until now – puzzling entries in other Cluniac necrologies (for instance the one from Marcigny). The fragment of San Zoilo seems to be in the very pattern of the lost necrology of the abbey of Cluny. A minor part of this document is important for local prosopography. The latest entries of the 15th century concern more historiographical information than memoria of the dead.

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Christoph Friedrich Weber, Das Kommunikationsgeschehen der Privilegierung als Ort der Inszenierung Reichsitaliens im Hochmittelalter, oder: Wie die Staufer zu Nachfolgern des Langobardenkönigs Liutprand wurden, S. 185–206

Guided by the master narrative of the rise of the modern state, historical research on the Regnum Italicum has mainly examined the power politics, the constitution and the material basis of kingship. In this perspective, the papacy and the communes emerged as winners in contrast to the emperors who failed in establishing lasting structures of royal government. However, the Kingdom of Italy became manifest not only in institutions but all the more in acts of symbolic communication. The Staufen and their partners used the encounters in the orbit of itinerant kingship to act out their understanding of the realm in the light of its history. This essay focuses on acts of granting charters as one kind of rituals, by which medieval governance was performed quite successfully. Frederick I Barbarossa’s second Italian campaign marks a turn in using solemn acts of privileging for staging invented traditions as part of broader political strategies. The emperor demonstrated the harmony between his concepts of kingship as proclaimed at Roncaglia and the Lombard heritage, by privileging Monza as the alleged coronation place and capital of the Kingdom of Italy. He and his grandson Frederick II accepted the role as successors of good King Liutprand offered to them by the representatives of Casale Sant’ Evasio. Communes like Casale or Pavia identified themselves with the traditions of the realm by communicating with the emperor. Their enemies, Milan and its allies, propagated in return contradictory versions of the same history. The examples show that historical images were not only developed by the historiography of the period, but also by communicative acts like the production of charters. The perception of the intermediality of this medieval discourse can lead towards a better understanding of such phenomena and, however, towards an opening of the classic auxiliary sciences in this sense.

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Heinz Meyer, Nutzen und Wirkungsabsicht des Theaters nach Paratexten lateinischer Dramen der frühen Neuzeit, S. 207–248

Time and again the didactic function of the theatre is the focus of of early modern dramas, and such a focus is part of a long tradition. The criteria of intention and utility (intentio, utilitas, causa finalis, finis, scopus) were already used by the medieval practice of to evaluate literary works and to assess their value in terms of the moral education of the audience. This paper attempts to clarify the arguments and contexts of this discussion by presenting statements of selected early modern playwrights and examining them in terms of what poetological models (Aristotle, Horace, Terence) and intermediary functions (e.g. in comparison with the sermon) define the expected effect of the theatre. Furthermore, the most important ideals and values that ought to be served by the educational activity of the theatre are described: the humanistic ideal of the unity of literary culture and moral formation, the political education, the christian dissociation from the profane world, the support of either the Protestant or the Counter Reformation. Finally the question arises whether the stress on the didactic function demonstrates a mere formal expression of justification or signifies an actual expectation of the achievement of the stage and dramatic literature.

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Bernd Roling, Charles Baudelaire und Carl Georg Brunius: Bilder des Mittellateinischen im 19. Jahrhundert, S. 249–275

Besides philology and editorial skills, how were medieval Latin and medieval Latin poetry esteemed in 19th century literary culture? This paper gives two examples, one taken from late French Romanticism and fin de siècle, the other one taken from Swedish university culture. According to the French novelists Joris-Huysmans and Remy Gourmont medieval Latinity became a voice of immediate and innocent emotion, in contrast to the Latinity of classical antiquity. Especially Charles Baudelaire made use of medieval Latin, to separate himself from classicism. In Scandinavia, on the contrary, the Latin language, at least in academic circles, continuously remained an object of poetry and an instrument of poetical and scientific translations. Classical and medieval Latinity were not seen as antagonism. Inheriting this long academic tradition on the one hand and the ideas of Swedish Romanticism on the other, the Lund professor Carl-Georg Brunius could transform the Old Norse Edda into a poem, consisting of 3000 hexametrical verses, without being in doubt about its archaic medieval spirit.

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Werner Röcke, Das Spiel mit der Transgression. Normübertretung und Sanktionswille im geistlichen Spiel des Mittelalters (Maria Magdalena und Martha), S. 281–295

The validity of cultural norms in medieval society is claimed either through written rules or by common practice. The religious drama of the Middle Ages gives a third possibility to deal with cultural norms by putting them to the test in a rather playful way. Cultural norms must always be regarded in relation to their transgression. Being performed on stage, these transgressions are not only narrated but realized. This article discusses different possibilities of transgression or affirmation of cultural norms, using the example of the sisters Mary Magdalene and Martha, presented in passages of the New Testament and of medieval legend, but particularly in mystery plays of the late Middle Ages ( from Erlau, Frankfurt Passion, Alsfeld Passion: 15/16th century). Especially remarkable in terms of norm and transgression is the character of Mary Magdalene, who cannot be seen either as good or as bad, but as pacing off all the way from good to evil, enjoying herself in transgressing rules, but seriously doing penance in the end. Martha, on the other hand, is obedient to religious rules and female duties and claims the same of her sister. Thus, two different concepts of women’s life are – literally – acted out in medieval religious drama and displayed to the audience as possible options.

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Gerhard Dilcher, Mittelalterliches Recht und Ritual in ihrer wechselseitigen Beziehung, S. 297–316

Legal history today regards itself methodologically as a part of historical science. So, the relation between law and ritual should not be defined by demarcation and definition, but has to be discussed in a dialogue of both disciplines, with regard to their social functions. Both, law and ritual, have the societal function to stabilize mutual expectations, and thus the structure of a society, especially in case of conflict. In the medieval oral culture, law itself uses more often rituals as means of decision, than norms and their empirical application. So, law is partly formed by rituals. Until today the best overview over this field is to be found in Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer. Other interesting examples are presented by the various applications of the Lombard ritual of gairethinx (consent of the people in assembly to legislation, donation, manumission). On the other side, the Norman-Staufen principle of rigor iuris, including crimen lesae maiestatis as normative law sharply contrasts mediation and ritual solutions of conflicts. Until today, in modern international public law and between global enterprises similar methods of consented and ritual conflict management and mediation are applicated, when there is no institution holding the monopoly of legal power.

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Rob Meens, Kirchliche Buße und Konfliktbewältigung. Thietmar von Merseburg näher betrachtet, S. 317–330

This article argues for a better understanding of the role of ecclesiastical penance in the settlement of disputes in Ottonian Germany by analysing the early eleventh century chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg, a key witness for the study of the secular ritual of submission analysed by Gerd Althoff and known as deditio. The article discusses Thietmar’s conception of his own sinfulness, the role of royal confession and penance in his chronicle and the importance of deathbed confession, in order to get a better idea of confession in Thietmar’s time and its function in his chronicle. The conflicts described by Thietmar between Henry II and Henry of Schweinfurt as well as a violent dispute between bishop Arnulf of Halberstadt and a hunting cleric assisted by his militant supporter Hungal, reveal that ecclesiastical penance was not only a model for rituals of submission and reconciliation, but that it often was part and parcel of such rituals.

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Steffen Patzold, Normen im Buch. Überlegungen zu Geltungsansprüchen so genannter "Kapitularien", S. 331–350

The capitularies prove that, in the Carolingian realm, political and judicial decisions could be documented in written form. Concerning the transmission of these normative texts, however, we have to bear a discrepancy in mind: On the one hand, our material shows that Charlemagne and Louis the Pious attached great importance to a correct, uniform and general distribution of written normative texts. On the other hand, in practice, basic reform initiatives were documented in an astonishingly careless and diffuse way. The article takes the Aachen Capitula of 802 as an example. It first analyses the way from the oral decision-making of the king and the aristocracy to the fixed, written norms handed down to us. Then, the article argues that we should not consider capitularies as a genre, but rather evaluate the normativity of every single text separately.

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Dirk Heirbaut, Rituale und Rechtsgwohnheiten im flämischen Lehnrecht des hohen Mittelalters, S. 351–361

In Flemish feudal law during the High Middle Ages written documents were less important than rituals. However, we know of the latter only through incomplete texts, a full record of feudal proceedings not being required by law. Even though the sources give the impression of a very chaotic situation, the reality was more orderly because, at least in the minds of experts, there was a general framework which had to be adhered to. However, some rituals and rules were very exceptional. For example, in 1127–1128 after the murder of count Charles the Good, familiar rituals were used in new ways to give expression to revolutionary situations. Moreover, Flemish feudal law and its rituals were always changing, so that, even discounting extraordinary situations, our sources are only reliable for the generation in which they were written. A last point to be made is that, although legal rules belong to a more complex reality, one should not neglect their legal core. The historian should approach the latter like today’s lawyers, who see legal rules only as handy, though flawed, instruments.

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Christiane Witthöft, König Artus auf dem Schandkarren oder: Die Wandelbarkeit von Rechtsgewohnheiten im , S. 363–380

In early medieval times delinquents could be transferred by cart to the place of execution – a legal custom with an originally disgraceful meaning. In Prose Lancelot the traditional connotation seems to have changed – it appears destabilized and increasingly dissolved. In the end, the traditional, collective legal norm finds a new legitimation in a subjective code of honour. Different from Chrétien’s Lancelot, around 1250 the cart-episode is no longer only part of the minne service. The episode now mirrors a contemporary process of individual reflections and the acquaintance with a microcosm of traditional and new, legal and habitual customs.

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Alois Hahn, Differenzielle Sanktionsinteressen, S. 381–393

All punishment has to be a narration. Since the act of punishment and the crime punished may show a certain similarity it is crucial for all forms of punishment to demonstrate an unambiguous line of causality between the deed done and the punishment in order to mark clearly that the punishment is the reaction to a crime and not a crime for itself. The variety of penalties doesn’t only range from capital punishment to the fining of people but also to the abdication of punishment in a special situation. The article tries to depict some sociologically relevant interdependency between forms of punishment and the structures of the societies wherein these forms take place. For example the abdication of punishment in „primitive societies“ is in no respect caused by disability of these societies but, since these societies don’t have a legal monopoly of power, in order to avoid circles of vengeance. In contrast, it can be shown for some medieval contexts that an apparently voluntary abdication of punishment by the king in fact is a way of coping with the actual disability to execute the punishment: The abdication then is staged as an act of mercy. Emphasizing punishments in the otherworld is another possibility for religious societies to adhere to the necessity of a penalty where its realization is impossible e.g. because the number of delinquents too high.

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Frank Rexroth, Kodifizieren und Auslegen. Symbolische Grenzziehungen zwischen päpstlich-gesetzgeberischer und gelehrter Praxis im späteren Mittelalter (1209/10–1317), S. 395–414

From the (1209/10) to the Clementines (1317), collections of papal decretals were authorized by sending them together with a papal bull of authentification to more and more universities. The argument of this article is that this standardized procedure can be understood as a new practice of separation between the act of codification and the act of teaching and interpreting law. This separation seemed necessary in order to gain the scholarly practice as an authority for the legitimation of positive law.

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Wolfgang Haubrichs, Die Narration der Normen oder die Beschreibung des Ungeschriebenen. Das Beispiel , S. 415–433

In the Arthurian Romance dealing with the story of the knight Erec, it is after the latter’s almost irresistible rise to a perfect chevalier, winning tournaments, fights and a lady, that a crisis emerges, resulting from a conflict between the knight’s emotional bonds towards his beloved wife and his aristocratic duties towards society as lord of a court and a country, leading to the loss of his honour. After the active recovery of his reputation, and after obtaining for him and his lady Enite a new socially legitimized and emotionally confirmed status, the hero finally succeeds in saving a loving couple, which had deliberately isolated itself from society, bound by an oath. The crisis of the protagonist-couple Erec/Enite and the concluding aventiure of the second couple, constructed as mirror images, each reveal the norms of aristocratic and courtly integration into society. But whereas Chrétien de Troyes in his initial version of the romance explicitly discusses the norms, they are only narrated by the German adaptor Hartmann von Aue, so they can be decoded as unwritten rules by listeners or readers.

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Stephan Fuchs-Jolie, Von der Gnade erzählen. Parzival, Gottes hulde und die Gesetze des Grals, S. 435–446

At the end of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s romance, the protagonist Parzival is named to be king of the grail. Obviously, he has regained the lost hulde, the favour of the Grail and God. But whereby and how exactly did he regain it? Wolfram doesn’t narrate the way from breach to election. By making his hero nearly invisible he meanwhile tells the novel of a Gawan, a second hero. An almost similar invisibility we notice by looking on the problem of regaining hulde and favour in the theological discussion and in the regulations of vassalage. Is God’s favour something to be earned by certain acts? How can a vassal, who has lost the favour of his lord find back to favour? Different acts and rituals of penance and service have been developed, but the actual awarding of grace always remains something which is not to be fixed in terms of rules and laws. There is always a gap remaining between penance, service, acting on the one hand and election, providence, favour on the other hand. That’s what Wolfram demonstrates by making the hero invisible on his umbral way to the grail’s favour.

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Heinz Krieg, Im Spannungsfeld zwischen christlichen und adligen Normvorstellungen. Zur Beurteilung Friedrich Barbarossas in stauferzeitlicher Historiographie, S. 447–466

Close analysis shows that certain actions and ways of behaving on the part of Frederick Barbarossa were perceived and judged as problematic by his contemporaries. This is supported not only by the chronicle of Otto of St. Blaise, which was just as critical of excessively worldly-aristocratic behaviour in general as of Barbarossa as a ruler in particular. Even other historiographic depictions with a basically positive or, as in the case of the Poet of Ligurinus, panegyric image of Barbarossa do so as well. Even such a notably ruler-friendly author like Otto of Freising and certainly all of the hitherto discussed chroniclers could not or did not want to seamlessly bridge over the discrepancy between the behaviour of the emperor that apparently followed of the warrior-nobility and what were regarded as binding traditional conceptions of behavioural norms of a Christian monarch. Also within the emerging knightlycourtly culture of the twelfth century worldly-aristocratic and Christian models and exemplary actions were not congruent. Despite all attempts by the Church to approach the warrior community, notably in the ideal of the knighthood and the miles Christi, both sides remained distinguishable. The texts which were discussed here do not render a truly uniform knightly-courtly conception of a monarchy, however, they do yield with respect to the area of conflict that was discussed here a rather conflict-laden coexisting plurality – conflicting conceptions of standards – that in each case depends on the author’s different emphasis.

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