The project aims to challenge the current understanding of the cultural history of historiography in the Carolingian and post-Carolingian world (9th–12th centuries) with an innovative and precisely focussed investigation of two major centres of historical writing during this period, Salzburg and Freising. We want to explore how in the course of the transformation of the Carolingian World, the ways of thinking about, organising, compiling and writing history changed between the 9th and 12th centuries. The project will explore how new approaches to the codification of historical knowledge changed the conceptualisation and meaning of history, its generic boundaries, and its place in (real or “imagined”) libraries in these two centres. The project will use the writing and rewriting of history at these two important Bavarian centres of learning (Salzburg and Freising) as a window into these processes. Taking advantage of the recent advances in the study of the materiality of manuscript production, we shall analyse how medieval historiographers worked with parchment, pen and knife. We shall examine the different ways that texts about history were written down and combined with other texts in manuscripts; and determine the consequences of choice of scripts, mise-en-page, annotation and the contextual associations drawn with other texts in multiple text manuscripts (MTMs) had for the production of historical meaning. Secondly, we shall investigate the social context and the intellectual horizons of these forms of production: What interests were involved? Can the impact of these codices on society be identified? In what way did historical thinking become tangible – and did it change between the 9th and the early 12th century? Our guiding questions aim at:
(a) Contextualisation
(b) Libraries and scriptoria as arsenals of historical knowledge and
(c) the Meaning of the form.
At the same time, this project is a pilot study for a larger international collaborative undertaking: On the basis of ca. 35 manuscripts, we define the standards for an international project, not only with regard to the content aspects mentioned above, but also to the digital representation of the collected material.
The project has started with series of seminars at which members of this group will present their approaches, ongoing work, or future projects. This should help us to establish a common base line, and develop a more focused project design and a shared data-base for a more comprehensive comparison of different texts, contexts and trajectories, various cultural topographies and degrees of convergence in the late and post-Carolingian world – from the Atlantic, to Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean world.
15-16 September 2022
Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Organised in collaboration with Histories in Transition and the Graduiertenkolleg 2196 “Dokument – Text – Edition” by Bart van Hees and Sören Kaschke | Program
Frankish Annals: Texts – Transmission – Editions
Frankish annals of the eighth and ninth centuries still resist a consensual scholarly synthesis on several aspects. This conference aims to bring together new approaches and future perspectives for the study of annals. Starting with a review of the fundamentals of the genre, papers will then move on to changes in narrative techniques, the importance of codicological contexts, dissemination, and the practice of rewriting. Particular attention will be paid to the challenges annals are posing to editors, as the many nineteenth-century editions still in use are less and less suitable for a variety of present-day approaches. In all, the conference will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of history writing in early medieval Europe.
Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 12:00 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. CET
Graeme Ward (Universität Tübingen)
Making Liturgical History in Eleventh-Century Aquitaine: Ademar of Chabannes, Amalarius of Metz, and the Monastic Office
Wednesday, Mar 9, 2022 at 12:00 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. CET
Hans Hummer(Wayne State University)
The Carolingian Genealogies and their Manuscripts
December 1, 2021
Steffen Patzold, Universität Tübingen
The Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana as resource of historical knowledge
November 8, 2021
Marco Stoffella, Università di Verona
Christian time, calendars, and computus. The study of the past at the scriptorium in Verona
June 16, 2021
"Bede and the Continent. The Afterlives of Bede’s Chronicles, 8th to 12th Centuries"
Beda Venerabilis (672‒735) is the creator of several important texts on historiography and computus. His two chronicles in particular were widely transmitted and read soon after they were written. Especially in the Carolingian period, these sources, which were received, adapted and integrated into various codicological contexts, served as a basic framework of historical knowledge until the late Middle Ages and inspired countless chronistic and annalistic continuations. In addition, the stereotypical structure of Bede’s chronicles as a form-giving narrative inspired the composition of further chronicles. The workshop looks at the influence and effectiveness of Beda's chronicles on the basis of several examples.
Máirín MacCarron, University College Cork
The Key Features of Bede’s Chronicles
Joshua Westgard, University of Maryland
Aspects of the Afterlife of Bede’s Historical Writings
Sören Kaschke, Universität zu Köln
“The Years They Are A-Changing”. Bede’s Reckoning of Time and Its Adaptation in the Chronicon Universale of 741
Patrick S. Marschner, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
A Historiographical Triad? Bede, the "Chronicon Moissiacense" and the Chronicle of Claudius of Turin
Richard Corradini, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
The "Chronica de VI aetatibus mundi". A Successful Bede Follow-up
May 25, 2021
Bart van Hees, Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Annals in the Frankish realms
March 29, 2021
Eric J. Goldberg, Massachussets Institute of Technology
Eyewitness to the End of Empire: Author, Argument, and Audience of the ‘Annals of Saint-Vaast’
January 18, 2021
Charlotte Denoël, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
Image and Text in Ademar of Chabannes’ Notebook Leiden VLO 15
December 9, 2020
Maximilian Diesenberger, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Histories in Transition: Salzburg and Admont
November 23, 2020
Jo Story, Leicester University
Frankish History in Twelfth-century Durham: Symeon and the Manuscript Evidence
October 5, 2020
Helmut Reimitz, Princeton University
History Books, the History of the Book and the History of History in the Carolingian and Post-Carolingian World
July 3, 2020
Patrick S. Marschner, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
The World Map of the Corpus Pelagianum (BNE, Ms. 1513, fol. 1v.) and its Strategies of Identification
June 19, 2020
Steffen Patzold, Universität Tübingen
Writing and Using History in 10th- and 11th-Century Bavaria: The Case of Freising
June 5, 2020
Matthias M. Tischler, ICREA/Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Mapping the Early Medieval Landscape of Histories between Aquitaine, Southern Gaul and the Northern Iberian Peninsula: Some Hypotheses on the Role and Impact of Carolingian Historiography in Southwestern Europe
May 22, 2020
Frederic Clark, University of Southern California
Critique and Book History: An Agenda for the History of Scholarship from the Medieval Manuscript Codex to Early Modern Print
Weave Joint Project
DFG-Project 524671186
FWF-Project I 6576
Project leaders:
Maximilian Diesenberger (Vienna)
Steffen Patzold (Tübingen)
Project members:
Ksenia Borisova (Tübingen)
Leon Pürstinger (Vienna)
Duration:
2024–2027
in Cooperation with
funded by