Listen der Herrschaft : Studien zum Überlieferungszusammenhang von fränkischen Königskatalogen und Leges / Karl Giesriegl

• VerfasserIn: Giesriegl, Karl 1965-
• Place / Publishing House: 2002
• Year of Publication: 2002
• Language: German
• Physical Description: 252 Bl.

eng: The posing of questions concerning the meaning of historiographical materials embedded in the Lex Salica is of particular interest, in that only two of the 84 surviving manuscript examples of the Laws exhibit such. At first glance, therefore, we have an unusual paucity of written historical material. This alone is both remarkable and noteworthy, but it is not complete: surrounding the Lex Salica are materials of a thorough and particular historiographical nature. That is, condensed historical materials are presented both in the prologue (or rather, prologues, for the Lex Salica boasts two, one short and one long) and in the regnal lists. Within the various regnal lists, specifically within their laconic and formulaic presentation, free from un-actualized textual passages, a unique field of tensions can be perceived. On the one hand regnal lists, with their minimal narrative, fit well into the schematic of law-giving (which in no way was allowed to be consumed by the complications and diversions of history), and the kings served as sources of legitimation for the power of the law. That is, the question of how far a legalistic text could evoke historical discourse is a question worth pursuing, while on the other hand memoria is therein portrayed so one-dimensionally that any decision, whether to delete a ruler or where to begin and end the list, is utterly crucial to the list's meaning. At the same time, the intellectual competence of a reader is boldly challenged by a regnal list, if he approaches the list with a narrative understanding. The reader must extrapolate a history from pre-suppositions, as the elementary conditions for a narrative sequence are absent. In this line any question concerning the degree of encyclopedic representation by a medieval audience is of course difficult to answer, but this is a fundamental problem in the evaluation of any medieval text, which we encounter only on the level of it's signifiants. The creation of the historian stands only in opposition, and it itself cannot be spared a semiotic connection in an attempt to break out of the corset of literary criticism. The connection of the regnal lists with the lex scripta is, in its strictest interpretation, exactly what the written word should be: a solidification. It solidifies the signifies freedom of movement. The search for a judge, making decisions with the law book in his hand, is not the last piece in the puzzle; more important is that in a world of rhetoric there is a return to substance, a solidity offered by the inscription of law - particularly when a free interaction of argument, logoi, and dialectic determine the form of judgment. In Derrida's terms, law is the element of calculation; there is a constant calculation of the incalculable. The narrative structure of regnal-lists consists of the solidification of events in actualized discourse, moving out from the spoken. In the regnal lists it is the power of relation that is absent, as there are elements missing for actors to manipulate. Only the king escapes the fluidity of narrative confinement, as he is placed in the list and becomes static. In exchange the king receives authority, the confirmation and legitimation that the legal text can provide; it is a an unspoken, irrefutable and infallible gift.