The Construction of Ottonian Kingship

The Construction of Ottonian Kingship PDF Author: Antoni Grabowski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789048551385
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
"German historians long assumed that the German Kingdom was created with Henry the Fowler's coronation in 919. The reigns of both Henry the Fowler, and his son Otto the Great, were studied and researched mainly through Widukind of Corvey's chronicle Res Gestae Saxonicae. There was one source on Ottonian times that was curiously absent from most of the serious research: Liudprand of Cremona's Antapodosis. The study of this chronicle leads to a reappraisal of the tenth century in Western Europe showing how mythology of the dynasty was constructed. By looking at the later reception (through later Middle Ages and then on 19th and 20th century historiography) the author showcases the longevity of Ottonian myths and the ideological expressions of the tenth century storytellers."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

The Construction of Ottonian Kingship

The Construction of Ottonian Kingship PDF Author: Antoni Grabowski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789048551385
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
"German historians long assumed that the German Kingdom was created with Henry the Fowler's coronation in 919. The reigns of both Henry the Fowler, and his son Otto the Great, were studied and researched mainly through Widukind of Corvey's chronicle Res Gestae Saxonicae. There was one source on Ottonian times that was curiously absent from most of the serious research: Liudprand of Cremona's Antapodosis. The study of this chronicle leads to a reappraisal of the tenth century in Western Europe showing how mythology of the dynasty was constructed. By looking at the later reception (through later Middle Ages and then on 19th and 20th century historiography) the author showcases the longevity of Ottonian myths and the ideological expressions of the tenth century storytellers."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

The Construction of Ottonian Kingship

The Construction of Ottonian Kingship PDF Author: Antoni Grabowski
Publisher: Intellectual and Political History
ISBN: 9789462987234
Category : Deutschland
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
German historians long assumed that the German Kingdom was created with Henry the Fowler's coronation in 919. The reigns of both Henry the Fowler, and his son Otto the Great, were studied and researched mainly through Widukind of Corvey's chronicle Res Gestae Saxonicae. There was one source on Ottonian times that was curiously absent from most of the serious research: Liudprand of Cremona's Antapodosis. The study of this chronicle leads to a reappraisal of the tenth century in Western Europe showing how mythology of the dynasty was constructed. By looking at the later reception (through later Middle Ages and then on 19th and 20th century historiography) the author showcases the longevity of Ottonian myths and the ideological expressions of the tenth century storytellers.

Kingship and Justice in the Ottonian Empire

Kingship and Justice in the Ottonian Empire PDF Author: Laura Wangerin
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472131397
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Laura E. Wangerin challenges traditional views of the Ottonian Empire’s rulership. Drawing from a broad array of sources including royal and imperial diplomas, manuscript illuminations, and histories, Ottonian kingship and the administration of justice are investigated using traditional historical and comparative methodologies as well as through the application of innovative approaches such as modern systems theories. This study suggests that distinctive elements of the Ottonians’ governing apparatus, such as its decentralized structure, emphasis on the royal iter, and delegation of authority, were essential features of a highly developed political system. Kingship and Justice in the Ottonian Empire provides a welcome addition to English-language scholarship on the Ottonians, as well as to scholarship dealing with rulership and medieval legal studies. Scholars have recognized the importance of ritual and symbolic behaviors in the Ottonian political sphere, while puzzling over the apparent lack of administrative organization, a contradiction between what we know about the Ottonians as successful rulers and their traditional characterization as rulers of a disorganized polity. Trying to account for the apparent disparity between their political and military achievements, cultural and artistic efflorescence, and relative dynastic stability, which seemingly accompanied a disinterest in writing law or creating a centralized hierarchical administration, is a tension that persists in the scholarship. This book argues that far from being accidental successes or employing primitive methods of governance, the Ottonians were shrewd rulers and administrators who exploited traditional methods of conflict resolution and delegated jurisdictional authority to keep control over their vast empire. Thus, one of the important things that this book aims to accomplish is to challenge our preconceived notions of what successful government looks like.

Kingship and Justice in the Ottonian Empire

Kingship and Justice in the Ottonian Empire PDF Author: Laura Wangerin
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472125281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Laura E. Wangerin challenges traditional views of the Ottonian Empire’s rulership. Drawing from a broad array of sources including royal and imperial diplomas, manuscript illuminations, and histories, Ottonian kingship and the administration of justice are investigated using traditional historical and comparative methodologies as well as through the application of innovative approaches such as modern systems theories. This study suggests that distinctive elements of the Ottonians’ governing apparatus, such as its decentralized structure, emphasis on the royal iter, and delegation of authority, were essential features of a highly developed political system. Kingship and Justice in the Ottonian Empire provides a welcome addition to English-language scholarship on the Ottonians, as well as to scholarship dealing with rulership and medieval legal studies. Scholars have recognized the importance of ritual and symbolic behaviors in the Ottonian political sphere, while puzzling over the apparent lack of administrative organization, a contradiction between what we know about the Ottonians as successful rulers and their traditional characterization as rulers of a disorganized polity. Trying to account for the apparent disparity between their political and military achievements, cultural and artistic efflorescence, and relative dynastic stability, which seemingly accompanied a disinterest in writing law or creating a centralized hierarchical administration, is a tension that persists in the scholarship. This book argues that far from being accidental successes or employing primitive methods of governance, the Ottonians were shrewd rulers and administrators who exploited traditional methods of conflict resolution and delegated jurisdictional authority to keep control over their vast empire. Thus, one of the important things that this book aims to accomplish is to challenge our preconceived notions of what successful government looks like.

Royal Childhood and Child Kingship

Royal Childhood and Child Kingship PDF Author: Emily Joan Ward
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108838375
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The first comparative study of royal childhood and child kingship, revealing the fundamental role they played in medieval rulership.

Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200

Paths to Kingship in Medieval Latin Europe, c. 950–1200 PDF Author: Björn Weiler
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009006223
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
Medieval Europe was a world of kings, but what did this mean to those who did not themselves wear a crown? How could they prevent corrupt and evil men from seizing the throne? How could they ensure that rulers would not turn into tyrants? Drawing on a rich array of remarkable sources, this engaging study explores how the fears and hopes of a ruler's subjects shaped both the idea and the practice of power. It traces the inherent uncertainty of royal rule from the creation of kingship and the recurring crises of royal successions, through the education of heirs and the intrigue of medieval elections, to the splendour of a king's coronation, and the pivotal early years of his reign. Monks, crusaders, knights, kings (and those who wanted to be kings) are among a rich cast of characters who sought to make sense of and benefit from an institution that was an object of both desire and fear.

The Dangers of Ritual

The Dangers of Ritual PDF Author: Philippe Buc
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691144427
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Central to current understandings of medieval history is the concept of political ritual, encompassing events from coronations to funerals, entries into cities, civic games, banquets, hunting, acts of submission or commendation, and more. ''Ritual?'' asks Philippe Buc. In The Dangers of Ritual he boldly argues that the concept shouldn't be so central after all. Modern-day scholars, gently seduced by twentieth-century theories of ritual, often misinterpret medieval documents that ostensibly describe such events, in part because they fail to appreciate the intentions behind them. The book begins with four case studies whose arrangement--backward from texts on tenth-century kingship to fourth-century representations of Christian martyrdom--allows for the line of development to be peeled back layer by layer. It then turns to an analysis of the formation of the intellectual traditions that contemporary historians have employed to interpret medieval documents. Tracing the emergence of the concept of ritual from the Reformation to the mid-twentieth century, Buc highlights the continuities yet also the profound transformations between the early medieval understandings and our own, social-scientific models. Medieval historians will find this book an indispensable resource for its insights into methodological issues crucial to their discipline. As Buc demonstrates, only rigorous attention to the contexts within which authors worked can allow us to reconstruct from medieval documents how ''rituals'' might have functioned. Ultimately, he argues, too swift an application of contemporary models to highly complex textual artifacts blinds us to the specificities of early medieval European political culture.

The Making of Medieval Central Europe

The Making of Medieval Central Europe PDF Author: Martin Wihoda
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498568432
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
Although the distant origins of medieval Central Europe have enjoyed constant interest among historians, only marginal attention has been paid to the power and political prerequisites for the first Westernization, i.e. the gradual adoption of the values, norms and patterns of behavior of the Latin West by the communities (gentes) around the eastern edge of the Carolingian and subsequently Holy Roman Empires. Such a gap in knowledge, long overlooked, is now being filled by The Making of Medieval Central Europe: Power and Political Prerequisites for the First Westernization, 791-1122. While respecting the state of research and based on an original analysis of the sources, this book offers an informed reflection of a complex dialogue that was initiated after the collapse of the Avar Khaganate at the end of the 8th century and that, by the beginning of the 12th century, gave rise to a Central Europe that was Westernized (i.e. turned toward the West) yet in many ways distinctive. Another and no less important added value of this book is the author's conscious effort to overcome the narrow interpretive matrices defined by the national interests of the time.

The Rhetorical Construction of Kingship in Late Anglo-Saxon Legal Documents and the Rise of Cnut's Anglo-Scandanavian Empire

The Rhetorical Construction of Kingship in Late Anglo-Saxon Legal Documents and the Rise of Cnut's Anglo-Scandanavian Empire PDF Author: Jay Paul Gates
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


Ottonian Queenship

Ottonian Queenship PDF Author: Simon MacLean
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192520490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This is the first major study in English of the queens of the Ottonian dynasty (919-1024). The Ottonians were a family from Saxony who are often regarded as the founders of the medieval German kingdom. They were the most successful of all the dynasties to emerge from the wreckage of the pan-European Carolingian Empire after it disintegrated in 888, ruling as kings and emperors in Germany and Italy and exerting indirect hegemony in France and in Eastern Europe. It has long been noted by historians that Ottonian queens were peculiarly powerful - indeed, among the most powerful of the entire Middle Ages. Their reputations, particularly those of the empresses Theophanu (d.991) and Adelheid (d.999) have been commemorated for a thousand years in art, literature, and opera. But while the exceptional status of the Ottonian queens is well appreciated, it has not been fully explained. Ottonian Queenship offers an original interpretation of Ottonian queenship through a study of the sources for the dynasty's six queens, and seeks to explain it as a phenomenon with a beginning, middle, and end. The argument is that Ottonian queenship has to be understood as a feature in a broader historical landscape, and that its history is intimately connected with the unfolding story of the royal dynasty as a whole. Simon MacLean therefore interprets the spectacular status of Ottonian royal women not as a matter of extraordinary individual personalities, but as a distinctive product of the post-Carolingian era in which the certainties of the ninth century were breaking down amidst overlapping struggles for elite family power, royal legitimacy, and territory. Queenship provides a thread which takes us through the complicated story of a crucial century in Europe's creation, and helps explain how new ideas of order were constructed from the debris of the past.