Table Of ContentRules and Rituals in Medieval Power Games
Medieval Law and Its Practice
Edited by
John Hudson (St Andrews)
Editorial Board
Paul Brand (All Souls College, Oxford)
Emanuele Conte (Universita Roma Tre/ ehess, Paris)
Maribel Fierro (ILC-CCHS, CSIC)
Dirk Heirbaut (University of Ghent)
Richard Helmholz (University of Chicago)
Caroline Humfress (St Andrews)
Magnus Ryan (Peterhouse, Cambridge)
Robin Chapman Stacey (University of Washington)
volume 29
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Rules and Rituals in
Medieval Power Games
A German Perspective
By
Gerd Althoff
LEIDEN | BOSTON
The translation of this volume was funded by: Cluster of Excellence “Religion and politics”, Münster 2018.
Cover illustration: “Friedrich Barbarossa 1157 zu Besançon, den Streit der Parteien schlichtend” (Otto von
Wittelsbach, 1120–1183, will sich auf die päpstlichen Legaten stürzen). Oil painting, 1859, by Hermann
Freihold Plüddemann (1809–1868). Inv. Nr. GNM 2343. Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsamlungen Dresden,
Galerie Neue Meister. With kind permission of AKG-Images (Bildnummer: AKG809215).
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Contents
Preface vii
List of Illustrations ix
Original Publications x
part 1
Introduction
1 What Exactly Are Spielregeln? 3
2 Spielregeln and Rituals 9
3 Spielregeln, Order of Rank and Conflicts 16
part 2
Rules
4 Authority and Violence of Kings in Tenth and Eleventh Century
Germany 25
5 Rules of Conflict among the Warrior Aristocracy of the High Middle
Ages 42
6 Openness and Secrecy: Two Fundamental Categories of Medieval
Communication 61
7 Saxon Bishops in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries: Strategies and
Rules of Their Political Activities 74
8 The Perspective of an Expert: Gislebert of Mons 89
vi Contents
part 3
Rituals
9 Rituals and Their “Spielregeln” in the Middle Ages 109
10 The Variability of Rituals 128
11 Rituals as Lingua Franca? Joint Cultural Practises at the Eastern
Borders of the Realm 143
12 Symbolic Communication and Medieval Order: Strengths and
Weaknesses of Ambiguous Signs 159
part 4
Gregorian Revolution
13 Papal Authority in the High Middle Ages 173
14 Communicating Papal Primacy: the Impact of Gregory VII’s Ideas
(11th–13th Century) 189
15 Examples of Justifying and Rejecting Churchly Violence at the Time
of the Gregorian Revolution 203
part 5
History in Literature
16 Do Poets Play with the Rules of Society? 217
17 Heroes Who Break the Mould: Duke Ernst and the Emperor Otto 234
Conclusion 247
Works Cited 255
Index 278
Preface
This book provides an overview of a subject I have been preoccupied with
since the early Eighties of the last century: Rules and Rituals in Medieval Power
Games. It presents a German perspective, the background of which requires
some explanation.
For a long time, the epoch of the High Middle Ages (the tenth to thirteenth
centuries), in Germany called “Deutsche Kaiserzeit,” was presented by the
Germans as their “Golden Past,” because it was the common conviction deeply
rooted in society and historical science that during those times the “Reich”
had been the pre-eminent force for order, the “Vor- und Ordnungsmacht,” in
Europe. First and foremost, the kings and emperors of the Ottonian, Salian and
Staufen dynasties were credited with this success. They were well-known and
popular heroes of the German past. This conception of history dominated the
German consciousness in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, causing na-
tional self-overestimation. Not least, it was – among other reasons – responsi-
ble for two world wars, because the nation was susceptible to the flawed vision
of reclaiming its Golden Past. Assumptions about this past were transformed
into claims of validity in the present.
After the Second World War and the end of the Nazi regime, nothing was
less adequate than this conception of the German Middle Ages. Nevertheless,
it was not until the next generation of medievalists that new perspectives on
the German history of the Middle Ages were developed. What these new con-
ceptions had in common was that they presented medieval society as an un-
familiar pre-state society whose mentalities, beliefs, customs, institutions and
procedures were no longer easily understandable, but instead represented a
distant and different world. The politics of this society followed completely
different rules from those of our modern-day society. For a long time this
stimulating change of paradigm held nearly all my interest in answering the
question of how this medieval society and lordship functioned. This book as-
sembles some of the answers I eventually reached in exploring various aspects
of this question.
The Introduction and chapters of this volume all originated as lectures, ar-
ticles or book-chapters, and the Conclusion gives a more precise description
of which aspects are dealt with in the individual chapters. The unusually high
number of other contributions of mine to this theme, mentioned in the foot-
notes and Bibliography, documents to some extent how obsessed I have been
with this task. I apologize for these seemingly narcissistic self-quotations.
viii Preface
By now, such approaches have given way to other paradigms of transcultural
and global dimensions in German and international research. They have even
come under fire as being Eurocentric or teleological. But this judgement is mis-
leading, because it does not take into account the need to refute and replace
previous nationalistic concepts of history. And especially at a time when fewer
people read German, it should be interesting and rewarding for international
scholars to have access to the processes of rewriting parts of Germany’s na-
tional history.
Several institutions and people have earned great merit for their help in
finishing and producing this book. The Cluster of Excellence “Religion and
Politics” at Münster has, as ever, been the intellectual homeland where un-
dertakings such as this can grow, and where colleagues from different disci-
plines gave support and encouragement for this book. Through their generous
financial support, the Cluster as an institution made possible an intensive
control of the translation by native speakers. Kate Gilbert (Boston) checked
and improved two-thirds of the translations. It was very impressive for me how
perfectly she was able to comprehend what the author “really” meant. If one
enjoys the reading of this book, it is entirely due to her. Another third was
controlled by Theo Riches (Münster), who is also responsible for detecting and
neutralising a great deal of German gravitas and complexity. Last but not least,
Janna Stupperich (Münster) has counterbalanced all my weaknesses in IT. She
never lost control of the many versions of the chapters, and not only mastered
communication across the Atlantic but also offered helpful suggestions for the
translations.
I am very grateful for the interest of John Hudson (St Andrews), who inte-
grated this volume into his renowned series ‘Medieval Law and Its Practice’
(MLIP) at BRILL. His support and the professional management of the produc-
tion by Marcella Mulder (BRILL, Leiden) will remain in my thankful memory.
This book is dedicated to Pat Geary, Geoff Koziol and Philippe Buc whose
friendly headwinds encouraged me.
Gerd Althoff
Münster, June 2019
