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Diese Studie untersucht die Gruppenbildungen und Vernetzungen von Bischöfen zwischen 1032 und 1156 im von den Vogesen über die Westalpen bis ans Mittelmeer reichenden burgundischen Raum. In jener Zeit sorgten die burgundischen Bistümer für eine gewisse Konstanz in einer Region, die von Königsferne und herrschaftlicher
Zergliederung geprägt war. Besonders die Prälaten aus den Kirchenprovinzen Besançon, Tarentaise, Vienne und Lyon machten Burgund durch ihre Beziehungen und Interaktionen zu einem sozialen Raum, der verschiedene Regionen West- und Mitteleuropas miteinander verband. Anhand schriftlicher Zeugnisse wie Urkunden, Briefen, Kanones, Totenlisten und erzählenden Quellen wird gezeigt, welche Bedeutung diese Akteure als Reformer
und Vermittler für die tiefgreifenden Umbrüche des europäischen Hochmittelalters hatten.

The present study examines the conception of poverty in the early medieval period. It especially focuses on the poor relief by the Merovingian bishops and particularly on the religious and legal
foundations of their care. Drawing on contemporaneous historiographical, hagiographical as well as epigraphical source material, this study concludes that the concept of poverty was kept surprisingly
open and was in part even deliberately broadened to provide the bishops with numerous argumentative avenues to legitimize their power with recurse to their care activities. The measures of episcopal care for the poor that can thereby be delineated are shown to exceed any of the traditional exempla and are revealed to be an essential component of early medieval episcopal rule.

Late medieval bishops were church dignitaries as well as princes of the Holy Roman Empire and thus rulers of prince-bishoprics. They therefore faced various clerical and secular challenges. Until now, the state of research concerning the great number of bishops ruling quite small prince-bishoprics is rather inadequate. Those clerics have so far been seen as less powerful and dependent on other actors. Focusing on the late medieval bishops of Minden, this study examines episcopal agency. The closer look at the possibilities and limitations of episcopal actions is a novelty: The methodology has been developed studying secular princes of the empire and is now applied to bishops for the first time. Hence,
their rooms for manoeuvre are analysed with a view to both clerical and secular questions.

This study analyses the founding and reform of Muri monastery from the perspective of high medieval sources and regards it from a cultural memory point of view. Twelfth-century sources pass down memories of Muri’s history but at the same time remain silent on certain aspects; it is therefore explored whether there are moments of instrumentalisation of memory and strategies of interpretation are determined. In doing so, it turns out that the monastery’s past is closely connected with the history of the early Habsburgs, who operated in the Burgundian-Swabian border area, and at the same time Muri’s history is embedded in the institutional and ecclesiastical-political context of the high medieval Roman-German Empire.

1278, 1306 and 1310 are significant dates, representing the death of Přemysl Otakar II at the Marchfeld, the assassination of Wenceslas III in Olomouc and the election of John of Luxembourg as King of Bohemia. These events were fundamental to the fate of Bohemia at the beginning of the 14th century and were described in detail by Peter of Zittau, the abbot of the monastery of Aula Regia and the author of the eponymous chronicle. This publication focuses on the Chronicle of Aula Regia and analyzes the author's portrayal of the rulers, the nobility, the clergy and citizens. Peter of Zittau's moral instructions to rulers, which were often written as verses, his sources, his networks of guarantors and his observations offer striking evidence of an extraordinarily talented chronicler.

Nobles, clergymen, jews and craftsmen as well as entire monasteries or rural communities were incorporated as citizens in late medieval towns. The terms and exceptions from the general rules of citizenship were stipulated in contracts called Burgrechte. The rapid success of this specific category of legal agreement resulted in their widespread application in the towns of late medieval upper Germany. Burgrechte were employed as political treaties and became the primary mean to enforce urban supremacy over nobles and rural communites. On the basis of case studies, this book analyses conflicts generated by Burgrechte in the Old Swiss Confederation. It shows how eminently politics, society and conflict resolution were shaped by Burgrechte, and how flexible the political actors were able to play with this kind of contracts.

This study shows that play and games were much more significant in medieval education than previously assumed. Teachers in ecclesiastical schools as well as teachers of young princes and princesses agreed that movement games were necessary for their students’
physical health. This also applied to the training of young scholars at the universities. Play and games of all kinds also contributed to moral, language and science instruction. Moreover, according to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, well-educated people should acknowledge the necessity of play for human life and at the same time be able to shape their conduct in play in a moderate and virtuous way.

This study deals with a phenomenon common during the time of the crusades in the Holy Land: Christian captivity by the Muslims. The crusades will be perceived not only as a matter of military concern or as a settlement movement, but also as a framework by which Latin Christendom interpreted its own history. Based on this system of reference the social, political, economic and cultural significance and implications of captivity for the crusading movement and the crusader principalities in Outremer will be analysed.

Bernische und Walliser Akteure, Netzwerke und Strategien

Zur kirchlichen Transformation des spätrömischen Patronatswesens im früheren Mittelalter

Die mittelalterlichen Zensualen waren kirchliche Abhängige, die seit dem 11. Jahrhundert vielerorts ihre Freiheit erkämpften. Die Studie untersucht erstmalig die Formierung dieser Gruppe seit der Spätantike. Weil die frühmittelalterliche Kirche die Freilassung von Sklaven, wenn sie in der Kirche erfolgte, als religiöse Handlung deutete, durch welche die Patronatsrechte über die freigelassene Person dem Heiligen überschrieben wurden, bildete sich unter dessen Schutz die Zensualität als eigene Gruppe heraus. Da dieser Prozess auch vom Königtum gefördert wurde, wirft die Interpretation neues Licht auf die Kommunebewegung in den hochmittelalterlichen Bischofsstädten.

Ein Lebensbild mit Werkverzeichnis sowie Edition und Übersetzung von Berns "Vita S. Uodalrici"

Bislang existiert keine wissenschaftliche Monographie zu dem Reichenauer Abt, wie auch eine mittelalterliche Vita von ihm fehlt. Und doch ist Bern von Reichenau als Abt, Gelehrter und Schriftsteller eine der bedeutendsten Gestalten der ersten Hälfte des 11. Jahrhunderts. Politischen Einfluß übt er während der Ägide dreier Herrscher aus. Als Gelehrter ist er berühmt und sein Nachleben als Schriftsteller reicht bis ins 15. Jahrhundert. – Untersuchungen zu Leben und Werk sowie eine Edition und Übersetzung seines größten schriftstellerischen Erfolgs sollen erstmals diese Bedeutung umfassend ausleuchten.

Zur inneren Geschichte eines frühmittelalterlichen Klosters

Die Überlieferung des Klosters Sankt Gallen ist in einmaliger Dichte erhalten. So werden hier mehr als fünfhundert zwischen 800 und 933 lebende Mönche biographisch vorgestellt und können die bekannten kulturellen Leistungen, welche mit gängigen Namen wie Notker, Ratpert, Hartmann oder Ekkehart verbunden sind, endlich bestimmten Mönchen zugeordnet werden. Die sozialen Bedingungen der Gemeinschaft wie der einzelnen Mönche treten zutage, und man erhält Aufschluß über Eintrittsumstände, Entwicklung der Konventsstärke sowie Verweildauer der Mönche im Kloster. Urkundenherstellung, Skriptorium, Klosterschule und Klosterämter erhellen in ihrem Wandel das Ende karolingischer Renaissance.