Conference report: Uses of the Past in Times of Transition. Forgetting, Using, and Discrediting the Past

From the 30th of May to the 1st of June, 2019, the Austrian Academy of Sciences hosted the final conference of the After Empire project in Vienna. The conference brought together scholars working on post-Carolingian Europe with those working on other regions experiencing their own ‘times of transition’. Like many of the speakers, several of the moderators…

Source Translation: King Henry the Fowler frees the priest Baldmunt from slavery, 11 August 926

Henry I, known as ‘The Fowler’, was the first ruler of the new Ottonian dynasty (named after his son Otto I). His rule is often seen as a new phase in East Frankish kingship, distinct both from the members of the Carolingian dynasty whom he followed and that of his son Otto I.  On 11…

Good King Wenceslas? Royal Justice in the Tenth Century (Part I)

The Bohemian Duke Wenceslas has been closely associated with Christmas ever since 1853, when John Mason Neale set his ‘Good King Wenceslas’ to the tune of a medieval spring carol. Despite Neale’s effort being described as ‘ridiculous’, ‘doggerel’ and ‘poor’ by critics of the time, it has become a ubiquitous part of December for many,…

All in the family? A beginner’s guide to Carolingian genealogies in the 10th and 11th century

One of the genres of source that I’m closely working with as part of the After Empire project is genealogies. Genealogies are especially interesting texts both for the questions that this project is investigating and for my own research interests: how do people engage with the past? And how in particular do they engage with…

A Letter from Abbot Odilo of Cluny

In the early middle ages, letter-writing was a difficult art to master. Letters were supposed to follow elaborate stylistic models. The language was supposed to be sophisticated and rhetorically complex. Many letters were conspicuously public documents, written to be read aloud, and not only by the recipient. But accomplished letter-writers could use their skills to…

I’ll be in Rome for Christmas: Ottonian memories of the past at Christmas

Where do you spend Christmas? For medieval rulers, this was a very important question, and one that had many possible answers. In the tenth century, the itinerant Ottonian rulers spent Christmas at many different places across the empire, often at major cities like Frankfurt, Pavia, Rome, Cologne and Ravenna. Celebrating Christmas was one of the…

The Ottonian queen as ‘consors regni’

Uses of the past, or responses to it, are not only to be found in historical narratives, but are also necessarily reflected in a society’s political institutions. The history of Ottonian queenship provides an interesting case in point, since we cannot begin to analyse it without taking a position on the debt it owed to…