Gerd Althoff
His dissertation on this occasion was based on research into the Billung and Ottonian dynasties: it was published in 1984, entitled "Adels- und Königsfamilien im Spiegel ihrer Memorialüberlieferung ..." (loosely, "Nobility and royalty through the mirror of their memorialised traditions ...").
[15] Beyond his wide-ranging mainstream professorial work in Germany, Althoff acquired several international guest professorships, notably at Berkeley (1995), the EHESS in Paris (1998) and, more recently, at Moscow (2011).
[13][16] Many of his essays on these themes, produced since the 1980s, have been gathered together and published in two volumes[b] Many of his studies on the Ottonian and Salian periods have become standard works for scholars, along with Althoff's publications on the power of ritual and his biographical pieces on relatives, friends and collaborators of the dynasts.
In a departure from the traditional view, Althoff and Keller interpreted Henry's rejection of an episcopal anointment not as a provocative anti-church move intended to rile the bishops, but as a sign that he preferred to consolidate his royal rule through a more collaborative approach.
[27][28] For Althoff and Keller Henry I and Otto I were not symbolic precursors of Germany's later power and grandeur, but distant representatives of an archaic society, firmly rooted not in subsequent developments but in its own past.
In the first part of April 2006 Althoff initiated Spring conference of the Konstanz Working Group for Medieval History [de] to be held on the Island of Reichenau and mark the 900th anniversary year of Henry's death.
[39][40] The book resonated strongly with commentators and readers because the situation at the time of its appearance made it particularly topical, notably because of its approach to the history of ideas and the way in which its structure incorporated tightly source-based argumentation.
[41][42] As a result of the part played by royal advisors in German history between the ninth and twelfth centuries, Althoff identified the development of a political culture of "managed consensus building" ("gelenkten Konsensherstellung") under Charlemagne which formed the basis for a significantly enhanced level of participation in government both by church leaders and by the nobility.
They were struck by the way in which members of leading families had increasingly asserted their importance by entering the names of their relations and friends, with accompanying entreaties that the monks and nuns should pray for the immortal souls of those departed, in "Gedenkbücher" at each of several different religious houses.
[47] Althoff's shared insights on the importance of friendship alliances and oaths of mutual support have significantly enhanced understanding and have become widely accepted among scholars researching Henry I and his Ottonian successors.
According to Althoff, his research confirmed that those wars also ended with Duke Widukind banished to the island monastery at Reichenau and, following baptism, obliged to spend the rest of his life as a monk.
In 1927 the influential legal historian Heinrich Mitteis [de] published work summarizing his research on medieval political trials [c] conducted before the kings' courts between approximately 900 and 1300.
[13] From this central importance of personal connection and symbolic forms of communication, Althoff derived his thesis of "Ottonian kingship without the state", which he pointedly contrasted with the previous century's "Carolingian statehood".
[76] There was, according to Althoff, a very clear distinction to be drawn with Anglo-American historiography of France, Iceland or England in the Middle Ages, in respect of which it is not unreasonable to investigate conflict through court records, and the Ottonian-Salian "state" which could be studied more usefully through what he termed "historiographical texts".
With specific reference to Althoff's conclusions on the significance of deditio, Moeglin insisted that, far from being a privilege reserved for the nobility the "submission ritual" extended across the entire social spectrum.
[85][86] Althoff's research has led him to conclude that the political structure of the Ottonian-Salian period in "Germania" was strikingly different both from the order established by the Carolingians and their heirs in West Francia and from that of the Staufer rulers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
[89] Subsequently, under the Staufer rulers, the guiding principle of leniency on the art of the kings was no longer to the fore, and the preferred measure for the effectiveness of government became the "rigor iusticiae" (the "forcefulness of the justice system").
[57][94] At the same time, in London, Anglo-Saxon research on the political importance of rituals and signs was being undertaken by Althoff's near-contemporary Janet Nelson, a former doctoral student of the respected Cambridge Medievalist scholar, Walter Ullmann.
His research findings were no longer viewed by colleagues as mere anecdotal adornments to the more traditionally revered gleanings from a small number of surviving court documents, but as important evidential statements in their own right about the functioning of medieval kingship.
By "rituals", the author explains in a footnote on page 13, he means "the chains of actions, symbols and indeed words ..., that are tied to an overall behavioural pattern, and through repetition achieve a reinforcing power of recognition".
[77] Althoff's book was critically reviewed in Historische Zeitschrift by Hanna Vollrath [de], who complained that the author was purporting to "explain general shifts from one specific ritual event".
[111] Michael Borgolte was critical that in "tying up Ottonian kingship in customs and rituals", Althoff had lost sight of the personality of Otto III, identified in its titles as the subject of the book.
Like Johannes Fried at Frankfurt, he used Ottonian historiography as an opportunity to assess the distorting impact of oral transmission on the written historiographical records dating from (in this instance) the tenth century.
He insisted that there were particularly good reasons to place trust in the Res gestae Saxonicae, on account of its dedication to Matilda, the teenage daughter of Otto the Great who in 967/968, when the work was completed, was the only member of the imperial family north of the Alps.
[118][119] Building his argument, Althoff contends that in tenth century Ottonian historiography the liberty to change the "accepted version of truth" was severely restricted in respect of any issues in which the self-defined "good and great" had an interest.
In 1989 Fried set forward the thesis that the Gnesen meeting represented the limitation of an uprising by Bolesław (subsequently viewed in mainstream Polish sources as the first King of Poland) to an essentially pragmatic acknowledgement of acts that had already taken place on the ground.
[139] Fried reacted a few years later by restating his view of Canossa in more detail and, despite a stated intention to back his arguments "Sine ira et studio" in a style that others found polemical.
[147][148] Hans-Werner Goetz went further in 2003, asserting that early medieval kingship was principally defined by ritual and the symbolism of overlordship [e][149] During recent decades a whole succession of historical works has been published covering processions, the interactions and meetings of rulers, burial cerminies and other ritualised activities.
[159][160][161] Significant numbers of legal historians, on the other hand have vehemently rejected Althoff's conclusions that downplay the central role traditionally accorded by medievalists to records involving the law, court processes and trial verdicts.
Broekmann was able to show that the obligation that kings north of the Alps demonstrated to the supposedly Chrisitan virtues of "Clementia" and "Misericordia" played no part in the treatment of defeated rebels in Sicily.
