070316 VO History of the Middle Ages (2023W)

How does one actually designate a period of time that is so diverse that it cannot be associated terminologically with a single social current, a concrete political structure, or an economic system? For the humanists, a clear case: the Middle Ages! A dark time, full of superstition, church oppression, feudal dominance and unpredictable robber barons. Not at all, said the Romantics, who also had a concrete idea of the constructed epoch between 400 and 1500. For them, it was seen as an expression of sublimated court cultures, sensitive gentlemen - thinkers and fighters in one person - who on the one hand kicked pagans in the dust, on the other hand wrote love poems for their distant ladies. Of course, if one anticipates the tradition from these approximately 1000 years, everything was a bit different; more multilayered, more complex and of a simultaneity of the non-simultaneous comparable to today's conditions: Religious fanatics existed next to bibliophile monks, highly developed states next to barely alphabetized forms of rule, efficient economies next to barter economies, scholars whose knowledge is still received today next to nameless and history-less peasants. The aim of the lecture is to approach this epoch through events, persons, but also social, political and economic processes and layers. In doing so, not only the prevailing oral-visual culture will be addressed, but also the problems we are confronted with due to the sometimes drastic gaps in the tradition of the Middle Ages. Last but not least, the mechanisms that make the Middle Ages a popular blueprint for all kinds of purpose-bound back projections until today will be addressed.

- A general overview of the different periods of medieval history (roughly between 400 and 1500) and the tradition of their foundation.
- Deep probes into the perception of central medieval events and actors (e.g. the migration of peoples, Charlemagne, the Crusades and the Islam, the emergence of urban communes, the plague epidemic, late medieval wars) as well as structural issues (e.g. permeability of social and gender roles and hierarchies, the emergence and development of political and social institutions, visibility and participation of the general public, lines of conflict between secular and ecclesiastical power).
- The critical examination of the respective time-bound construction, the sources on which it is based, traditions of its interpretation as well as its questions, theories and narratives.
- To situate the image of the 'Middle Ages' in contemporary social discourse.