Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Medieval History I

Research

Research at the Chair of Medieval History I is focussed on three main areas: Comparative History of Europe in the Middle Ages, Global History of cross-cultural interactions and intercultural Comparative History of foundations in the premodern era.

 

Comparative History of Europe in the Middle Ages

In order to facilitate research on the first area the Institute of Comparative History of Europe in the Middle Ages ("Institut für vergleichende Geschichte Europas im Mittelalter" - IVGEM) was founded in 1998. It has hosted a number of symposia and has given many international guests from Europe and other parts of the world the opportunity to profit from the excellent research possibilites Berlin has to offer. The IVGEM also provided the organizational framework for a number of research projects.

Until recently, the members of the IVGEM-staff coordinated the interdisciplinary reasearch of more than 30 projects based at 20 German universities within the framework of the Priority Programme 1173 "Integration and Disintegration of Civilizations in the European Middle Ages." Under the supervision of Michael Borgolte the following projects could be realized at IVGEM within this programme:

  • Juliane Schiel, "Produktive Zerstörung – zerstörte Produktivität. Ein Vergleich zwischen dem Mongolen­sturm und dem Fall von Konstanti­nopel aus dominikanischer Sicht"
  • Jan Rüdiger und Michael Brauer, "Die Zungen Europas. Sakralität, Welt­deutung und Vielfalt der Sprachen im euro­medi­terranen Mittel­alter"
  • Marcel Müllerburg, "Gesprächsräume. Netzwerke der christlich-jüdischen Kommunikation seit dem Hohen Mittelalter"

The monographs and collections of the series "Europa im Mittelalter. Abhandlungen und Beiträge zur historischen Komparatistik" (25 volumes to date) are also prepared for publication at IVGEM.

 

Global History of cross-cultural interactions

Within the second, farily new, research area represantatives of Medieval History, Byzantine Studies, Islamic Studies and Jewish Studies are planning to cooperate in a joint project to examine migration in the Euromediterranean and the transcultural entanglement triggered by cross-cultural interactions in Italy c. 400-c. 1000.

 

Intercultural Comparative History of Premodern Foundations

Within the third research area dealing with premodern foundations a number of research projects funded by "Deutsche Forschungs­gemeinschaft" (DFG) and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation have been realized in the past:

  • 1998/99: "Quellencorpus zum mittel­alterlichen Stiftungs­wesen"
  • 1999/2000: "Die Stiftungen der fränkischen und deutschen Könige und ihre Wirklichkeiten"
  • 2003: "Stiftungen in den großen Kulturen des alten Europa"
  • 2006-2008: "Stiftungstod. Säkularisation von Kirchengut und andere Gefähr­dungen für die Stiftungs­zwecke durch staatliche Gewalt in der lateinischen und griechisch-orthodoxen Christen­heit des Mittel­alters – ein trans­kulturelles und inter­nationales Forschungs­projekt"

Many of the results of this research have been published in the series "Stiftungsgeschichten" (ten volumes to date).

Now a European Advanced Grant by the European Research Councils makes another interdiscilinary and comaprative research programme possible. Over the course of five years scholars of Indology, Islamic, Jewish and Byzantine Studies as well as Medieval History will examine "Foundations in medieval societies."