Klaus Oschema

Sacred or Profane? Reflections on Love and Friendship in the Middle Ages

‘The most holy bond of society is friendship’, Mary Wollstonecraft declared in 1792, explaining that ‘true friendship’ existed even less often than ‘true love’ — thus putting the two emotionally based types of relationship on an equal footing,1 leaving the reader puzzled with the apparent connection between an individual, personal bond and the sphere of sacrality. The concept of friendship that Wollstonecraft develops in this brief passage is not easily to be reconciled with modern everyday perceptions of the phenomenon: she forwards its importance as a foundation of female-male relationships and thus seems to perpetuate an idea that reminds the historian of medieval ideas on love and marriage.2 However she might have imagined the concrete realization of this ideal, she obviously did not draw a rigid line between relationships including sexual activity and non-sexual types.

Pierre Monnet (Ed.), Bouvines 1214–2014. Histoire et mémoire d’une Bataille. Approches et comparaisons franco-allemandes / Bouvines 1214–2014. Eine Schlacht zwischen Geschichte und Erinnerung. Deutsch-französische Ansätze und Vergleiche. En collaboration avec / In Zusammenarbeit mit Rolf Große, Martin Kintzinger, Claudia Zey. Bochum, Winkler 2016

dest die Geschichtswissenschaft exakter Begriffe bedienen. Die Gleichsetzung von Kreuzzug mit Heiligem Krieg ist so ungenau, quellenfremd und irreführend wie die Gleichung Dschihad = Heiliger Krieg. Riley-Smiths „Kreuzzüge“ ist die Summe zahlreicher Einzelstudien, mit denen der Autor in seinem langen, produktiven Forscherleben den akademischen Diskurs bereichert hat. Mit der Übersetzung sind sie nun auch dem deutschen Publikum leichter zugänglich. Dies ist aller Würdigung wert, auch wenn der Band substanziell Neues nicht bietet.

Time in the Making: Why All the Fuss About Time? On Time, the Unknown, and Fascination

This chapter provides an overview of approaches to ‘unknown time’, outlining historical and philosophical conceptions of time and specifying the connection between unknown time and fascination. Underlining the paradoxical ontological status of time and based on a survey of various attempts to measure, define, and represent time, it foregrounds processes and cultural practices of (de)familiarising time as indications of the on-going fascination with time and the unknown. Drawing on the etymological roots of the term ‘fascination’, the authors argue that the attraction of unknown time derives from the paradoxical dynamics arising from inherent tensions between the desire to arrest time and the anxiety and potential risks associated with filling unknown time. The chapter concludes with a summary of the individual contributions to this volume.

Unknown or Uncertain? Astrologers, the Church, and the Future in the Late Middle Ages

Focusing on late medieval astrologers, Oschema argues that medieval cultures were highly interested in knowledge about the secular future. After a discussion of misconceptions about the medieval attitude towards the future, he outlines the presence of astrologers in different social contexts. Based on examples from 14th and 15th century France and Burgundy (Nicole Oresme, Laurens Pignon), Oschema demonstrates the focus on knowledge about the future and the tension between claims to certainty that derived from astrologers’ assertions to practice a “science”, and the limitations that result from theological reasonings. A choice of 15th century “Judicia anni”, yearly prognostications, e.g. by Conrad Heingarter, Johannes Laet, and Marcus Scribanarius, finally illustrates the popularity of astrological advice that indicates the contemporaries’ fascination with the future.

No ‘Emperor of Europe’: A Rare Title between Political Irrelevance, Anti-Ottoman Polemics and the Politics of National Diversity

Recent research on the use of the notion of Europe during the Middle Ages has confirmed that the name of the continent only rarely acquired a political meaning, if at all, in this period. What is particularly surprising is the observation that several authors in the Latin world used expressions such as regnum Europae or regna Europae, especially in the Carolingian period, without elaboration. Hence, although Charlemagne has been praised as ‘father of Europe’ by one contemporary author, the idea of an ‘Emperor of Europe’ was never developed, with the exception of two brief notices in early medieval Irish annalistic compilations. Even during the High Middle Ages, when the name of the continent came to be more widely used in different contexts, only a small set of figures, historical as well as fictitious, were ascribed with the aspiration or quality of ruling all of Europe.  Towards the end of the Middle Ages, however, the notion of an ‘Emperor of Europe’ became more common in a particular context: Christian authors accused non-Christian rulers of Asian origin (Mongols, Turks) of seeking to subdue the entire continent. Latin authors, in turn, started to perceive Europe as being the home of Christendom.  This article demonstrates how those Christian authors accept a pluralistic order for their own continent (on a political level), and contrasts this with the quest for hegemonic rule that becomes a motive of polemic, which they ascribe to non-Christian rulers. Although their arguments do not lead to the explicit presentation of Europe as the ‘continent of freedom’, they do recognise and value the existence of a multitude of political entities which they contrast with a hegemonic and homogenous political role of ‘Asian tyrants’. In a broader perspective, these findings open insights into late medieval political thought that go beyond what we can learn from contemporary ‘political discussion’ in a more limited sense.

Controversial Terminology: Medieval Perspectives on Claiming and Assigning Imperial Status

In recent years, research on the concept of ‘empire’ has seen an upswing of interest in both Political Science and History. Definitions of ‘empire’ abound, as they do for words such as ‘discourse’, ‘performance’ and ‘culture’. Countless books and edited volumes concerning questions of ‘empire’ have been published since the turn of the century. On the most general level, however, the majority of studies on questions of ‘empire’ tend to neglect the European Middle Ages. Medievalists continue to associate the Latin terms imperium and imperator primarily with the (Holy) Roman Empire. A closer examination of the existing material in Latin and the vernacular languages reveals that many late medieval authors were far from limited in their use of imperial terminology. This introductory essay establishes the historiographical context for an exploration of this terminology as it was employed in the Latin West in two instances. The first is imperial self-designation, cases where rulers explicitly adopted or avoided the language of empire in referring to themselves or their realms. The second is the use of imperial terminology by authors from Latin Europe to describe and characterise distant and foreign regions of the world.