Mediation of rulership at the borderlands of Latin Europa in Late Medieval Times

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Huschner
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 324321286

Late Medieval societies were shaped by various mono- & polytheistic (Baltic Sea Region) religions as well as by different political and social orders. The aim of the project is to provide a comparative analysis of negotiation processes of new rulerships at the borderlands of Latin Europe in the Late Middle Ages. Latin Europe is understood as a multifarious space, whose borderlands are characterised by varied entanglements. The research design is oriented towards the concept of histoire croisée (Werner/Zimmermann 2002) in order to establish a synchronic and diachronic comparison. The analytical category rulership is thus not primarily understood in Max Weber's sense but as a communicative discursive practice within a field of actors. This field is characterised by certain actors and influenced by spanning macro-structures. Thereby, it does not focus only on the ruler, but gives equal importance to the 'dominated' and their interactions. Within such a field rulership takes place in communicative proximity and distance and is always mediated. Therefore this mediated rulership will be approached with the analytical terms mediation, mediator, and mediatisation: Mediation of rulership refers to the specific moments when rulership is exercised and negotiated by actors triads. In addition to the rulers and the dominated, mediators come to the foreground. Finally, instead of using the paradigm of modernisation, the project will speak of mediatisation, in the sense of a steady increase of mediation through the appearance of institutions and practices and the differentiation of legal and administrative responsibilities. This distinction has been made in order to stress the specifics of these areas. Four case studies analyse areas which passed to new rulers during the investigated period of time. This approach is led by the thesis that moments of transition are especially suitable for analysing mediated processes of the exercise of power because they lead to an increased negotiation between old and new groups of actors. Each case study deals with a different border area of Latin Europe. Case study 1 looks north and considers Norway in the first phase of the Kalmar Union of 1397. Case study 2 is oriented eastwards, towards the transformation of ruling structures in Red Russia after its annexation by the Polish Kingdom. Case study 3 analyses the establishment of Anjou rule in Southern Italy from the perspective of the nobility. Finally, case study 4 is concerned with the development of the urban and rural structures in the Kingdom of Valencia before and after the Christian conquest. The chosen approach does not only aim at a stronger focus on communicative and interactive processes of Late Medieval exercise of power, it also seeks for an internal differentiation between the many regions of Latin Europe, which - in their full diversity - stand in the centre of the analysis. The number of ongoing political crises shows the high relevance of such a perspective.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Norway
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Richard Holt; Professor Dr. Nikolas Jaspert; Professor Dr. Christian Lübke