Onze kennis van Latijnse teksten uit de (late) Oudheid is vooral gebaseerd op manuscripten uit de vroege Middeleeuwen. Er zijn meer manuscripten overgeleverd uit de 9e eeuw dan uit elk van de daaropvolgende zes eeuwen. De marges van deze manuscripten bevatten aantekeningen die interpretatieniveaus toevoegen aan de in de vroege Middeleeuwen zo gekoesterde teksten. Deze marginalia zijn lange tijd beschouwd als onbeduidende schrijfsels van anonieme monniken. Toch vormen deze commentaren bronnen van intellectuele geschiedenis. Zij vertellen het verhaal van de veranderingen in het leren op velerlei gebied, van neoplatonistische ideeën over de schepping tot de natuurlijke fenomenen van de kosmos. Zij onthullen de methoden en interesses van de wetenschap in deze periode. Vanwege de ontoegankelijke stijl en vaak groezelige weergave zijn de marginalia tot op heden nauwelijks in kaart gebracht. Dit project vestigt de aandacht op deze notities, die een essentieel element vormen voor het begrip van het intellectuele leven in Europa in de vroege Middeleeuwen.

“Cultural memory and the resources of the past, 400-1000 AD” is the title of a joint research project by the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Universities of Utrecht, Cambridge and Leeds. It is funded by Humanties in the European Research Area (HERA), a project led by the European Science Foundation (ESF). The project combines two elements: on the one hand, the careful analysis of the transmission of texts and manuscripts; on the other, the problem of identity formation, including perceptions of difference on the part of specific social, political and religious communities.

 

The early Middle Ages are the first period of history from which many thousand original manuscripts survive. Ancient literature and scholarship, the Bible and patristic writing have come to us through this filter. This rich material has mainly been used to edit texts as witnesses of the period in which they were written. But it also constitutes a fascinating resource to study the process of transmission and transformation of texts and other cultural contents. It can shed new light on the codification and modification of the cultural heritage and its political uses, and constitutes an exemplary case to the study of cultural dynamics in general. The project will explore this understudied area with a number of interrelated studies:

• “Learning Empire – creating cultural resources for Carolingian rulership” concentrating on the role of the popes as cultural brokers in the 8th century;
• “Biblical past as an imagined community” dealing with learning in 8th century Bavaria and with the meaning of ‘populus’ in early medieval texts;
• “Otherness in the Frankish and Ottonian Worlds” which explores changes in attitudes towards aliens; and
• “Migration of Roman and Byzantine cultural traditions to the Carolingian world”, exemplified by the reception of the Historia Tripartita and by Freculf’s Chronicle.

The project thus combines two elements: on the one hand, the careful analysis of the transmission of texts and manuscripts; on the other, the problem of identity formation, including perceptions of difference on the part of specific social, political and religious communities. It regards written texts as traces of social practice and its changes. By studying their potential as resources for repeated scenarios of identification/Othering, this project proposes an exemplary study of the distant past also intended to shed light on the present.

To go to the project webpage, click here

To go to the project workspace, only available to project members, click here