Jörg Peltzer - Böcker

Transregnal Kingship in the Thirteenth Century explores a wide-spread European phenomenon: rulership over multiple kingdoms, or a kingdom in combination with major non-royal lordships elsewhere. Perceptions of royal authority and kingly sovereignty changed significantly during the thirteenth century, and as the role played by kingdoms as sovereign polities was strengthened, the framework for transregnal kingship shifted. This volumes investigates the consequences, examining the theory, perception and administrative practices of transregnal kingship. Intended to provide a coherent picture that itself may facilitate comparisons, the work focuses on four distinct, but significantly intertwined polities: The Empire, France, The Angevin Empire, and the Papacy. Despite its frequent occurrence, transregnal kingship played a relatively small role in contemporary political thought, and transregnal practice took a great variety of forms, showing rulers and the ruled adapting to circumstance rather than pursuing any pre-conceived grand strategy. Meanwhile, the ruler’s frequent physical absence provoked the creation of multiple forms of vice-regal power. In the Empire, it also led to an increased use of arbitration as a means to solve disputes at regional level. Finally, an analysis of architecture and the built environment suggests that such things exhibit a fascinating combination of the political and the merely fashionable.

Essays addressing Anglo-German connections and comparisons across the period from 1190 to 1300, with particular attention to the economic, social and personal aspects of an entangled transregnal connection.A wide range of topics are covered in this significant collection. It begins with an examination of macro-economic developments, together with comparative studies of serfdom, and the record-keeping of English and German towns. Personal contacts are the subject of articles on the hostages delivered by Richard the Lionheart following his release from captivity by the Emperor Henry VI, the diplomatic initiatives of 1227, the subsequent marriage of Henry III's sister Isabella with the Emperor Frederick II, Richard of Cornwall's German itinerary, and relations between England and Cologne. Another article investigates what happened if foreigners travelling in England came into conflict with the law. Turning from people to manuscripts, three articles analyse in turn the English reception of Oliver of Cologne's Historia Damiatina, the representation of English kings in Gervase of Tilbury's Otia imperialia, and Matthew Paris's attempts to depict royal emotion.

The production and retention of written records was a common and important facet of pre-modern rulership and administration. Much of our understanding of governmental practices and expressions of authority come from the contents of such documents, which have been well studied. Less studied, however, are the records themselves as artefacts. This volume is an attempt to redress this balance by taking a more holistic, material approach to a range of written records. Through a series of case studies, this volume explores questions regarding the material characteristics of various records and their use. It demonstrates that the material features of the records, including the size and shape, the hands that wrote them and the material substrate, can shed new light on the functioning of government and the declarations of power these records asserted. The ten contributions of this volume focus on records from a variety of rulers, political systems and administrations. With four case studies from early China and six from medieval Europe, this volume offers transcultural perspectives to demonstrate how different cultures expressed rulership and administration materially through the use of text-bearing artefacts.