Valentin Groebner – författare

In this book Valentin Groebner addresses the notions and practices of gift giving in late medieval and early modern Europe between 1400 and 1550. Focusing on the prosperous cities of the Upper Rhine, it explores the uses of gifts in political ritual and the different functions of these donations. Contemporaries spoke of these gifts-sometimes wine, sometimes coins or other precious metals-as liquid; indeed, the same German word was used for giving a present or pouring a fluid. These gifts were integral parts of an economy of information marking complex differences and dependencies in social status and hierarchy. The gifts were meticulously recorded and governed by strict social codes, yet the terminology and traditions of gift exchange in this period betray deep-seated ambivalence and anxieties about the practice.When, asks the author, does the distribution of gifts to public officials shift from an openly noted, routinely accepted practice to something clandestine, suspect, and off the record? Already by the end of the fourteenth century, the public gifts had their darker counterparts. References appear to more dangerous gifts, usually associated with the male body: from the hands of the corrupt scribe, to the skin of the venal judge, to the private parts of the body politic. A new vocabulary appears in law books, oath formulas, and polemical writing to refer to simony and usury, to Judas's reward, and to the sin of sodomy-in short, to underhanded and invisible relationships in which liquid gifts and bodily fluids mingled in unspeakable ways.The metaphors coined in the later Middle Ages and early modern period for designating illegal offerings are still with us, from "greasing hands" to the sexualized imagery of corruption. Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts explores the late medieval archaeologies of these notions and examines uses of political gifts as highly flexible instruments of control, manipulation, and coercion. Groebner sheds new light upon a phenomenon that to this day possesses the capacity to transform social circumstances.

Vem är du? Och hur kan du bevisa det? Efter den 11 september har kontrollen av resenärer inom och mellan olika länder trappats upp. Valentin Groebners Personbevis handlar om identifieringens förhistoria och historia, från medeltiden till idag. Groebner undersöker samspelet mellan pappren och deras bärare, mellan det äkta och det falska, mellan kontroll och kryphål. Han visar att de identitetshandlingar som vi bär på oss döljer en ansenlig mängd medeltid. Och att historien om dem redan från början är en politisk historia. Efterord av Maria Johansen, idéhistoriker verksam vid Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study i Uppsala. Valentin Groebner är historiker vid universitetet i Luzern, Schweiz, och författare till flera uppmärksammade studier om medeltidens och renässansens historia.