Book Series Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, vol. 32

Historiography and Identity VI: Competing Narratives of the Past in Central and Eastern Europe, c. 1200 —c. 1600

Pavlína Rychterová (ed)

  • Pages: xii + 468 p.
  • Size:156 x 234 mm
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2021

  • € 120,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
  • ISBN: 978-2-503-58545-1
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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-58546-8
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The volume discusses narratives of identification in late Medieval eastern central Europe written in Latin as well as in various vernaculars emerging as the new political languages in the time.

Review(s)

« Sachons gré à l’éditrice d’avoir su préserver la polyphonie des approches et de nous permettre ainsi de trouver dans ce beau volume tout à la fois de quoi nous informer, réfléchir et débattre. » (Olivier Marin, dans Francia-Recensio, 1, 2022)

Dem in vielerlei Hinsicht bemerkenswerten Gesamtvorhaben ist es zu wünschen, nachhaltige Spuren in der internationalen Forschung zu hinterlassen. (Sven Jaros, in der Historischen Zeitschrift Heft 316/2, 2023, p. 447)

« Dans son ensemble, ce volume intéressera tout historien concerné par les recherches sur l’identité médiévale, qu’il soit spécialiste de l’Europe centrale et orientale ou non. La collection à laquelle il appartient favorise encore davantage les réflexions comparatives. » (Paul-Antoine Météier, dans Le Moyen Age, 129/1, 2023, p. 246)

 

 

Summary

The volume discusses Central European and Eastern Central European historiographies of the High and Late Middle Ages. It deals with histories written in a time which brought about a profound differentiation of medieval societies in these regions. As new social classes achieved economic and political power, the demand for reassuring identifications grew more pressing. Narratives of the past were tailored specifically for distinct social groups, often using vernacular languages instead of the universal language of elite education, Latin.

The volume pays attention to the interplay between languages and focuses on the strategies that individual works developed in order to balance the many alternative modes of identification. Filling a significant scholarly gap, the volume offers important insights into narratives of identification written in Latin and in the various vernaculars emerging as the new political languages of the period.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction — PAVLINA RYCHTEROVÁ AND DAVID KALHOUS

A Past that never was: Creating collective identities

The Terms ‘Polans’, ‘Poles’, ‘Poland’, and their Historiographical Context in Medieval Poland and Rus’ — PAWEŁ ŻMUDZKI

People, Realm, and Dynasty in the Fourteenth Century – Chronica de gestis Hungarorum — JÁNOS M. BAK

Master Vincent and his Making of the Oldest History of the Lechites-Poles  — JACEK BANASZKIEWICZ

Narrating for Specific Communities? The Case of the Österreichische Chronik von den 95 Herrschaften  — MATTHIAS MEYER

How to Create a Hussite Identity? The Hussite Chronicle by Lawrence of Březová  — PAVLÍNA CERMANOVÁ

The Realm and its People: Re-writing Political Identities

The Hungarian-Polish Chronicle as the Polish-Hungarian Perspective on the Earliest Hungarian and Polish History — RYSZARD GRZESIK

The Chronicle of the so-called Dalimil and its Concept of Czech Identity — PAVLÍNA RYCHTEROVÁ

Literary Reminiscences in the Characterization of the Bohemian King Wenceslas II (1283–1305) and his Contemporaries in Ottokar from the Geul’s Styrian Rhymed Chronicle — VÁCLAV BOK

Slavonic and Czech Identity in the Chronicon Bohemiae by Přibík Pulkava of Radenín — VÁCLAV ŽŮREK AND PAVLÍNA RYCHTEROVÁ

The Rhymed German Translation of the Chronicle of the So-Called Dalimil and its Strategies of Identification — VLASTIMIL BROM

From Dynasty to Noble Identity: The Development of the Historical Tradition in the Chronicles of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries  — RIMVYDAS PETRAUSKAS

Local and Regional Identities in a Dialogue

Versus Lubenses: Ethnic Differences, Political Identification, and the Cohesion of Social Groups in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Silesia  — PRZEMYSŁAW WISZEWSKI

Affective Strategies for Narrating Community: Jans (the) ‘Enikel’’s Fürstenbuch — CHRISTINA LUTTER

Historical Memory and Local Identity: Jan Długosz and the Church in Cracow  — PIOTR WĘCOWSKI

The Chronicles of the Teutonic Order in Prussia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries — MARCUS WÜST

Annals, Chronicles, and Saints: Monastic Narratives in Early Austrian Historiography and their Perception by Local Elites — MARTIN HALTRICH

Adam a German? The Ethnic Element in Swabian Chronicles of the Fifteenth Century  — JÖRG SONNTAG

Index