The Council in the Memory of the City. The Negotiation of Knowledge about the Past in urban historical writing in the Upper Rhine region in the 15th and 16th century

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Birgit Studt
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 231906078

This project proposes a new approach towards late medieval and early modern historical writing in the Upper Rhine region. In it, texts from historical writing are no longer conceived as constructions of the past by which authorities looked to legitimize their power, but instead as part of urban memory in which the past is negotiated historiographically between different social groups. The study takes the Chronicle of the Council of Constance, and especially the various forms of historical writing inspired by it, as its starting point. The Chronicle of the Council of Constance is an in its form unique account of the international assembly gathered in the city from 1414 to 1418. It was written shortly afterwards by Ulrich Richental and contains a series of illuminations, lists of all the various attendants and the depictions of their coats-of-arms. The chronicle received a lot of attention in modern research, which however concentrated mostly on the lost original text - the eyewitness account - of Richental, although the earliest surviving manuscripts date only from the second half of the 15th century. Whereas most scholars endeavor to bridge the gap of historical tradition towards the events of the council, this project focuses on the apparent configurations in which the text was handed down in the manuscripts. It analyses the reasons for the transformation and publication of the chronicle in the late 15th century, which demonstrate its attractiveness even after some time had passed since the events of the council. This ongoing topicality of the subject matter for historical writing is also apparent in the second period of reception of the text during the Reformation, when contemporaries started to draw parallels between the teachings of Jan Hus, burnt at the stake as a heretic during the council of Constance, and those of Martin Luther. The Chronicle of the Council of Constance had long since detached itself from its author and offered its various urban recipients in the cities of the upper Rhine a wide range of historical knowledge. The functionalization and refunctionalization of this knowledge will be investigated in this project by way of manuscript and text analysis. In examining alongside the Chronicle of the Council of Constance also other important historical works, which were passed from city to city, and were transformed and adapted similarly, the crosslinking of urban historical writing in the upper Rhine region can be studied.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants