The king as part of the network. The ruling-praxis of Wenceslaus IV (1361-1419) in Bohemia and in the Empire.

• Applicant: Dr. Christian Oertel
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 398772584

The proposed project intends to examine how ruling during the time of King Wenceslaus IV (1361-1419) worked. The almost totally negative evaluation of this ruler as well by his contemporaries as by modern research earned him the epithet "the Lazy". Regardless of this, he ruled for 22 years (1378-1400) over the German-Roman kingdom and for more than 40 years (1378-1419) over the kingdom of Bohemia. These long reigns implicate that he must have found means and ways to push through his rulership and to uphold it over a long period of time. The comprehension of these means and ways is the main subject of the proposed project which I intend to realize primarily by the analysis of the extant charter material. Question: The applicant intends to re-evaluate the ruling-praxis of Wenceslaus IV on the basis of the non-historiographic sources. The chronological frame will be provided by the decade 1392-1401. The problem of the ruling-praxis includes questions like: How (i.e. through which ways and by what people) did Wenceslaus implement his rulership? Who went in opposition to this? In which regions of his two kingdoms was his rule actually requested (who asked for privileges)? Did the spacial extend of this rule vary during his reign?Sources: The charters of Wenceslaus IV are neither published as full text (MGH) nor as regesta (RI). However, the applicant has been provided with two private collections of charters, which have been collected by Wilhelm Hanisch and Ivan Hlavácek. These two collections will form the core of the source-basis of the project.Theories and methods: As a basis of the inquiry considerations of the nature of late medieval rulership its ideals and form are necessary. The concept of ruling praxis developed by Müller-Mertens for the Early and High Middle Ages has to be conceptual adapted to the Late Middle Ages taking into consideration the starting institutionalisation of rulership and its generally lower mobility (early residences). Finally, Theories and methods of network analysis will be applied in the examination of the charter material.Phase 1: Extraction, collection, and connection of the relevant data from the sources using a semantic graph-database (software: Segrada).Phase 2: Analysis and graphic display of Database queries using algorithms of network analysis (software: Gephi). The results of this analysis will be represented by a number of chronologically scaled network graphs which will be a reconstruction of the political system during the time of inquiry.Phase 3: Re-contextualisation of the results of the network analysis through the sources and discussion of those results in the context of further societal factors using the approach of the cultural history of politics (Kulturgeschichte des Politischen).Phase 4: Writing of a monograph.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants