Crisis and Awakening. The Era of the Investiture Controversy Beyond the Investiture Controversy.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Etienne Doublier
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 433800097

On the basis of different methodological approaches, the research network aims to investigate a series of profound and radical transformations at the level of the social and institutional structures, as well as of rule and communicative practices, which took place in the Roman-German Empire at the time of the so-called Investiture Controversy (1070-1130). The goal is to overcome the prevailing monodisciplinary and regional access to the sources and open an inter-methodological and boundary-crossing perspective. This approach allows to highlight the contrastive and specific features of single areas. It opens up new opportunities to critically investigate the causal link between the Investiture Controversy on the one hand, and the selected political, social and medial transformations on the other hand. The research field is structured around three core topics that are in some cases closely interrelated: 1) historiographical paradigms 2) structures and networks 3) media and signs. The first working area intends to examine the validity and usability of a set of paradigms which are generally used to describe and characterize the period in question, for instance Investiture Controversy, Reichskirche, (Gregorian) Reform and mutation féodal. By means of prosopographical and IT-supported analyses, the second field aims to scrutinize the mutations affecting interaction spaces as well as formal and informal networks of political actors like monasteries, bishops and margraves. The third working area inquires the transformations at the level of graphical culture and documentary sources, especially in solemn charters. In order to provide a comparative assessment of the dynamics of change in both main parts of the Empire, scholars present representative case studies related to a German and an Italian region in each of the five scheduled workshops. By means of comparing case studies, of involving historians from different countries and of diverse methodological traditions, a significant progress in the historical heuristic and the theoretical discussion can be expected.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks