Episcopal Power in Comparative Perspective. Administrative Practices and Cultures in Episcopal and Archiepiscopal Principalities in the Late Medieval Holy Roman Empire, ca. 1440-1520
Final Report Abstract
The project has yielded numerous new insights into episcopal administrative culture, which has so far been little researched. This was also demonstrated by the contributions of the four doctoral students and the presentations on further case studies such as Würzburg, Speyer, Minden, and Riga at the final conference, whose written contributions are scheduled to appear in 2026 in the renowned series "Studies on Germania Sacra." The dissertations made a decisive contribution to the empirical foundation of the project's theses. While the "intersection" thesis was supported – in Lübeck and Bamberg, the bishop, cathedral chapter, local officials, and urban elites operated within a dynamic negotiation space; in Constance and Mainz, the administration emerged as a stabilizing space of supra-personal loyalties and professional expertise – the "pacemaker" thesis could only be partially confirmed: administrative action proved to be pragmatic and reactive to structural challenges. Furthermore, the four dissertation projects confirmed the analytical viability of the five research foci formulated in the proposal. The dissertations have demonstrated the emergence and transformation of career patterns, scope for action, and forms of knowledge within the administration. They also identified which practices determined everyday administrative business, how knowledge was disseminated and transformed in the process, how administration functioned as a platform for political and social competition, and which forms of official identity and self-concept can be observed among late medieval administrative personnel. A key result was the development and implementation of an internal Nodegoat database. This database served the prosopographical recording, relational visualization, and systematic analysis of actor networks and administrative careers. A simple user interface was also created, enabling easy access by external researchers.
Publications
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Fratres, Kanoniker und Parteigänger. Ein Plädoyer für eine bischofsorientierte Erforschung der mittelalterlichen Domkapitel, in: Historisches Jahrbuch 143 (2023), S. 357–379
Andreas Bihrer
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Understanding Modern Views on the Middle Ages Through Research-led Learning. A Teaching Report. in: Gamevironments 20 (2024), p. 153–168
Andreas Bihrer & Philipp Frey
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Ungebetene Gäste? Mittelalterliche Könige zu Besuch bei Bischöfen von der Karolingerzeit bis zum Ende des Mittelalters, in: Zu Gast beim Bischof. Halberstadt als königlicher Aufenthaltsort im frühen und hohen Mittelalter, hg. von Stephan Freund, Simon Groth und Christoph Mielzarek (Palatium. Studien zur Pfalzenforschung in Sachsen-Anhalt, Bd. 10), Regensburg 2024, S. 165–187
Andreas Bihrer
