Penitentials and Carolingian reform

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ludger Körntgen
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 524023268

With the Carolingian reforms, one of the central research topics of medieval history is experi-encing a renewed boom. In particular, questions about the dissemination and implementation of the efforts for a far-reaching intellectual-cultural correctio, in its elusive early phase, are of increased interest. The project therefore aims to examine the practical consequences of Carolingian reform criticism on a hitherto neglected ecclesiastical literary source genre - the Early Medieval penitentials. With the Paenitentiale of bishop Halitgar of Cambrai († 831) and the two Paenitentialia of the abbot of Fulda and archbishop of Mainz Hrabanus Maurus († 856), three of the most im-portant representatives of the series of the so-called reform penitentials will be the starting point of the investigations. The ensemble is to be supplemented by penitentials from the second half of the 8th century, the early phase of the reforms, which have not yet been studied against the background of the reforms, but which already show the first influences of the criticism of the Carolingian reformers - the Paenitentialia Sangallense tripartitum and the Paenitentiale Capitula iudiciorum as well as the complex tradition of the Paenitentialia Ps.-Bedae Egberti. The project will be based oneditions of the reform penitential handbooks of Halitgar and Hraban, which are to offer a text version as original as possible, considering the oldest written records. Taking into account the contexts of origin, the content analyses as well as the editorial and the critical historical tradition work complexes, a re-evaluation of intention, practical relevance and meaning of the early Carolingian penitential books is planned. In this context, the compilations of Halitgar and Hraban, which explicitly refer to the penitential criticism of certain reform circles, are to be released from their isolation as reform penitentials and placed in a larger context of the development of the penitential genre from the late 8th to the late 9th century. The penitential handbooks will no longer be evaluated as a measure of the reform conformity of early medieval penitentials per se, but rather as one of the various modes in which the compilers and redactors of the works reacted to the new challenges of the Carolingian reform criticism. This includes a critical examination of the partly controversial, contradictory, and unfinished research discussion on the origin and literary dependencies of the penitential handbooks, as well as an investigation of their transmission, editing, and reception. With this, they will not be presented exclusively as a result of the reforms, but moreover as a vehicle of the reformers for a widespread dissemination of the reform efforts.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants