Kingship and Justice in the Ottonian Empire

The Ottonian family (919–1024) is remembered by posterity—not unproblematically—as the first great royal dynasty of ‘German’ medieval history. It has not always, however, been a topic of particular interest to those working in Anglo-American academia. Karl Leyser’s 1979 book Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society is usually reckoned to have been the real starting point of modern Anglophone interest in the subject, which has intensified in the last twenty years thanks not least to the translation of major narrative sources like the histories of Thietmar of Merseburg (by David Warner, Ottonian Germany) and Widukind of Corvey (by Bernard Bachrach and David Bachrach, Deeds of the Saxons). Specialist studies of the period have proliferated since the 1990s, opening welcome dialogue with the rich German-language historiography. There have, however, been few attempts to survey the entire field of Ottonian politics since the publication of Tim Reuter’s Germany in the Early Middle Ages in 1991. That is, in effect, the task that Laura Wangerin sets herself in this book.

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Early modern period · Economic Justice · Empire · German · Historiography · Literature · Middle Ages · Monarchy · Narrative · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Classics · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History