Alieness in Inscriptions and Alien Inscriptions. Alterity and Strangeness as Reflected in Pre-Modern Inscriptions from Central Europe

Bibliographic Data

ID22135462
AuthorsAndreas Zajic (Institute for Medieval Research, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volumemedieval worlds
Issue16. 2022
Pages229-262
Publication date2022-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedieval Worlds (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2412-3196 • E-ISSN: 2412-3196
PublisherOsterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Verlag (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1553/medievalworlds_no16_2022s229
OpenAlexW4285127543
LanguageEN
References cited9

This article examines images of (primarily religious, but â at least implicitly â also ethnic) otherness as featured by late medieval inscriptions from Austria and its neighbours. As an introduction to the topic, the author first presents a 19th-century epitaph from South Tyrol (Italy) that is dedicated to the memory of a youth originating from (modern) Sudan who, following his baptism, was brought to Europe by his mentor, a Tyrolean missionary. The exemplary religious lifestyle of the Catholic young man honoured on stone seems to have been directed to the local Christians as an exhortation to develop more religious zeal. Second, the study assesses a memorial erected in 1304 by the Benedictines of Altenburg Abbey, commemorating (pagan) Cumans that were killed on the grounds of desertion (as military allies of the Austrian duke in his campaigns against the king of Bohemia) and assaults against the (Christian) civilian population in battle, of whom 104 were finally buried by the abbot and the monks in a mass grave close to the monastery. A younger inscription (dating from the second half of the 14th century) serves as an epigraphic admonition to Catholic believers entering (what is now) St Stephenâ s Cathedral in Vienna to refrain from pagan idolatry, an appeal that was staged by presenting (today lost) statuettes of either antique or Cumanic origin. Finally, the text investigates the lavish tomb slabs of two Gypsy leaders (from the early 16th century) in Pforzheim and Tulln, who were buried in the respective churches. Highlighting the sharp contrast between the predominantly negative image of alien pagans from the earlier monuments to the self-conception of the Gypsy chiefs as assimilated Christians in their ultimate media of remembrance, the author points out that the process of epigraphic othering served to foster common self-conceptions of the Christian majority society

Ancient history · Antique · Appeal · Archaeology · Art · Baptism · Battle · Incantation · Literature · Politics · Population · Religious violence · Sociology · Theology · Classics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Philosophy

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