Adels- Und Königsfamilien Im Spiegel Ihrer Memorialüberlieferung: Studien Zum Totengedenken Der Billunger Und Ottonen Frederick S

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4-1997 (Review) Adels- und Königsfamilien im Spiegel ihrer Memorialüberlieferung: Studien zum Totengedenken der Billunger und Ottonen Frederick S. Paxton Connecticut College, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Paxton, Frederick S. "Adels- Und Königsfamilien Im Spiegel Ihrer Memorialüberlieferung: Studien Zum Totengedenken Der Billunger Und Ottonen." Speculum 62.2 (1987): 379-81. Web.

This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the History Department at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. (Review) Adels- und Königsfamilien im Spiegel ihrer Memorialüberlieferung: Studien zum Totengedenken der Billunger und Ottonen

Keywords necrology, lordship, Germany

Comments Initially published in Speculum, 1997, p.379-81.

DOI: 10.2307/2855233 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2855233

This book review is available at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College: http://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/histfacpub/37 Medieval Academy of America

Adels- und Königsfamilien im Spiegel ihrer Memorialüberlieferung: Studien zum Totengedenken der Billunger und Ottonen by Gerd Althoff Review by: Frederick S. Paxton Speculum, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Apr., 1987), pp. 379-381 Published by: Medieval Academy of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2855233 . Accessed: 01/03/2013 12:14

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textualtechniques of Fuhrmann and Mordek. He has of course to deal withthe great difficultythat Alger's text is more of a treatisethan a collectionof laws, so that dicta and canons flowtogether. The textual solutionsare necessaryand suitable.The substance of the double apparatus is appropriate, unblemished by printer'serrors or proofreading slips. But I do question the forms of notation used in the text and apparatus. Is it necessaryto clutterthe text with raised lettersin order to draw the reader's attentionto the variantsin the apparatus criticus?A line-by-linenotation is surely all that is needed. The variants themselvescould have been more simplyex- pressed: many are merelychanges in word order. For example, 2.57 (p. 305, line 9) reads "accusatoresnon debentm";in the apparatus we find"m accusatoresnon debent] non debent accusatoresCT." Whynot simply"non debent accusatorestr. CT"? Or 3.60 (p. 360, line 14) "apostolical per nos auctoritate',"which leads to the variant"i apos- tolica-auctoritate] auctoritateapostolica per nos T," where "auctoritateapostolica per nos tr.T" would have been more efficientand more informative. The fiveindices thatcomplete the volume are fulland easy to use, except in the case of the last, "Personen-,Orts- und Sachregister"(pp. 403-11). For example, Mabillon, who firstpublished the preface of DMI in 1675, appears in the index in six places, but the importantreference on page 157, note 4, is missing.Likewise Alger's use of the term "corpus canonum" (p. 111) deserves some identificationin the index. But these are triflingpoints. Dr. Kretzschmarhas produced a work of outstanding scholarshipwhich well deserves its place in the series Quellen und Forschungenzum Recht im Mittelalter.

JOHN GILCHRIST Trent University

GERD ALTHOFF, Adels-und Konigsfamilienim Spiegelihrer Memorialiuberlieferung: Studien zumTotengedenken der Billunger und Ottonen.(Miinstersche Mittelalter-Schriften, 47.) Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1984. Pp. 440; 4 fold-outdiagrams. DM 78. THIS BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED and fascinatingbook should provide rich rewards to anyone interestedin the nature of lordship and the familyin the centralMiddle Ages or puzzled by the meaning and social contextof the necrologicaldocuments so charac- teristicof the age. Drawing on deep familiaritywith the necrologies of Merseburg, Magdeburg, and Luneburg, which he and Joachim Wollasch have published in a facsimileedition for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Libri Memoriales et Ne- crologia,nova series 2 [1983]), Gerd Althoffargues thatreligious houses founded and continuouslyinfluenced by one familybest preserve the commemorativerecords of thatfamily and thatthe names in theirnecrologies delineate a circleof debitores,that is, those who supported the familyand itslordship. A complete analysisof such a necrology should reveal, then, the "social horizons" of both familyand lordship at various stages of theirdevelopment. Althoff'sstudies are technicaland difficult,but the author and publisherhave gone to much trouble to aid the reader. The complexityof the argumentsis mitigatedby a welcome habit of summing up at regular intervals.The book contains an index of persons discussed in the text,four diagrams illustratingthe chronologicalscope and content of the pertinent necrologies, and, most importantly,almost 150 pages of commentaryon the people whose names were entered therein. Although the com-

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mentsunder an individual name are oftenof littlehelp while reading the text,since theytend to summarize and referback to its arguments,the commentaryas a whole will be a useful tool for futureresearch. The addition of a subject index also would have been welcome. The necrologyof the Saxon monasteryof St. Michael, Luineburg,is the "mirror"in which Althoffis able to read the historyof the familyof Hermann Billung. But the historicalreflections are obscured in the document, since the verynature of a necrology, which lists names by death date and not as a group (as is the case with the confraternitybooks thathave been utilizedin the past), means thatthe various entries must be rearranged before furtherwork can be done. Thus the analysis proceeds archaeologically,uncovering the various layers of the necrologyand reconstructing the historicalcircumstances of theirinitiation and transmission. The earliest layer of entriessuggests that the Billungs emerged fromthe "descendants of Widukind," a familygroup whose members occupied the most important episcopal sees in northernSaxony in the late ninthcentury. The preservationof this early layer of memorials by Duke Hermann's brotherWichmann the Elder and his nephews Egbert and Wichmann means, argues Althoff,that the familyof Wichmann held a more centralplace in the clan in the mid-tenthcentury than thatof his brother. Moreover,because theyoriginated in the familyof Wichmann,the Luneburg memorials reveal the compositionof rebelliousconiurationes, for the Saxon enemies of Otto I entered into pacts not only of aid and protectionbut of mutual commemorationafter death. The ducal familyitself appears in the centerof the Luneburg memorialsonly in the 970s when a rapprochementbetween Egbert and Hermann's son Bernhard I led to the latter'sassumption of the dutyof commemoratingthe dead ancestorsand debitores of the family.This transferof responsibilitiespreviously seen to by his cousins reveals thatthe feud withinthe clan had healed and thatthe Billungs had by Bernhard's time become preeminent.Indeed the assumptionof commemorativeduties and the provi- sioningof a familyfoundation to see thatthey were carried out were, Althoffargues, preconditionsof both emergentlordship and (agnatic) familyconsciousness. The memorials of the early eleventh centurymirror the social map of the ducal house at the heightof its development. They show that,contrary to historiographical expectations,the Saxon bishops did not unanimouslysupport the eastern policies of Henry II, butjoined withthe Billungs in strongopposition to the emperor. The death of Henry and the accession of Conrad II broughtan end to the Billung coalitionwith the bishops and betterrelations with the emperor,but those did not outlastthe reign of Henry III. Unfortunatelythe Luneburg memorials give no informationon the Billungs and theirsupporters in the Saxon wars of Henry IV. For reasons thatremain unclear, the political influence and the commemorativeactivity of the Billungs de- clined sharply in the late eleventh century,and, although the author suspects some connectionbetween the two, he admits that it is not apparent. When Althoffturns to the memorials of the Ottonians,he faces a differentset of problems. First of all, no necrology from the familyfoundations at Gandersheim, Quedlinburg, or St. Moritz in Magdeburg has survived as such. His archaeological methodology,however, provides the means of excavating the Ottonian memorials fromtwo sources: a group of eighty-twonames entered into the confraternitybook of St. Gall in 929 and an addition made to the necrology of Merseburg in 1017/18. Secondly,since the historicalsources forthe Ottoniansare so much richerthan forthe Billungs,little important new informationon Ottonianpolitical or familyhistory could be expected to emerge from the analysis. Neverthelessthe reconstructionof their

This content downloaded on Fri, 1 Mar 2013 12:14:48 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Reviews 381 familymemorials sheds new lighton the relationsbetween commemorative traditions and Saxon historiographyand on the practice of commemorationitself. The St. Gall entrypoints to Gandersheim,where the Liudolfingclan memorialized its membersin the late ninthcentury. When Henry I emerged as king,he founded a new conventat Quedlinburg as a centerfor a more intensivephase of commemorative activity.No longer restrictedto the "family"alone, the Quedlinburg memorialsreveal the social network of Henry's early supporters among the Saxon nobilityand the Reichsbischofe.By the mid-tenthcentury both the initiativeand the preservationof the memorialswere clearlythe provinceof the women of the family.In some of the most stimulatingpages in his book Althoffgives substance to previous hintsat the importance and centralityof Saxon noble women in commemoratingthe dead. The com- parison of textsfrom charters with the evidence of the necrologiesshows that,while the men saw to the material basis needed to fulfillcommemorative responsibilities (throughgifts of lands and income to support the religiouswho carriedout the prayer duties and to provide the food and alms that were dispensed to the poor for the salvation of those commemorated), the women, such as Queen Mathilda and the Empress Adelheid, often initiated memorials for their families,cared for the necrologies themselves,and saw to the day-to-dayand long-termfulfillment of com- memorativeresponsibilities. The conclusion turnsto the waysin whichAlthoff's evidence exemplifiesthe overall natureand circumstancesof commemorationamong the Saxon nobility.After arguing for the general characterof the sexual divisionof responsibilityapparent in Ottonian practice,Althoff reiterates the links between commemorationof the dead and the growthof lordship, noting,moreover, that familiesalso initiatedor intensifiedcom- memorativeactivity as a response to domesticcrises, such as serious illnessor political opposition, or to witnessthe formationof networksof support among the nobility. The human horizons of the memorialsare centeredon the familyitself, but move out fromthere to relationsby marriage(though not in the face of politicaldifferences) and to membersof other groupings-some organized forrebellion, others for reasons that are just beginningto emerge fromobscurity. There is much to ponder in these studies,and individualreaders willdoubtless find some of Althoff'sarguments and conclusions unconvincing.Others, like me, might wishfor some clues to the religiousor psychologicaldimensions of the commemorative activitiesof noble Saxon families.There is, afterall, no immediatelyapparent reason why prayerpro redemptioneanimae should be so central to the social realityof these people. The necrologies are liturgicaldocuments before anythingelse, and even the chartersinvariably refer to religious motivations.I could not help asking,moreover, whetherthe earlylayers of the memorials"mirror" reality in the same way as the later. Althoffshows how Widukind of Corvey intentionallydistorted the genealogy of the Ottonians in order to make the Liudolfingsheirs to the Carolingians. Might not the family of Wichmann have taken up the commemoration of the "descendants of Widukind" for similarreasons, thatis, in order to strengthentheir claims againstOtto I and Hermann Billung? Althoffhints at the importance of such questions in his introductionbut does not take them up. These considerations,however, do not lessen the impactof his work. Althoffhas shown the continued importancefor social history of German scholarshipon commemorativedocuments, and his book should stand as a model of what careful analysis of these most reticentof medieval sources has yet to teach us. FREDERICK S. PAXTON ConnecticutCollege

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