Introduction

Ott, Sandra

doi:10.1017/9781316823439.002

Living With the Enemy 2017

DOI: 10.1017/9781316823439.002

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Introduction

Sandra Ott¹

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“…As late as in 2007, John S. Ott and Anna Trumbore Jones discussed what they called "the bishop's vanishing act" as a by-product of the historiography of the medieval church and religion of the past four decades. 20 More in detail, they argued that the focus on the institutional church, the emphasis on the "abuses" of bishops and a new interest in religious minorities in combination have resulted in "the bishop's vanishing act." 21 Although Ott and Jones overstate the case a bitscholarship on bishops have indeed been undertaken in the past 40 years, but usually within the confines of local or regional history 22they are nevertheless correct in accentuating the new emphasis on "the complexity of the episcopal office and of the bishops' attitude towards their own role" as a characterizing trait of recent approaches to the bishop and the episcopal office.…”

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Ecclesiastical Reform in Historiographical Context

Melve

2015

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The article initially discusses recent approaches to ecclesiastical reform and the Investiture Contest. In particular, it discusses the extent to which recent scholarship's concern with "power," "local units," "social aspects," "discourse," and "gender" has undermined earlier master narratives -accentuating as these did the unity of reform. The last part of the article argues for the need to establish new master narratives and puts forward a few suggestions in that respect.In a word, the turbulence of this period carried with it so many disasters, so many schisms, so many dangers of soul and of body that it alone because of the cruelty of the persecution and its long duration would suffice to demonstrate the unhappy lot of our human wretchedness. 2These words, from the pen of the 12th century historian Otto of Freising, encapsulate the Investiture Contest, with its surrounding reform movement, as a period of "human wretchedness." The "turbulence," "disasters," and "schisms" emerging in the wake of the attempt to liberate the church were, according to Otto, the inevitable results of the church transgressing its position within an Augustinian world order. Yet, Otto's harsh moral-theological verdict constitutes only one of many historical interpretations of the period. From contemporary and near-contemporary observers to the most renowned interpretations of the 19th and early 20th century -first and foremost, those of Auguste Fliche and Gerd Tellenbach 3 -the predominating tendency has been to derive unified interpretations from one or two characteristic features of the period. Fliche and Tellenbach were both concerned with the institutional history of the high medieval church, but whereas Fliche focused on popes and the reform of the papacy in the last part of the 11th century, Tellenbach emphasized the Investiture Contest rather than the reform movement and the extent to which the Contest accentuated authoritynotions of how to reconstitute "the right order of the world."In recent decades, these master narratives -emphasizing different forms of unity -have come under scrutiny from new narratives and approaches to the thematic complex involving the reform movement and the Investiture Contest. In the following, I will initially discuss recent scholarship with a particular emphasis on the dialog between older master narratives and new narratives in terms of what I call "the pluralization of ecclesiastical reform." Thereafter, I will ref lect on the need for new interpretive frameworks by presenting a few challenges and suggestions for further research.

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confidence: 99%

Ecclesiastical Reform in Historiographical Context

Melve

2015

History Compass

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Introduction

Cited by 1 publication

References 7 publications

Ecclesiastical Reform in Historiographical Context

Ecclesiastical Reform in Historiographical Context

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