Zeitarchive

Time is a paradoxon: On the one hand it is a fundamental experience of every individuum. On the other hand it is, and always has been an object of complex abstactions. Time − as a framework of human history, as a philosophical phenomenon, as an instrument for socially disciplining – never just simply existed, but it was problematised. The project analyses different aspects of a history of time consciousness that formed essential parts in the construction of European social identities in the Middle Ages.

The development of European time perceptions and concepts and their transformation from Antiquity into a Christian perspective was not a linear process, but was accompanied by lots of tectonic movements and fractions. One example is the Incarnation Era: after long debates and not without conflicts and corrections during the early Middle Ages the Anno Domini-dating has been established as the main chronological frame. This chronology, combined with the Biblical salvation history, is the basis for most of the Medieval historiographical records, such as chronicles and annals. Time was the object of philosophical and cosmological treatises, of liturgical practics and apocalyptical visions, of astronomical observations and astrological speculations. All these continuous transformations of time concepts as part of Medieval traditions of knowledge are extant in a huge amount of manuscripts, handbooks, and encyclopedies.

Currently, the Vademecum of the Reichenau scholar Walahfrid Strabo is object of an analysis that is based on the habiliation (at the University of Vienna, 2015).