Research Strategy


The Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) combines two fundamental research strategies:

Firstly, a great many projects are concerned with the analysis and interpretation of the medieval heritage of Europe and Byzantium.

To this end original sources are published in print or electronic form and made accessible by means of lexica, handbooks and tables of contents. Historical-philological source-criticism, carried out increasingly using digital tools, provides the basis for dealing with thematic research questions. The second research strategy involves tackling issues current in the humanities and in cultural and social studies. Here the focus is on investigating from a global perspective the development of ethnic, political and religious identities in medieval Europe.

Why medieval research?

We are still a long way from knowing all that there is to know about the medieval period. The fragmentary sources from centuries ago will always yield only a partial picture. Yet many sources have never been investigated or have only been subject to a very limited set of questions. These include the many variant copies of medieval manuscripts, the thousands of unread late medieval charters as well as the forgotten and crumbling inscriptions from the period. These can sometimes provide new information regarding even the best-known and researched historical events. These texts and remains can teach us much about diverse aspects of human life in the past. The past can also help us to better understand the present. We still know far too little about what binds social communities together and how they transform themselves.

"The Dark Ages"?

The medieval foundations of the modern world   

The Middle Ages are often presented as the antithesis of the enlightened modern period: as dark centuries marked by poverty, ignorance, superstition, blood vengeance, torture and witch-hunts. Sometimes the period is glorified as one of contentment, in which each had his place in an uncomplicated society and had heroes with whom he could readily identify. Medieval fantasies from King Arthur to the Nibelungs, from the secrets of the Templars to the Lord of the Rings garner a great audience. While these conceptions of the Middle Ages are based more on prejudices than on knowledge, they demonstrate why the medieval period is so attractive: it is a time that is uncannily familiar yet at once strange. While medieval churches, castles and town quarters are ever-present in the landscape, other aspects of medieval life, the modes of warfare and economy, forms of class privilege and social organization, religious fanaticism and armed self-administered justice come across as antiquated.