Jan Odstrčilík

March 15, 2019 | Jan Odstrčilík | HI Research Blog |

Jan Hus (*c. 1370 – 6 July 1415) is rightfully numbered among the most influential people of Czech origin. He is mainly remembered for his efforts to reform the Catholic Church resulting in his execution as a heretic at the Council of Constance in 1415. His life and especially his cruel death led to the creation of the Hussite...

Veronika Wieser

March 1, 2019 | Veronika Wieser | HI Research Blog |

In late antique and early medieval societies, reflections on the present and future development of the Christian community were situated within an ongoing dialogue with the text of the Bible. In particular, the prophetical books of the Old and New Testaments, most prominently the Books of Ezekiel and Daniel, and the Revelation...

Maria Nezbeda

February 15, 2019 | Maria Nezbeda | HI Research Blog |

The background to Jordanes' Getica, which was written in the middle of the 6^th century in Constantinopel, is quite complex. There have been discussions about it for decades or even centuries, because solid and confirmed information about the author, who was likely of Gothic origin himself, and his text is scarce. We know that...

David Kalhous

February 1, 2019 | David Kalhous | HI Research Blog |

Traditionally, authors of older national(istic) historiography often sought the origins of nations in medieval ethnic groups. In Czech historiography, the problem of the identity of the inhabitants of Bohemia before 1200 was neither questioned nor properly discussed, and the origins of a “Czech gens” were sought in the ninth or...

Cinzia Grifoni

January 15, 2019 | Cinzia Grifoni | HI Research Blog |

The actual meaning and every-day implications of words like "people", "nation" and "democracy" have increasingly become the subject of general reflection. Indeed, it is a common experience to participate in or come across debates about the nature, purpose and cohesiveness of present-day political communities, be they local,...

Lena Kornprobst

January 1, 2019 | Lena Kornprobst | HI Research Blog |

It is not true what their brother Piero is saying. They, Antonio and Simone, are not obliged to support him in his financial hardships caused by the high rents due for a tax farm, which he purchased by action alone and was thus the only person responsible for. Contrary to Piero’s claims, his brothers deny the existence of a f...

Ingrid Hartl

December 15, 2018 | Ingrid Hartl | HI Research Blog |

The current blog entry is dedicated to the latest volume of our open-access e-journal Medieval Worlds edited by Walter Pohl and Andre Gingrich.

On 1 December, Medieval Worlds 8.2018, entitled Transcultural Contacts and Literary Exchanges, was published online. This issue follows a strong interest in recent submissions in dealing...

Bernhard Zeller

December 1, 2018 | Bernhard Zeller | HI Research Blog |

Completion of the facsimile-edition of the 9^th-century charters from St Gall within the framework of the Chartae Latinae Antiquiores

More than 800 early medieval charters dating from before 1000 have been preserved up to the present day in the archive of the abbey of St Gall. This is an extraordinary – north of the Alps,...

Pavlína Rychterová

November 15, 2018 | Pavlína Rychterová | HI Research Blog |

Oldest extant texts in vernacular and their histories of identity

Historical narratives of medieval peoples very often start with the first texts written in their alleged languages, emerging across Europe from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries. The oldest extant texts stood at the beginning of modern...

Richard Corradini

November 1, 2018 | Richard Corradini | HI Research Blog |

In Augustine of Hippo’s (354-430) dramatic cosmos Rome was a place full of dichotomies. As a vital icon the capital symbolised a complex semantic field that incorporated lots of aspects − political and historical notions of the Roman Empire, antique literature, grammar and rhetoric, philosophy and erudition, the social...