Felix Schaefer (FU Berlin)

Using the Past in Times of Change – Metz and Prüm as Carolingian Places of Memory around 900

The turn of the 10th century marks a period of profound change that also reshaped contemporary perceptions of the past. To analyse how the past was used, a precise understanding of the concepts of  history, memory and tradition as well as their local manifestations is necessary, on that bridges perspectives from the history of space and memory as well as codicological and narratological readings. The emergence of Metz and Prüm as Carolingian places of memory around 900 therefore provides compelling case studies. They show how the bishops of Metz used the memory of their predecessor and Carolingian ancestor Arnulf to gain rank and influence and how the Carolingian past of Prüm provoked an ambivalent echo in the monastery itself, but also in the Trier exile of its famous former abbot Regino.

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