Johannes Laudage, Yvonne Leiverkus. Rittertum und höfische Kultur der Stauferzeit. Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2006. 326 S. 29.90 Euro (cloth), ISBN 978-3-412-34905-9.

Reviewed by Edward T. Potter (Department of Foreign Languages, Mississippi State University)
Published on H-German (September, 2007)

Knighthood and Courtly Culture in the High Middle Ages

This collection of thirteen essays is the result of a conference that took place in June 2005 at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. The contributions to the volume concentrate above all on two major topics, knighthood and courtly culture, and the essays mainly tend to cover the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire, although other regions are also represented, including Sicily, France, England, and the Italian portions of the empire.

In their preface, the editors point out that one of the goals of the conference was to introduce students to the learning opportunities provided by research: "Ihr Ziel [das Ziel der Tagung] war es, die Studierenden auf unkonventionelle Weise an das forschungsorientierte Lernen heranzuführen" (p. 7). The first essay, "Rittertum und höfische Kultur der Stauferzeit: Eine Einführung," by Johannes Laudage, is therefore meant to give the general reader a broad overview of knighthood and the courtly culture of the High Middle Ages. In this essay, he discusses competing definitions of "Ritter." On the one hand, medieval society saw itself in terms of the social functions of its members; society was divided into peasants who worked and produced food for society, clergy who prayed for society's salvation, and warriors who fought to protect the other members of society. In this more expanded sense, anyone who bore arms could be considered a "Ritter," and the contrast between courtly society (hövescheit) and village society (dörperheit) stood in the foreground. Within this context, even kings, ruling princes, and the emperor could be considered "Ritter." On the other hand, the warrior class had a great deal of variety within itself in terms of social rank, from emperor to vassal to the unfree Ministerialität, and the term "Ritter" could be used to emphasize the distinctions within this group of arms-bearing men. When viewed in these narrower terms, "Ritter" were those who served at the court of a lord, who were provided for by a fief, and who were not themselves ruling princes.

Many of the aspects Laudage mentions in his introductory essay resurface in the various essays that follow it. Knut Görich's contribution to the volume, "Die 'Ehre des Reichs' (honor imperii): Überlegungen zu einem Forschungsproblem," provides a detailed analysis of scholarly interpretations of the term honor imperii. Görich also gives a nuanced, convincing interpretation of how the term should be understood by relocating it in its sociohistorical context. The next essay is a second contribution by Laudage, entitled "Der Hof Friedrich Barbarossas: Eine Skizze." The author examines the nature of courts in general as well as of Barbarossa's in particular. Laudage finds that a court was both an amoeba-like social structure of ever-changing members as well as a physical place. He differentiates between the court in a more expanded sense (curia maior), which refers to "feierliche[] Hoftage[]" (p. 92) where members of the ruling elite would gather, and the court in the more narrow sense of the term (curia minor), which Laudage uses to mean a small group of advisors, or "Küchenkabinett" (p. 92). When compared to other courts, such as the royal courts in France or England or the episcopal court at Cologne, Barbarossa's court appears to have been far less structurally institutionalized, but it nevertheless exerted significant influence. Later in the volume, Laudage adds a third clearly argued contribution, with "Rittertum und Rationalismus: Friedrich Barbarossa als Feldherr." In it, Laudage accompanies Barbarossa on his campaign against Milan in 1158 and discusses the masterful planning, discipline, and strategy involved in this military undertaking. The author is able to demonstrate that Friedrich made masterful use of rational calculation and social discipline in his role as commander of the campaign.

Theo Kölzer's contribution, "Der Königshof im normannisch-staufischen Königreich Sizilien," broadens the scope of the volume not only by taking readers to Sicily, but also by treating the Norman rulers of that island in addition to its Hohenstaufen rulers. In his essay, Kölzer describes the "rigorosen theokratischen Absolutismus byzantinischer Prägung" (p. 97) on Sicily under the Norman rulers in the twelfth century, and he also describes the attempts of Kaiser Friedrich II (as Friedrich I, king of Sicily) to restore a strongly centralized royal government on Sicily in the early thirteenth century. The kingdom of Sicily, with its centralized administration and its capital at Palermo, represents a strong contrast to the more amorphous Reisekönigtum of Barbarossa seen in the previous essay. One of Kölzer's most interesting points addresses the increased bureaucracy under Friedrich II and how it seemed to take on its own dynamic. Indeed, Kölzer sees the Sicilian state under Friedrich as an Orwellian--some might choose to say Foucauldian--surveillance state. This very interesting point could have been elaborated upon in greater detail, particularly with respect to how exactly this "surveillance state" functioned and how Friedrich's Sicily compares with, and is to be differentiated from, later exemplars of this phenomenon.

"Die ritterlich-höfische Kultur des Hochmittelalters und ihre wirtschaftlichen Grundlagen," by Werner Rösener examines the economic underpinnings of medieval society that made courtly culture possible. In this detailed essay, he examines interrelationships between the increases in population, expansion of and advances in agriculture, the rise of towns and trade, colonization of the eastern regions and also via the crusades, and the development of courtly culture. Rösener also points out that costs associated with knighthood rose significantly from the mid-twelfth to the mid-thirteenth centuries, thereby making knighthood more exclusive and speeding processes of social differentiation. Following Rösener's conceptual evaluation of the economic basis of courtly culture is Jens Ullrich's empirically-oriented study, "Iste sunt curie ... : Randnotizen zum Tafelgüterverzeichnis." In this study, Ullrich dissects the Tafelgüterverzeichnis des römischen Königs, a historical document listing various products to be supplied by Saxony, Rhenish Franconia, Bavaria, and Lombardy for the entourage of the emperor. Ullrich masterfully breaks these descriptions down into their approximate nutritional value in calories and their approximate monetary value in silver. By doing this, he is able to compare the demands made upon the four regions empirically, to calculate the approximate size of the imperial entourage, and to come up with possible explanations for the discrepancies in demands made upon the various regions.

In the next essay, "Höfische Kultur in Frankreich: Die Sicht von außen," Alheydis Plassmann turns her attention to the empire's neighbor France. Here, she examines how courtly culture is perceived by outsiders, that is, by clerical historiographers writing in Latin. Their status as members of the clergy and their use of the international language of Latin marks them as outsiders, thereby providing Plassmann with the "view from outside." Her object of study is courtly culture within France, not only at the court of the King of France, but especially also in other regions such as Aquitaine, Normandy, Champagne, and Anjou. She also views the king of England as a French ruling prince, since he had territories in France throughout the twelfth century. Plassmann finds that the court of the king of France was neither as rich nor as opulent as the courts of the other rulers, yet the French king did subscribe to the courtly values of cheerfulness and generosity, and he was described in positive terms by the clerical historians for his lack of worldliness as well as his support of learning. Other courts were far more opulent and worldly and were therefore seen in a more critical light. In general, the more worldly the court or the particular noble was, the more critically that place or person was depicted.

Barbara Haupt turns to medieval German literature in her essay, "Der höfische Ritter in der mittelhochdeutschen Literatur" (pp. 170-192). In this study, she concentrates mainly on Hartmann von Aue's Érec (c. 1191) as the work that introduced the noble knight into German literature. She details the various aspects of courtly demeanor and points out that this behavior, as depicted in Érec, has less to do with Christianity than previously contended by other scholars such as Josef Fleckenstein (see p. 191). Mercy, in Érec, applies only to members of the same social rank, and Haupt sees the depiction of the knight's capacity for mercy as a means of convincing critical clerics that knights were more than bloodthirsty, unchristian warriors. Haupt rightly emphasizes the role of literature in creating courtly culture, but given the title of her essay, it is somewhat surprising that she concentrates so extensively on one literary work.

No volume on the Staufer would be complete without discussions of emerging social conventions. Yvonne Leiverkus investigates "Das äußere Erscheinungsbild des staufischen Ritters" (pp. 193-215). She undertakes an analysis of pictorial images of knights from the mid-twelfth to the mid-thirteenth centuries, concentrating on the functions of various pieces of the knights' equipment, the development of these accoutrements over time, and potential signs of social stratification. Jan Ulrich Keupp's essay, "Verhöflichte Krieger? Überlegungen zum 'Prozeß der Zivilisation' am stauferzeitlichen Hof," reads the development of courtly culture and knighthood against the background of Norbert Elias's famous model of the development of civilization. He finds that Elias's model is helpful, up to a point, in explaining the development of courtly culture, but that notions of the "civilizing process" should be applied to the Middle Ages themselves (as opposed to seeing them as a starting or control point for measuring these developments).

Next, Gerhard Lubich takes on the topic of the "aristocracy of virtue" in his essay "'Tugendadel': Überlegungen zur Verortung, Entwicklung und Entstehung ethischer Herrschaftsnormen der Stauferzeit." In this detailed essay tracing the development of the concept of aristocratic virtues (Adelstugenden) in the late Roman empire and beyond into the concept of an aristocracy of virtue (Tugendadel) in the High Middle Ages, Lubich discovers that the new concept of an "aristocracy of virtue" is used, on the one hand, as a means of legitimizing the warrior class--which includes not only nobles but also Ministeriale--by demonstrating that its actions are based on superior morality and, on the other hand, as a means for the clergy to legitimize military action against unbelievers. Arguing against other scholars who see either the ruling class or the Ministerialität as instrumentalizing the concept of an "aristocracy of virtue" in order to further their respective sociopolitical goals, Lubich sees the development of the concept of Tugendadel as the result of a process that can best be compared to Adam Smith's "invisible hand."

Thomas Zotz provides the volume with a concluding chapter entitled "Rittertum und höfische Kultur der Stauferzeit: Bilanz der Tagung." This contribution summarizes the conference's presentations, including nine of the twelve other essays in the volume. Zotz provides an overview of the arguments of the various presenters and comments on the post-presentation discussions that made up the conference. He pulls together the two major themes of the conference and of the volume--knighthood and courtly culture--and connects the various presentations to these themes with insightful commentary. This essay effectively concludes the volume, but it would have been even more helpful had Zotz also commented briefly on the three essays that were not part of the original conference.

This volume will be of great interest to medieval scholars, as it provides an in-depth analysis of the period and represents some of the most recent scholarship on these topics. Copious footnotes lead the interested reader in the right direction to find out more about particular aspects. While the authors have made a great effort to summarize previous research on each topic as well as to contribute new insights, the essays are quite specialized and presuppose a good deal of prior knowledge of the subject matter. As a result this volume, as is to be expected with a series of conference presentations, would tend to be more useful for the specialist than for the general reader.

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Citation: Edward T. Potter. Review of Laudage, Johannes; Leiverkus, Yvonne, Rittertum und höfische Kultur der Stauferzeit. H-German, H-Net Reviews. September, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13626

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