Antropologia w mediewistyce. Koncepcje i praktyka badawcza Gerda Althoffa

Anthropology in medieval studies. The concepts and research practice of Gerd Althoff The author of the article presents the legacy of the contemporary German medievalist Gerd Althoff. The subject is worth considering, because Althoff’s theories have had a considerable impact on research into the Middle Ages. The scholar is the author of the concept of rules of the game determining political life in the High Middle Ages. He also dealt extensively with the role of ritual actions and ritualised form of expressing emotions as means of communication and elements of the functioning of power. In this he used theories developed in cultural anthropology by e.g. Arnold van Gennep, Clifford Geertz or Victor Turner. At the beginning of his scholarly career Gerd Althoff focused on prosopography. He then moved on to studying political mechanisms in the state of the Ottonians and their Salic successors. He analysed the emergence and functioning of aristocratic conspiracies (conjurationes) against monarchs. He was interested in group bonds, ways of strengthening them (e.g. by oaths, feasts, exchanges of gifts) as well as means of communication (public gestures, public expression of emotions through tears etc.). His analyses encompassed amicitia, friendship, uniting members of the political elite, a relation which has little in common with the contemporary understanding of the word friendship. At the centre of his analyses stood resolution of political conflicts. Hence Althoff’s attention devoted to advisers, intermediaries and mediators. In his research practice he abandoned detailed analyses of selected accounts and events in favour of an attempt to create a comprehensive theory explaining politics in a state on such a low level of institutional development as medieval monarchies. This was clearly evident, for example, in his biographies of Otto III and Henry IV, in which the reign of these rulers is an opportunity to present the rules of the game — and whether the emperors observed them or what the consequences were if they modified or broke them. In the article the author also examines the criticism of Gerd Althoff’s concepts. Its most important areas are the conflict over the authenticity or staged nature of the actions and emotions of the political elite as presented in narratives from the period, and the usefulness of the concept and theory of ritual in interpreting these narratives.