Episcopal Power in Comparative Perspective. Administrative Practices and Cultures in Episcopal and Archiepiscopal Principalities in the Late Medieval Holy Roman Empire, ca. 1440-1520

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Bihrer
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 460447396

Bishops in the late medieval Holy Roman Empire were at the head of two administrations, the one for the secular domain (Hochstift) and the other for the spiritual domain (diocese). However, this well-known fact has not been researched in its effects on spiritual rule and administration and cannot be explained by simply transferring the findings determined for secular principalities to the episcopal and archiepiscopal principalities. Due to the great importance of the bishops and their rule in the constitutional structure and in the political and social context of the late medieval Empire, this research deficit is particularly serious.This is where the proposed project comes in. For the first time, the secular administration of various ecclesiastical principalities of the Roman-German Empire between approx. 1440 and 1520 is examined from a comparative perspective, and two hypotheses - the bishopric administrations as intersections and pacemakers - are placed at the center of the analysis.The project, which strives for the widest possible comparison and makes intensive use of the possibilities of digital humanities, will develop new perspectives compared to the older research, which at best dealt with the bishops' administrations, and lead to a reassessment of the rule in ecclesiastical principalities. By including extensive source material, basic research is carried out for the prosopographical recording of the administrative staff and enables a new view of the premodern leadership groups and functional elites, whose history has so far been written almost exclusively for the secular area. The comparison of several Hochstifte over more than a century will in turn reveal supra-regional similarities, but also the heterogeneity of conditions and historical change. In this way, profound statements about central lines of development and setting the course in an important European transformation phase can be realized. At the same time, the prerequisites for a comparison of "administrative practices" and "administrative cultures" in a European context are created for further research.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Christian Hesse