Germen Militiae: War and German Identity in the Later Middle Ages

Scales, Len

doi:10.1093/past/180.1.41

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Instead of viewing ethnic stereotypes as either emotional expressions of xenophobia -as for example Carlrichard Brühl asserted 39 -or expressions of patriotism, recent research, especially by Len Scales, has thus re-evaluated the function of mediaeval stereotypes from fresh perspectives. 40 The use of ethnic stereotypes was Ethnic Identification and Stereotypes 589 indeed far more widespread and 'stable' than some scholars have assumed, and not just a matter of occasional political manipulation. 41 Instead, stereotypes bear meaning as markers of identity reflecting or juxtaposing religious, social, and cultural values as a form of sociocultural capital.…”

Section: Ethnosymbolism Medicine and Religionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnic Identification and Stereotypes in Western Europe, circa 1100–1300

Weeda

2014

History Compass

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The central Middle Ages witnessed a remarkable upsurge in sources containing ethnic stereotypes. Should we interpret the increase in ethnic images as evidence that people identified more strongly with ethnic or national groups from the 12th century onwards? And to which extent was ethnic identity informed by cultural, religious, and medical discourses, as well as forged by political elites as part of a state-formation process? Addressing these questions from a broad range of perspectives and incorporating a wide body of research, this article offers a review of the scholarship on ethnic identity formation and the relevance of ethnic stereotyping in religious-eschatological thought, medical science, and political rhetoric from the 12th century. It challenges the notion that ethnic stereotyping reflected random expressions of hatred, or, conversely, expressions of nationalist patriotism in the later Middle Ages.Who or what crafted ethnic groups and nations, when, why, and how, is one of the most hotly debated topics in political, sociological, and anthropological studies. To date, there have been relatively few attempts to integrate research on ethnic identity in the Middle Ages with theoretical discussions on nationhood.1 Until recently, the predominant approach was to apply the modernist, post-Second World War instrumentalist view -that political elites craft nationsto premodernity. Mediaeval scholars have thus tracked the construction of the nation to, for example, 12th-century state-formation processes and the territorialisation of power. However, fresh research in the field of medical history has recently revealed how Hippocratic medical theory helped establish new beliefs about the nature of ethnic groups from the end of the 11th century. Furthermore, from circa 1000, lists of ethnic characteristics were appearing in monastic circles within a religious-eschatological context. It is therefore necessary to examine utterances about the nature of and identification with ethnic groups from a cultural, religious, social, and political perspective. Research should take a multi-facetted and longue-durée approach, in which political processes and structures are viewed as both forming and feeding off pre-existing cultural, religious -and from the 12th century also medical -customs, beliefs, and knowledge, in a social environment shaped by linguistic and legal distinctions. First, then, I will briefly discuss the role of politics and ideology in ethnic discourse; afterwards, I will turn to mediaeval beliefs about the make-up of ethnic groups, the influence of medical theory in ethnic stereotyping, and ideas about religion and ethnicity. Finally, I will present some ideas about possible new fields of research. Political Structures and Ethnic Group FormationScholars of the mediaeval era have often looked towards the growing bureaucracies and tightening judicial apparatus to partly explain the formation of nations from the 12th century onwards.2 For example, Adrian Hastings stated that ethnic groups, as oral commu...

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Section: Ethnosymbolism Medicine and Religionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnic Identification and Stereotypes in Western Europe, circa 1100–1300

Weeda

2014

History Compass

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“…150 This account of German furor may reflect the influence of Lucan's Pharsalia, from which the furor Teutonicus stereotype originated, although at no point did Odo directly use that phrase; his preferred term for Germans was Alemanni. 151 Another scenario is that Odo encountered this ethnic stereotype, which gained new currency in the twelfth century, indirectly through Suger's Vita Ludovici Grossi, for the abbot included a very similar description of German fury: the mad Germans invented a pretext for a quarrel, gnashed their teeth in fury, and began to rage out of control. Their treachery caught everyone by surprise.…”

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Feelings of betrayal and echoes of the First Crusade in Odo of Deuil's De profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem

Spencer

2019

Historical Research

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This article seeks to shed light on the literary agenda of Odo of Deuil, author of the most detailed Latin account of the Levantine branch of the Second Crusade. It calls for scholars to reinstate Odo's vilification of the Byzantines as a primary, rather than secondary, objective and proposes a new explanation for his stringent anti-Greek tone. It first extends our knowledge of Odo's engagement with the historiographical tradition of the First Crusade, before drawing attention to a hitherto unappreciated layer in his vilification of the Byzantines: his use of emotional language.

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Visualizing Germanness Through Costumes in the Sixteenth Century

Crofts

2021

Hist. J.

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Examining the understudied collection of costume images from Heidelberg Calvinist, lawyer, and church councillor Marcus zum Lamm's (1544–1606) ‘treasury’ of images, the Thesaurus Picturarum, this article intervenes in the historiography on sixteenth-century German national imaginaries, emphasizing the import of costume books and manuscript alba for national self-fashioning. By bringing late sixteenth-century ethnographic costume image collections into scholarly discourse on the variegated ways of conceiving and visualizing Germany and Germanness over the century, this article sheds new light on a complex narrative of continuity and change in the history of German nationhood and identity. Using zum Lamm's images as a case-study, this article stresses the importance of incorporating costume image collections into a nexus of patriotic genres, including works of topographical-historical, natural philosophical, ethnographic, cartographic, cosmographic, and genealogical interest. Furthermore, it calls for historians working on sixteenth-century costume books and alba to look deeper into the meanings of such images and collections in the specific contexts of their production; networks of knowledge and material exchange; and – in the German context – the political landscape of territorialization, confessionalization, and dynastic ambition in the Holy Roman Empire between the Peace of Augsburg and the Thirty Years War (1555–1618).

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Germen Militiae: War and German Identity in the Later Middle Ages

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Ethnic Identification and Stereotypes in Western Europe, circa 1100–1300

Ethnic Identification and Stereotypes in Western Europe, circa 1100–1300

Feelings of betrayal and echoes of the First Crusade in Odo of Deuil's De profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem

Visualizing Germanness Through Costumes in the Sixteenth Century

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