| Paper 1114-a | Poor-Relief in the Ottonian and Salian Imperial Church
(Language: English)
Gábor Bradács, Department of History, University of Debrecen / Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest
Index terms: Charters and Diplomatics, Ecclesiastical History, Lay Piety, Social History |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
The address is concerned with a less researched part of the 'imperial church' of Germany in the era of the Ottonian and Salian dynasty of the 10-11th century. This imperial church system incorporated almost every structures of the state life, the administration, the military organization as well the social services. The early medieval German rulers issued several charters to the imperial abbeys and episcopates, in which they order charity, accomodation, and medical attendance to the poor and orphans of the empire and the foreign pilgrims. By means of these charters and the relevant narrative sources we try to re-enact the substance and structure of the social institutions in the early Holy Roman Empire.
Paper -b:
The unusual plan of a church with an apse at both the east and west ends was once thought to indicate imperial power and wealth. However, if we look at the uses of the double-ended space in late medieval parish churches, we find that the form actually accommodated the needs of more modest local communities. In the double-ended church of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, for example, the western apse became the site for weekly donations to the poor. This paper turns from the focus of previous scholarship on double-ended cathedrals and monasteries to the creative and differing uses of the double-ended form in parish churches of the late Middle Ages.
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