IMC 2014: Sessions

In this session the question is raised as to how networks of communication between court and cloister functioned in Late Medieval Austria, who were the actors involved in their maintenance, and which media were used to what effect.

The first three papers will focus on the monastic world. First, Diarmuid Ó Riain will shed more light on one such network in action by presenting new findings about the compilation of the Magnum Legendarium Austriacum, one of the largest hagiographical collections ever assembled in medieval Europe. The relationship between the manuscripts can help illuminate the connections between various monasteries in the Babenberg territories both within and across monastic orders. Then Martin Haltrich will focus on the complicated but productive triangular relationship between the court of the Babenberg rulers and the monasteries of Melk and Klosterneuburg in order to better understand the role each of these communities (and their protagonists) played within medieval Austrian society. Thirdly, Christian Opitz will take a comparative look at descriptions of works of art in two early 14th-century monastic chronicles from St Florian and Kremsmünster. Why were certain works mentioned, while many more were left out? Who is presented as being responsible for the creation of these works? Most importantly, what role is ascribed to these works of art for the self-conception of these communities?

Providing a secular counterpoint, Markus Gneiß will present the final paper on the different forms of social identification that can be traced in Late Medieval Austrian narrative texts. This paper focuses on the development of noble identities by examining how authors used different symbols and descriptions of rituals to designate and judge social behaviour, differentiating between noble groups, but also defining nobles as a group distinct from landlords or others still climbing the social ladder towards nobility.