Christian Jaser focuses on the symbolic, rhetorical and gestural intellectual workshop of the ecclesiastical power to curse and excommunicate, thereby reflecting the changing practices, functions and media contexts.

In seeming contrast to the Christian ban on cursing, medieval documents reveal the existence of an 'Ecclesia maledicens,' which publicly staged the spiritual and social effects of ecclesiastical excommunication. Christian Jaser focuses on the symbolic, rhetorical and gestural intellectual workshop of the ecclesiastical power to curse and excommunicate, thereby reflecting the changing practices, functions and media contexts. For terminological and methodological reasons, it is necessary to distinguish ritual from ceremonial forms of excommunication, each of which creates realities and meanings of its own. On this basis, Christian Jaser traces the historical genesis of these performative modes of excommunication to the late medieval papal court, where they were transformed into a key event for the representation of universal demands for disciplinary action.

Autorentext
Geboren 1975; seit 2013 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter amLehrstuhl für Mittelalterliche Geschichte II der Humboldt-Universität zuBerlin; 2011-13 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter imDFG-geförderten Projekt "Der mittelalterliche Zweikampf " an der TUDresden; Stipendiat und Gastwissenschaftler an in- und ausländischenForschungseinrichtungen (Berlin, Rom, Paris, Marseille).