Tradition, Innovation, Invention

Starting with Volume 13, the renowned series of books from the Medieval Studies Institute of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, is being published by Walter de Gruyter. The series presents a high-quality scholarly forum for interdisciplinary research in medieval studies. Its mission is to advance understanding of medieval literature, philosophy and art through soundly based research contributions. Apart from the volumes of proceedings of the biennial interdisciplinary Fribourg Colloquia, the SCRINIUM FRIBURGENSE series produces monographs from specific subject areas or from combinations of medieval subject areas represented in the Institute, i.e. general history, art history and the history of philosophy, Early Christian and Byzantine archaeology, and medieval literatures in Latin and the vernaculars. The studies contained in SCRINIUM FRIBURGENSE are distinguished by their continuation of well-established traditions of research, by the plurality of their methods, by the innovativeness of the questions posed and by their transdisciplinary methodological approach. The series is, of course, open to manuscripts from external scholars on problems of medieval research which match the profile of the series.

This volume examines the antagonism between tradition and innovation in the Middle Ages. There were lines of thought which presume adherence to authoritative examples, but also believe in the purposefulness of history, in that, starting from an original state, there is a succession of redemptive actions, threats of danger and promises of happiness, and at times even the expectation of an ideal final state. New processes, new skills, new knowledge, new ethical attitudes and new forms of co-existence are seen as representing progressive steps which do not cease in the present and are directed towards the promise of future happiness. This view was, however, confronted with those which bemoaned change as a deviation from past ideals and as a decline, and which held that the present and future could only be improved through recourse to tried and tested states legitimised through tradition. There was, therefore, the legitimation through tradition, but at the same time there was a commitment to innovation, which was judged to be an improvement. The image of dwarves who stand on the shoulders of giants, but are thus able to see farther, demonstrates the dichotomous attitude of the Middle Ages. The volume presents papers from a variety ofdisciplines involved in medieval studies. The papers focus on views of time and change, technological invention, the accumulation of goods and profit, reform and innovation in communities and the state, the increase in knowledge, innovation in art and literature, and the possibilities and boundaries of progress in human knowledge.

Autorentext

Hans-Joachim Schmidt ist Ordinarius für Geschichte des Mittelalters an der Universität Freiburg/Schweiz.

Zusammenfassung

"Der Band bietet perspektivenreiche Analysen einer "fundamentalen Denkfigur des Okzidents". Der interdisziplinäre Zugriff des Projekts wird der komplexen Thematik in besonderer Weise gerecht."
Tobias Davids in: Das Mittelalter 2/2006