Dr Dominik Waßenhoven
Research Areas
- History of the Early and High Middle Ages
- Northern European History (Early Medieval England; Scandinavia)
- Historiography and perceptions of history
- Political and church history of the Ottonian period
- Comparative history
- Mobility and cultural transmission
Bishops in Medieval Society
Together with Étienne Doublier, I am writing an introductory book on bishops in the Early and High Middle Ages (4th–13th centuries), which will be published by Kohlhammer. The book will shed light on the position and functions of bishops from the late Roman period to the Staufer era, and also present a number of bishops in brief portraits in order to highlight specific themes for which these bishops are representative. Our aim is to introduce students of history and other interested readers to the world of the Early and High Middle Ages from the perspective of the bishops, who more than any other actors were regarded as indispensable mediators of salvation and guarantors of social order.
Bishops and royal successions
In my current research project I am looking at the perception and depiction of bishops between 950 and 1050, roughly, with a special focus on their role in royal successions. My aim is to overcome the classic view on bishops from the kings’ perspective and as their agents, which has been prevalent especially for the Ottonian-Salian kingdom. I will thereby concentrate on the bishops’ actions, or, to be more precise, on the description of these actions in contemporary sources. Therefore narrative sources are at the heart of the project, above all historiography and hagiography (saints’ lives), but also sermons and legal sources. The aim of the project is to determine perceptions and conceptions of bishops and thereby their position in the society of the tenth and eleventh centuries, both in Germany and England.
Mind the Gap / Mut zur Lücke
Islands of Tradition in Schwarzrheindorf – Continuities, Ruptures, and Their Narratives Across Disciplines
How is the history of a specific place told in different academic disciplines? What importance is given to material and immaterial evidence, and to their contexts? And how do these disciplines deal with “gaps in transmission” – with shorter or longer periods in which no sources are available? These guiding questions shape the project Mind the Gap / Mut zur Lücke. Islands of Tradition in Schwarzrheindorf, which uses the case study of Bonn-Schwarzrheindorf and the nearby women’s convent in Vilich. Taking a longue durée perspective, the project is designed to foster both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialogue across the humanities.
The collaborative research project follows two main strands. The first focuses on how disciplines such as art history, archaeology, and history deal with gaps in the source record. It compares the dominant narratives that arise in these fields when dealing with periods poor in sources, especially Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, bringing them into dialogue with one another. The second strand takes a transdisciplinary approach and asks to what extent modern methods, including those from the natural sciences, can help to close existing gaps in the evidence. In this way, the project addresses both theoretical questions about knowledge and more concrete research needs in the individual disciplines.
In Schwarzrheindorf and Vilich, striking pieces of evidence do survive – but they often appear like “islands” surrounded by periods without sources. Examples include the Merovingian-period cemetery excavated in the 20th century, the foundation of the convent in Vilich in the 10th century, the “Doppelkirche“, a two-storey church built in the mid-12th century, and the Jewish cemetery established in 1361. The history of how these “islands” have been interpreted extends into the present. Taking these sites as examples, the project examines, over time, how narratives of development, tradition, and reinterpretation have emerged within specific disciplinary contexts. Particular attention is paid to how facts and hypotheses are borrowed from neighboring disciplines in order to fill existing knowledge gaps. How do different disciplines handle such discipline-specific or source-specific gaps, and how can collaborative historical writing be both constructive and critically reflective?
In recent years, “grand narratives” in the historical sciences have come under increasing scrutiny – and rightly so. Yet such broad reflections are often not transferred to local-scale research. This project deliberately tests established narratives against the specific local evidence and updates them where necessary.
In spring 2026, students from the three participating disciplines will curate an exhibition that will present a critical and reflective view of history-writing and historical perception to a wider audience. Both the exhibition and the project’s initial phase are supported by the Transdisciplinary Research Area 5 Present Pasts: Past Worlds – Contemporary Questions. Cultures in Time and Space at the University of Bonn, within the framework of Germany’s Excellence Strategy.
I am conducting the project together with Dr Hanna Christine Jacobs (Art History, Bonn) and Dr des. Valerie Palmowski (Archaeology, Bonn).
Die deutschen Königspfalzen – Nordrhein
For the volume on the North-Rhine area in the publication series ‘Die deutschen Königspfalzen’ I work on the articles about Schwarzrheindorf and Vilich. You can find more information on this project here (in German only).