Dr Dominik Waßenhoven
Lecturer (Akademischer Rat)
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
Book project (‘Habilitation’)
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.