Acknowledgments
One could trace back the beginning of the history of this book to the Summer semester of 1984; at that time, as a young private docent at the University of Basel, I held a lecture on “The Foundations of the Middle Ages as a Problem of Social History (Churches, Hospitals, Universities”) [“Die Stiftungen des Mittelalters als Problem der Sozialgeschichte (Kirchen, Hospitäler, Universitäten)”]. Until recently, that manuscript offered the most comprehensive treatment of the subject, so that I myself in the following decades was able again and again to resort to it.1 The next milestone one could name is my Berlin inaugural lecture on 2 June, 1992 (“‘Total History’ of the Middle Ages?” [“‘Totale Geschichte’ des Mittelalters?”], printed in 1993), which was dedicated to the topic of foundations, as was my valedictory lecture at the Humboldt University on 12 July, 2016 (“Sigismund, Radegunde and the Origins of Foundations in Latin Christian Europe” [“Sigismund, Radegunde und die Anfänge des Stiftungswesens im lateinchristlichen Europa”], published in 2018). Meanwhile, such a perspective would thereby exclude the greater portion of my other works and the considerable breaks and changes of directions of my studies.
In this sense I can and should thankfully mention the indelible impression and the long-lasting influence of my teachers Karl Schmid and Otto Gerhard Oexle. Schmid (1923–1993), as my doctoral advisor in Münster and then as my mentor in Freiburg, introduced me to the topic; he himself was interested in foundations as a researcher of aristocracy and monasticism of the Early and High Middle Ages (cf. his “Commemorative Prayer and Aristocratic Self-Understanding in the Middle Ages” [“Gebetsgedenken und adliges Selbstverständnis im Mittelalter”], 1983). As I became enthusiastic and began to go my own way he was, as is usually the case between students and teachers, at first irritated, then, however, forbearing. Without Schmid’s former assistant, the Hannoverian professor and director of the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, Otto Gerhard Oexle (1939–2016), I would not have had the courage, at least at the beginning, to concern myself with foundations from a decidedly social-historical perspective and with the concept of the “total social phenomenon” according to Marcel Mauss. Above all the expansion Oexle brought about of the research on “memoria” beyond the traditional studies on confraternity (cf. his “Reality and Knowledge” [“Die Wirklichkeit und das Wissen”], 2011, 99–283), strongly influenced me.
My plan to develop Berlin into a center for the historical study of foundations again and again fell behind other projects during the quarter century of my activity there, even disappearing from time to time from my thoughts. My colleague Frank Rexroth, who while still in Freiburg was the first of my students to have written a dissertation within this field of inquiry (s. his “German University Foundations from Prague to Cologne” [“Deutsche Universitätsstiftungen von Prag bis Köln”], 1988, published 1992), occasionally reminded me of this. A workgroup on foundations (“Arbeitsgemeinschaft Stiftungen”), established in January 1995 at the HU with junior researchers, was supported by the German Science Foundation with multi-year financing for studies on sources, whose results also entered this book (“The Corpus of Sources for Medieval Foundations” [“Quellencorpus zum mittelalterlichen Stiftungswesen”], 1997–8; “The Foundations of the Frankish and German Kings of the Middle Ages and their Realities” [“Die Stiftungen der fränkischen und deutschen Könige des Mittelalters und ihre Wirklichkeiten”], 1999–2000). Collaborators on these projects, whose eagerness for discussion and imagination often inspired me, presented some monographs, which for the most part have appeared in the series “Foundation Histories” [“StiftungsGeschichten”, from 2000 onwards) (Ralf Lusiardi, “Foundations and Urban Society” [“Stiftung und städtische Gesellschaft”], 1998, published: 2000; Wolfgang Eric Wagner, “University Chapter und Collegium in Prague, Vienna and Heidelberg” [“Universitätsstift und Kollegium in Prag, Wien und Heidelberg”], 1999, published: 1999; Benjamin Scheller, “Memoria at a Turning Point” [“Memoria an der Zeitenwende”], 2002, published: 2004; Claudia Moddelmogg, “Royal Foundations of the Middle Ages in Historical Change” [“Königliche Stiftungen des Mittelalters im historischen Wandel”], 2009, published: 2012; Tillmann Lohse, “The Permanence of Foundations” [“Die Dauer der Stiftung”], 2009, published: 2011).
Studies and presentations of European history, which for a long time bound my interest more strongly and increasingly were conceived along the lines of intercultural comparison, around the turn of the millennium changed the way I viewed foundations. In 2003 the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung facilitated a transculturally-oriented international conference (s. “Foundations in Christianity, Judaism and Islam in the Premodern Period” [“Stiftungen in Christentum, Judentum und Islam vor der Moderne”], 2005) and between 2006 and 2008 a research project on the closure of foundations in the “West” and in Byzantium (s. Tim Geelhaar / John Thomas [eds.], “Foundations and the State in the Middle Ages” [“Stiftung und Staat im Mittelalter”], 2011). When in 2010 I was made aware of the “7th Framework Programme in Research. Technological Development and Demonstration” of the European Commission and the call for well-financed Advanced Grants, I nonetheless initially would have had to turn my attention away from other projects on medieval global history, if I wanted to submit a promising application. Almost contrary to my presumptions I was successful, so that a decisive change was brought about, without which this book, despite all preliminary work, would not have been possible.
The project “Foundations in Medieval Societies. Cross-cultural Comparisons” of the European Research Council enabled me between 2012 and 2017 to employ, besides post-docs in medieval history, also experts in Byzantine Studies, Indology, Islamic Studies, Judaism and for time Sinology as well, who with me worked on and published a three-volume “Encyclopedia of Foundations in Medieval Societies” [“Enzyklopädie des Stiftungswesens in mittelalterlichen Gesellschaften”] (2014, 2016 and 2017). This “World History of Foundations” was from the start planned as a second undertaking of the Advanced Grant, which was, in contrast to the analytically-conceived encyclopedia, not only to interpret the history of foundations in a narrative fashion, but was also, where possible, to extend far beyond the five or six “cultures” of the shared endeavor. Without the “preliminary work” of my colleagues, especially of other disciplines, who came from Israel, Italy, Romania, Spain/Great Britain and the USA to Berlin, this book would not have been written. I thus thank Zachary Chitwood, Susanne Härtel, Patrick Koch, Emese Kozma, Corrado La Martire, Tillmann Lohse, Volker Olles, Ignacio Sánchez and Annette Schmiedchen more than I can here express. I would also like to expressly thank my student assistants Laura Haßler, Ruth Schwerdtfeger and Benjamin Wolff, who constantly sought to sate my insatiable hunger for source editions and secondary literature, even outside of working hours on weekends.
Something that I did not expect at the start of my studies was the revision of certain fundamental conceptions. In the tradition of Schmid and Oexle, I had been able still in 2012 to publish my older articles in the collection “Foundations and Memoria” [“Stiftung und Memoria”]. What was intended to be the theoretical and methodological cornerstone of FOUNDMED soon was proven to be in need of correction. To wit, in universal comparison one cannot substantiate the assumption that foundations always served the memory of the founder or the salvation of the soul of the founders, as important as these motivations remained for certain “cultures”. I am forever grateful for this new insight, since there is nothing greater for a researcher than to be able to correct one’s own errors and thereby at the same time see oneself as a cultivator of international scholarship.
Alongside all the aforementioned and many still-unnamed collaborators and colleagues who have enabled this work, I would like to thank the European Research Council for the financial means, the Humboldt University of Berlin, which has proven itself not only to be my home, but through its committee, administration and intellectual climate to be my veritable alma mater, and the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, which has taken upon itself the risk of the German publication. For the translation of my book into English I would like to thank my onetime colleague Zachary Chitwood. I would also like to express my gratitude to Kathy van Vliet for accepting this version of the work into the offerings of the Koninklijke Brill NV and for the good care of printing Kim Fiona Plas.
I dedicate this book to my wife Claudia. It is thanks to her love and patience above all others, especially in times of grave illness, that I was able to write this book and other works for scholars and for those generally interested in history.
Michael Borgolte
Berlin, early in 2019
Recently, Tillmann Lohse has submitted his habilitation on “Stiftungen im Okzident, ca. 500 bis 1500”.