Royal Power and the Sacrament of the Eucharist
​Study on Religion and Politics in the Ottonian and Salian Political Culture
up to so called Investiture Contest.
The aim of my project is to explore the sacralization of political power based on the case study of the special bond linking the kings with the Host and Eucharistic liturgy in the Carolingian and post-Carolingian Europe. Surprisingly enough, this phenomenon has not been comprehensively researched by any scholar. The reason for the disregard of the link, king-Eucharist, has its root in the interdisciplinary character of these issues. Therefore the main sources of the project are liturgical manuscripts for celebration of the Mass and commentaries on this sacrament which were studied by liturgists and theologians interested in the evolution of various prayers and ideas rather than political culture. On the other hand, scholars interested in political culture were rather focused on main narratives. It is necessary to build a bridge between these two areas of liturgical scholarship and political theory.
Paweł Figurski M.A. - leader of the project
Ph.D candidate, graduated summa cum laude from the Insitute of History, University of Warsaw in 2011. Member of Collegium Invisibile Association, where he collaborated with Prof. Hagen Keller (WWU Muenster), and Prof. Peter Jeffery (University of Notre Dame, IN). In the academic year 2014/2015 Garstka Fellow at the University of Notre Dame. He was awarded with the START 2012 and START 2013 Scholarships for the best young academics of the Foundation for Polish Science. Since the academic year 2015/2016 grantee of the Fulbright Program at the University of Notre Dame.
Prof. Roman Michałowski - supervisor of the project
Professor at the University of Warsaw. Director of the Centre de Civilisation Polonaise at the Univeristy of Paris IV (1998-2001). Chair of the Deparment of Medieval History since 2005. Deputy editor-in-chief of the journal "Kwartalnik Historyczny". His publications were devoted to the fundations of kings and princes in the medieval political culture, Ottonian and Salian Empire with special focus on political and religious culture. His book on the council of Gniezno has been translated and will be published soon in the Brill series "East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450".
The project was funded by the decision DEC2011/03/N/HS3/00907 of the:
Events
MAY 12-15, 2016
Liturgy and Politics in the Ottonian Empire
APRIL 4-5, 2014
The Senses in Medieval Culture
Results
SUMMER, 2015
An Article "Rex quasi episcopus:
A View on the Sacralization of Kingship from the perspective of the Prayer for the Ruler in the Canon of the Mass" submitted to the redaction of Speculum.
SUMMER, 2015
An Article "Das sakramentale Herrscherbild in der politischen Kultur des Frühmittelalters" submitted to the redaction of Frühmittelalterliche Studien.