CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Kandzha, Iliana |
|---|---|
| Title | Royal Penance: Narrative Strategies of Ritual Representation in Ottonian Historiography |
| Summary | This research belongs to a sphere of studies in political rituals and images of power; though here only one type of ritual practice is analyzed, namely royal penance as represented in historiographical sources of the Ottonian age (919-1024). Acts of repentance performed by Ottonian kings and emperors have always been approached as historical events and “moves” in a political game of the kingdom between powerful magnates. This perspective, however, often neglects other dimensions of royal penance, namely political agenda, commemorative needs and literary traditions, which instigated Ottonian authors to reflect upon the repentance of kings in their writings, much more often than writers from Carolingian or Salian ages. In this thesis royal penance is perceived, first of all, as a narrative inside historical discourse, which was created as memorization of a historical event, when penance was believed to be performed. In this light royal penance appeared to be used by Ottonian authors as a stable narrative pattern, which showed up in certain specific literary circumstances such as battlefield, establishment of a diocese or family conflicts. Although each author had his or her own reasons for evoking, creating or erasing memories of royal penance in their writings, several common functions of a “narrated” royal penance can be defined: creating a useful past for needs of a specific community, retrospectively legitimating political acts, establishing relationship between royal power and local ecclesiastical authorities or providing implicit Kaiserkritik. In this thesis I also touch upon matters of literary prototypes of royal penance and possible ways of categorization of this ritual, namely between imposed penance and self-humiliation of a king. |
| Supervisor | Ziemann, Daniel; Jaritz, Gerhard |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/kandzha_iliana.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University