Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Medieval History I

From 2005 until 2012 the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschft - DFG) funded the Priority Programme 1173 "Integration and Disintegration of Civilizations in the European Middle Ages". This research programme had been set up based on the assumption that Europe has never been a monolithic culture. Like any other era, the Middle Ages have to be thought of as a time of numerous and significant contacts between civilizations whose identities are changed and even created in incessant processes of integration and disintegration. European culture thus is not based upon Latin Christianity but upon a number of civilizations that are centered around religious communities. These cross-cultural interactions cannot be explored within the boundaries of a single scholarly discipline. Instead, they call for interdisciplinary collaborative efforts. Consequently, the Priority Programme comprised 24 research projects in 14 different disciplines based at 16 different German universities. Among others, members of the Priority Programme came from the fild of Art History, Medieval History, German Studies (Germanistik), Medieval Latin Philology, Arab Studies, Philosophy, Theology, Byzantine Studies and Jewish Studies. The programme was headed by Prof. Dr. Michael Borgolte (Humboldt-University of Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Bend Schneidmüller (Heidelberg University). Two young scholars in Berlin and Heidelberg coordinated the many different projects and the collaborative efforts within the programme while conducting their own projects.

The 24 projects that participated in the Priority Programme had been grouped into seven interdisciplinary research teams. Each of them conducted research on a topic of their choice within the framework of the guiding question of processes of cultural integration an disintegration. In their collaborative research they trancended conventional boundaries between disciplines and followed modern working methods. The results of their work has been published in a collaborative volume in 2011. (Integration und Desintegration der Kulturen im europäischen Mittelalter. Berlin 2011)

A first collaborative volume presenting the results of the work in the first half of the programme had been published already in 2008. (Mittelalter im Labor. Die Mediävistik testet Wege zu einer trans­kulturellen Europa­wissenschaft. Berlin 2008.) This volume also reflects upon the experiences of conducting research in interdisciplinary settings - a working method still perceived as experimental in the humanites in Germany at the time. The volume was presented at an International Spring School early in 2008 that brought together lectures and workshops on the hybridity of cultures in the European Middle Ages. (Proceedings: Hybride Kulturen im mittelalterlichen Europa. // Hybrid Cultures in Medieval Europe. Berlin 2009.) In May 2011 the Priority Programme held its closing conference in Berlin on "The European Middle Ages in Global Entanglement". (Proceedings: Europa im Geflecht der Welt. Berlin 2012.) With this conference, the Priority Programme's research on cultural integration and disintegration came to an end but at the same time a new topic was introduced to the research on intercultural dynamics in the Middle Ages.

Michael Borgolte / Juliane Schiel / Bernd Schneidmüller / Annette Seitz (Hrsg.), Mittelalter im Labor. Die Mediävistik testet Wege zu einer transkulturellen Europawissenschaft. (Europa im Mittelalter, vol. 10.) Berlin 2008.
(Online: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sppedia/index.php5/Mittelalter_im_Labor:Inhalt.)

Michael Borgolte / Bernd Schneidmüller (Hrsg.), Hybride Kulturen im mittelalterlichen Europa. Vorträge und Workshops einer internationalen Frühlingsschule. // Hybrid Cultures in Medieval Europe. Papers and Workshops of an International Spring School. (Europa im Mittelalter, vol. 16.) Berlin 2009.

Michael Borgolte / Julia Dücker / Marcel Müllerburg / Bernd Schneidmüller (Hrsg.), Integration und Desintegration der Kulturen im europäischen Mittelalter. (Europa im Mittelalter, vol. 18.) Berlin 2011.
(Online: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sppedia/index.php5/Integration_und_Desintegration:Inhalt.)

Michael Borgolte / Julia Dücker / Marcel Müllerburg / Paul Predatsch / Bernd Schneidmüller (Hrsg.), Europa im Geflecht der Welt. Mittelalterliche Migrationen in globalen Bezügen. (Europa im Mittelalter.) Berlin 2012.