Introductory Remarks

The Europeanisation of Europe

'The Europeanisation of Europe' or 'The Formation of Western Christendom' would seem an appropriate headline for the period between the 9th and the 14th century. While in the beginning of the period, the northern and eastern borders of Western Christendom did not extend much further than the Roman Empire had done, by its end, the region included the whole of Scandinavia, both sides of the Baltic, and the Western Slav region which had now become the kingdoms of Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary. The process has often been described as a spread or a conquest, either in the literal or in the figurative sense. This is largely the perspective of Robert Bartlett's influential book, The Making of Europe (1993), which shows how castles, heavy cavalry, and their concomitant institutions, i.e. manorialism and feudalisation, spread from the centre to the periphery. In a similar way, the cultural change of the period is often understood as the spread of Christian elite culture from the centre to the periphery.

The metaphor of cultural 'conquest' or 'spread', however, is not altogether satisfactory. It tends to overemphasise the similarities between the regions of the centre at the beginning of the process as well as those of the periphery at its end. Instead we find it helpful to view the development of the periphery by using an economic metaphor: Did the new regions of Europe receive wholesale 'cultural packages'? Or did they import selected items? Or did they produce their own cultural goods on the basis of a vague and heavily mediated external influence? Questions such as these recognise the general direction of cultural expansion without being prejudiced against a more complex traffic of cultural exchange.

The international character of Western Christendom is striking. The learned elite all over Christendom could communicate through the Latin language, were educated in basically the same mode of thought, and familiar with the same authorities. Appeals, petitions, and legal conflicts reached Rome from all parts of Europe. On the other hand, the elite was numerically very small, and communication over great distances normally depended on prior acquaintance, as most of the means of communication taken for granted by modern intellectuals were lacking: printed books, periodicals, newspapers, etc. Hand-written books might be sent over large distances, while at the same time being unknown in the neighbouring town. Thus, although the intellectual 'means of production' made possible long-distance communication, this did not prevent most intellectual milieux from having mainly local significance. The 'conquest' of the periphery from the centre and the unity of the European elite culture should therefore not be exaggerated.

The same applies to the political and administrative aspect. Admittedly, there is clear evidence of the superiority of the centre in the technological and institutional field. Western military technology was imported largely because of practical experience, as a result of defeats in wars against Western armies. The introduction of bureaucracy, taxation, and written records was necessary to meet competition from Western kingdoms. The countries bordering the German Empire were from the 10th century onwards faced with the alternatives: adapt or perish. Nevertheless, the difference between centre and periphery can hardly be understood in analogy to the later difference between the European colonists and the native countries. First, we have to do with a Europeanisation of the centre as well as the periphery. Western Europe around 1300 was very different from what it had been 300 years earlier, politically as well as culturally. Both the development of a relatively homogenous elite culture and the political centralisation and military specialisation took place at about the same time as the extension of Western Christendom. Second, the contacts between centre and periphery go far back in history, and we have to do with 'selective adaptation' in the political-administrative as well as in the cultural field. Third, the influence did not always go from the centre to the periphery, but also in the opposite direction. European culture is not only formed by the Mediterranean tradition from Antiquity, but also by the encounter with the Germanic and Slav peoples who were integrated in Western Christendom from the 9th century onwards. Similarly, the Europeanised elite in the periphery made important contributions to the common European culture, notably in the Later Middle Ages, when universities were established all over the area, starting with Prague in 1347/48. In the 16th century, the first decisive steps towards the modern model of the cosmos were taken by a Pole, Kopernik (Copernicus), a Dane, Tycho Brahe, and a German working in Prague, Johannes Kepler.

In addition to Europeanisation in the sense of export from the centre to the periphery, we intend to focus particularly on the process of adaptation and on the specific contributions from the periphery. In this way we hope to avoid both extremes, the nationalistic attitude on the one hand and the idea that everything of importance came from abroad on the other. However, we not only aim at throwing light on the periphery by comparing it to the centre, but also the other way round. What does the centre look like when seen from the periphery? What is actually the relationship between the international, high culture of the Middle Ages and local and regional traditions? In other words, we want to challenge the more or less implicit assumption of most medievalists that medieval Europe for most purposes was confined to the area south of Jutland and west of the Oder.

Four Projects

The size and complexity of the CMS's programme necessitate a careful selection of more manageable themes that can throw light on the main problems with which we want to deal. These can be roughly grouped into four main areas of research, in the following referred to as projects, which address the main challenges in the field, i.e. the tensions between the common Latin culture and indigenous traditions, between political diversity and cultural homogeneity, and between religious and secular thought. We have given them the following headings: (1) The arrival of writing, (2) Religion between unity and variety, (3) State formation and political culture, and (4) The construction of the past. As appears from our CVs and the lists of our publications and partners, we have done extensive research within the fields covered by one or more of these projects, and the group as a whole is well qualified to deal with them.
(1) The first project deals with a phenomenon that is not specifically European, but common to all great civilisations, i.e. the arrival of writing. Here we are dealing with perhaps the most important technology imported from the centre, without which the rest of the cultural import would have been impossible. Although some of the pioneers in the study of orality and literacy may have exaggerated, there can be little doubt about the importance of the introduction of writing to the European periphery from the 11th century onwards. Writing was not a 'neutral' technology; it was accompanied by a religion, a culture, and a language, all regarded as superior.

We shall focus on five aspects, four empirical and one theoretical. The first aspect is the relationship between oral and written. Here Scandinavia assumes a particular importance because of the strong marks the oral tradition has left on the extant Old Norse literature. The second aspect is the relationship between Latin and the vernacular, in particular the importance of the former as the main literary and administrative language of the periphery and its influence on the latter. The third aspect is the symbolic and practical communication made possible by the handwritten book as a medium. A study of this is closely related to the institutionalisation of religion (cf. Project 2 below) and to the general question of cultural encounter, intellectual debate and the gradual rise of an elitist public sphere. The fourth aspect is the administrative use of writing, which will be studied in close connection with royal and ecclesiastical government (Projects 2 and 3). And fifth, we want to contribute to the further development of theory on the relationship between oral and literate culture.

(2) The Christian religion is the main expression of the common European culture in the period. We intend to examine the Christianisation of the periphery in a broad comparative perspective and in close connection with the problem of state formation. Second, we shall deal with religious thought and practice, learned as well as popular, during the following period, e.g. religious literature, the cult of the saints, new forms of devotion, and the relationship between local traditions and the new religion imported from the centre. And third, we shall do a comparative study of the ecclesiastical organisation in the various parts of the periphery, with particular emphasis on the relationship to the papacy, on which important new material has recently become available and is being edited by one member of our group (Jørgensen).

(3) State formation represents a different approach to the relationship between unity and diversity than does Christianisation. On the one hand, the inclusion of the periphery into Western Christendom deepened its political division, on the other, the state itself and its institutions were largely part of the common European culture. We intend to look at the process from a comparative perspective, taking into account the research on state formation within the social sciences as well as recent research on medieval history. First, we shall study the establishment of kingdoms and principalities within the northern and eastern periphery from the 9th and 10th centuries onwards in a comparative perspective, rather than as a stage in the formation of each national state. Second, we shall examine the further development of these entities, from a political, social, and cultural point of view, notably the transition from personal lordship to bureaucratic kingship and the relationship between two, apparently opposite impulses from the centre: bureaucratisation and feudalisation. Third, we shall deal with the interstate unions in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe in the Later Middle Ages and the importance of dynastic and constitutional elements in this process.

(4) One cultural activity will receive particular attention, i.e. the representation and construction of the past, which was expressed through a variety of cultural and literary forms. We shall pay particular attention to historiography, because of its importance for the study of ecclesiastical culture and state formation, as well as its potential of focalising some of the main tensions within the culture of Western Christendom, i.e. between the classical heritage and Christianity and between universal and national traditions. Further, a large number of texts have been preserved from all over the periphery, which have only to a limited degree been the subject of scholarly studies.

First, we shall focus on how the various peoples of the periphery treated their distant past, notably how they tried to relate it to the mainstream of universal history, i.e. biblical and classical, particularly Roman history. Second, we shall deal with the linguistic and literary aspects of the texts, their use of Latin or the vernacular, their narrative patterns and rhetorical techniques, and the extent to which they use classical models. Such analyses will draw both on recent trends in manuscript studies and library history as well as discourse theory developed in connection with modern historiography. The importance of this aspect has to be considered in relationship to the third one, which is closely connected to our research on state formation, and deals with how politics, society, and human actions are represented in these texts. To what extent can historical writings be understood as the expression of the contemporary understanding of politics and society, and to what extent are they determined by ecclesiastical ideology or influence from the Bible or classical historiography and rhetoric? Our fourth subject of study is the relationship between secular and Christian culture, for which historiography forms an important source. Medieval historiography deals with the history as salvation as well as with war heroes and struggle for honour and material gain. A study of these different approaches will help us to understand the tension between religious and secular culture within Western Christendom and the differences and similarities in this respect between centre and periphery.

Main Directions and Problems in the CMS's Programme

The four projects will in various ways throw light on the main theme of the relationship between centre and periphery and the cultural exchange mechanisms at work between the two. Writing, Christianity, new ideas of politics as well as new techniques of government and administration, and the construction of the local past were all received, imported or produced on a pattern set by the central core of Western Christendom from the 9th and 10th centuries onwards: However, they were not introduced in a cultural or social vacuum. They were adopted selectively and mixed with local traditions. Nor were they to be found fully developed in the central core, but contributed to cultural and social transformations there as well as in the periphery. By studying these processes, we therefore hope to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between local traditions and external influence, as well as between cultural expressions on the one hand and political and social praxis on the other. The four projects are sufficiently different to throw light on various aspects of the main problem and sufficiently interrelated for the scholars working within each of them to cooperate and draw comparisons between their respective fields. The introduction of writing is fundamental to all the other projects. The study of Church and religion and of state formation traces main lines of influence from the centre to the periphery and how the periphery reacted to this influence. The construction of the past serves as a further illustration of the importance of writing and the relationship between oral and written and between secular and clerical culture. It also contributes to the understanding of the political culture of the period, which, in turn, is closely related both to the development of the Church and Christianity and to the use of writing for administrative purposes. A CMS with this focus will help to reap the rich crops grown by literacy studies by way of linking them to the entire array of social practices in the northern region of Medieval Europe.

Comparison between cultures and the study of cultural interaction raise fundamental questions about the character and definition of cultures. Cultural studies have gained increasing importance in recent years, in the social sciences as well as in the humanities, and the need for an interdisciplinary approach has become widely recognised. Further, there has been an increasing awareness of the complex relationship between culture, society, and material environment, a development that has brought history and the social sciences on the one hand and philological, aesthetic, and literary studies on the other, more closely together. It has also, however, led to widely different attitudes among scholars in the field, varying from economic and technological determinism to cultural constructivism. These are central problems throughout our programme, e.g. in the relationship between the technology of writing, social change, and new ideas and mental attitudes in explaining the Europeanisation of the periphery; in the relationship between social, economic, and cultural factors affecting Christianisation, the growth of the ecclesiastical organisation, and state formation; and in the relationship between the historiographical texts as the expression of mentality and society on the one hand, and genre and linguistic structures on the other. The mentality tradition within the French Annales School has made valuable contributions to the understanding of collective attitudes. The heritage from structuralism, in its novel and widely different forms in scholars like Mary Douglas (1973), Clifford Geertz (1973), and Michel Foucault (1966, 1975), has increased our awareness of the constraints inherent in language and social practice. Both, however, may be criticised for underestimating the importance of individual choice and systematic thought and of tension and diversity between groups within a culture. Here the microhistorial orientation (Ginzburg 1976, Geary 1994), Berger's 'plausibility structures' (Berger 1969), and Bourdieu's concepts of social praxis and social fields present valuable new perspectives which we intend to pursue (Bourdieu 1980, 1991, cf. also Mann 1986, Wuthnow 1989). In a similar way, we seek a middle road between radical cultural constructivism (Foucault, Ariès, and the deconstructivists) and the economic and technological determination in Marxism and related traditions.

The Research Potential of CMS

As for our contribution to medieval studies in a global context, Norway andScandinavia in general have no doubt been at a certain distance from the main centres. On the other hand, this distance also gives some new perspectives. It is striking how strong national traditions have been in the great centres of medieval studies in Britain, France, Germany, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States. As a group, we are fairly familiar with all these countries, and through our programme, we shall also add the Eastern European perspective. Nor do we take for granted the same phenomena as do our colleagues in other parts of Europe. We shall therefore be able to discover problems and make comparisons which they are likely to overlook.

In addition to its general importance in a European context, the CMS will contribute significantly to the internationalisation of Norwegian research in the humanities. A considerable literature, mostly in the vernacular, was produced within the Old Norse culture (Norway and Iceland) in the Middle Ages. This literature is already the subject of international interest. Old Norse studies are represented in a number of universities all over the world and form the subject of regular international conferences. However, other aspects of our medieval past and the study of it are less well known. Medieval Norway presents an interesting example of state formation, and was a country with close cultural and economic links with the centres of medieval Europe, despite its distance from them and its relative poverty. Norway also has a long and distinguished scholarly tradition in medieval studies which is too little known in the rest of Europe, largely because Norwegian scholars have mostly written in Norwegian. A comparative programme of this kind, with extensive publications in English, will make our sources, our past, and our earlier as well as recent scholarship better known to the rest of the world. Our group is also well qualified for carrying out such a programme, as we have experience from research on Norwegian and Nordic as well as general European history and culture and have good contacts with the international scholarship in the field.

The relationship between periphery and centre as well as between unity and diversity within Europe has received new actuality through the present Europeanisation of Europe, a process that calls for a redirection of historical and cultural studies as well as a re-evaluation of our common heritage. In this context, the Middle Ages emerge as a particularly formative period, the period when the Christian and Greco-Roman culture of Late Antiquity met the Germanic and Slav traditions of the periphery, and when an international elite culture was developed within a system of independent states. Thus, both the unity and diversity of Europe came into being during this period, and insight into both is necessary in order to understand what happens today and in order to preserve and present our European heritage within a modern cultural and educational framework. A Norwegian CMS on the periphery and centre of medieval Europe can make sure that the voice of the North and the East will be strong when new interpretations of the origins and identity of European history are to be developed in the coming decades. We shall therefore give high priority to transmitting the results of our research to a wider audience, not only in the form of popularised versions of our scholarly works, but also as part of a systematic effort to exploit our insight in order to create the kind of books, exhibitions, radio and television programmes etc., which can demonstrate the general relevance of our studies of medieval Europe and show the connections between the past, the present, and the future.