Alfons Becker

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Alfons Becker (born June 22, 1922 in Radolfzell ; † August 11, 2011 in Mainz ) was a German historian . From 1964 until his retirement in 1987 he taught medieval history at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz .

life and work

His father August Becker was editor-in-chief of the Franconian Volksblatt. As a journalist, he was close to political Catholicism. During the Nazi era, Becker was placed in " protective custody " and was expelled. The family then moved to live with relatives in Saarland. After the war, his father found a job as a press officer in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse .

In 1940 he first studied for a semester at the Philosophical-Theological University of Eichstätt . After military service and imprisonment, he studied history, German, French and philosophy at the University of Mainz from April 1947. After three semesters, he switched to Saarland University . His academic teachers were Eugen Meyer , Jacques Moreau and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle . He passed his first state examination in 1951. From 1952 to 1957 he was a research assistant in Saarbrücken. Becker received his doctorate in 1954 from the University of Saarland on the investiture problem in France. From 1951 to 1961 he was a research assistant in Saarbrücken. In 1961 he completed his habilitation in Saarbrücken with the first part of origin and church career. The Pope and Latin Christendom in his biography of Pope Urban II. After his habilitation, Becker was an assistant in Saarbrücken and taught there from 1961 to 1964 as a private lecturer. In the winter semester of 1964/65 he succeeded Eugen Ewig at Johannes Gutenberg University and taught there as a full professor of medieval history until his retirement in 1987. His predecessor had devoted himself to the early Middle Ages and above all to the Merovingians . From then on, Becker shifted the research focus of the professorship to the 11th and 12th centuries. Becker played a major role in the institutional establishment of the Byzantine Studies department in the history seminar. A professorship for Byzantine Studies was newly established. Becker's most important academic students included Jörg W. Busch , Ernst-Dieter Hehl , Hubertus Seibert and Franz Staab . The topics assigned by Becker mainly dealt with the 11th and 12th centuries. However, no school developed in the sense of a group of students with a common research area. His successor in Mainz was Stefan Weinfurter .

Even decades after its publication, Becker's dissertation was regarded by Jochen Johrendt (2018) as the standard work on the investiture dispute in France. Research by Pope Urban II became Becker's scientific life's work. After the first part, submitted in 1961 as a habilitation thesis, the second part of The Pope, Greek Christianity and the Crusade of his biography about Pope Urban II followed in 1988. It also broke away from previous German-language research on the history of the Pope, which was primarily concerned with the relationship between Emperor and Pope dealt with the investiture dispute . In research, soon after the publication of the first part in German research, there was an increased interest in the subject of the biography of the Pope. Shortly before the end of his life he was able to complete his comprehensive account of Pope Urban II (1088-1099) with the third part, Ideas, Institutions and Practice of a Papal Regimen Universale .

Becker was married and had three daughters.

Fonts

  • Pope Urban II (1088-1099). 1964-2012.
    • Part 1: Origin and ecclesiastical career, The Pope and Latin Christianity (= writings of the MGH. Vol. 19 / I). Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1964.
    • Part 2: The Pope, Greek Christianity and the Crusade (= writings of the MGH. Vol. 19 / II). Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-7772-8802-0 .
    • Part 3: Ideas, institutions and practice of a papal regimen universale (= writings of the MGH. Vol. 19 / III). Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-7752-2200-6 ( review at Sehepunkte ).
  • Studies on the Investiture Problem in France. Papacy, monarchy and episcopate in the age of the Gregorian church reform (1049–1119) = Etudes sur leproblemème des investitures en France. Papauté, royauté et épiscopat à l'époque de la réforme grégorienne (1049–1119) . Saarbrücken 1955.

literature

  • Ernst-Dieter Hehl, Hubertus Seibert and Franz Staab (eds.): Devs qvi mvtat tempora. People and Institutions through the Middle Ages. Festschrift for Alfons Becker on his sixty-fifth birthday. Thorbecke Sigmaringen 1987, ISBN 3-7995-7054-3 .
  • Ernst-Dieter Hehl: Alfons Becker (1922–2011) In: Francia , Vol. 39 (2012), pp. 549–551.
  • Ernst-Dieter Hehl: Alfons Becker. In: Heinz Duchhardt (Hrsg.): Mainzer Historiker (= contributions to the history of the University of Mainz. New series, volume 16). V&R unipress, Mainz University Press, Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-8471-1115-3 , p. 61 ff.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Ernst-Dieter Hehl: Alfons Becker. In: Heinz Duchhardt (Ed.): Mainzer Historiker. Göttingen 2020, p. 61 ff, here: p. 63 f.
  2. ^ Ernst-Dieter Hehl: Alfons Becker. In: Heinz Duchhardt (Ed.): Mainzer Historiker. Göttingen 2020, p. 61 ff, here: p. 68.
  3. ^ Ernst-Dieter Hehl: Alfons Becker. In: Heinz Duchhardt (Ed.): Mainzer Historiker. Göttingen 2020, p. 61 ff, here: p. 71.
  4. ↑ Jochen Johrendt: The Investiture Controversy. Darmstadt 2018, p. 163.
  5. ^ Ernst-Dieter Hehl: Alfons Becker. In: Heinz Duchhardt (Ed.): Mainzer Historiker. Göttingen 2020, p. 61 ff, here: p. 75.
  6. ↑ Who is who? The German Who's Who. Edition 2002, p. 77.
personal data
SURNAME Becker, Alfons
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Radolfzell
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 2011
Place of death Mainz