Karl Schmid (Medievalist)

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Karl Schmid (born September 24, 1923 in Rielasingen near Singen ; † November 14, 1993 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German medievalist .

Karl Schmid was drafted into the Wehrmacht in Russia immediately before graduating from high school. In 1942 he passed the Abitur and studied from 1945 to 1951 in Freiburg im Breisgau. In 1951 he received his doctorate in Freiburg near Tellenbach with the magna cum laude graded dissertation Count Rudolf von Pfullendorf. By the time it was printed in 1954, Schmid drew further knowledge from the sources, which continued the regional historical approach to medieval imperial and imperial history. Schmid belonged to a group of young historians who came together around Gerd Tellenbach to form the so-called “Freiburg working group” for medieval personal research. Schmid completed his habilitation in 1961 with the thesis Blood, Dominance, Gender Awareness, also at the University of Freiburg . In 1961 he was a lecturer in Middle and Modern History in Freiburg. From 1963 to 1965 he was a scholarship holder of the German Historical Institute in Rome . In 1965 he returned to Germany, where he was appointed to a chair for Medieval History at the University of Münster . He gave his inaugural lecture on group research in early medieval society. In 1972 he moved back to the University of Freiburg as professor of medieval history and took over the chair of his teacher Tellenbach. In 1988 he retired. His academic students included Gerd Althoff , Michael Borgolte , Dieter Geuenich and Alfons Zettler .

His scientific work areas were the history of medieval memoria , nobility and gender studies and the history of the south-west of Germany. Since 1968 he has been a full member of the Historical Commission for Westphalia and since 1977 a member of the Constance Working Group for Medieval History .

In the course of indexing the monastic memorial books from the Carolingian and Ottonian times, Schmid came across an entry in the Reichenau memorial book that Otto referred to as rex as early as 929 . The English king's daughter, with whom Otto married in 929 or 930 at the latest, was not listed. In this context, Schmid referred to a certificate issued by Heinrich on September 16, 929, which guarantees Queen Mathilde her widow's property, as well as a certificate from Strasbourg dated December 27, 929, which reports a Christmas stay of the court on the Upper Rhine. The royal court was thus in the immediate vicinity of the room where the English legation had previously been. Schmid understood these individual regulations of Heinrich as coherent parts of a systematic “house rules” which, as the climax, envisaged Otto as successor in the royal rule. With his research contributions from 1960 and 1964 on the succession to the throne of Otto I, Karl Schmid introduced new facts to the scientific discussion. Until then, research was based solely on the information provided by the historian Widukind von Corvey . Widukind's history of Saxony seemed to indicate that King Heinrich I had chosen his eldest son Otto as his successor shortly before his death in 936.

In 1970, together with Eduard Hlawitschka and Gerd Tellenbach, he published the edition of the Liber memorialis by Remiremont, which produced more than 2000 memorial entries and traditional notes from around 160 scribes. With Wollasch he founded in 1975 a "commented source work for researching the people and groups of people of the Middle Ages", the "Societas et Fraternitas". In 1983 and 1989, both historians published the Liber vitae of Corvey Abbey . At the Monumenta Germaniae Historica he founded a new series in 1975 with the Libri memoriales et necrologia, Nova Series and introduced it with two editions. Schmid and Johanne Autenrieth and Dieter Geuenich published the Reichenau fraternization book of 824 with 38232 personal names in 1979.

Schmid died shortly after his 70th birthday on November 14, 1993 in Freiburg im Breisgau of a serious illness.

Fonts

  • Remembrance of prayer and noble self-image in the Middle Ages. Selected contributions. Celebration for his sixtieth birthday. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1983, ISBN 3-7995-7023-3 .
  • Blood - domination - gender consciousness. Basic questions to understand the nobility in the Middle Ages. Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1998, ISBN 3-7995-6644-9 . (Also: Freiburg (Breisgau), university, habilitation thesis, 1961)

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Karl Schmid: The Freiburg working group '. Gerd Tellenbach on his 70th birthday. In: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine , Vol. 122 (1974), pp. 331–347.
  2. ^ Karl Schmid: About the relationship between person and community in the early Middle Ages. In: Frühmittelalterliche Studien 1 (1967), pp. 225–249.
  3. ^ Karl Schmid: New sources for understanding the nobility in the 10th century In: Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins Vol. 108 (1960), pp. 185–232, especially pp. 185–202 ( online ); Karl Schmid: The succession to the throne of Otto the great. In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History. German Department 81, 1964, pp. 80–163.
  4. ^ Rudolf Schieffer: Memorial sources in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. In: Dieter Geuenich. Uwe Ludwig (Ed.): Libri vitae. Remembrance of prayer in early medieval society. Cologne et al. 2015, pp. 17–32, here: p. 26.
  5. ^ Karl Schmid, Joachim Wollasch: Societas et Fraternitas. Justification of an annotated source work to research the people and groups of people of the Middle Ages. In: Frühmittelalterliche Studien , Vol. 9 (1975), pp. 1-48.
  6. ^ Rudolf Schieffer: Memorial sources in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. In: Dieter Geuenich. Uwe Ludwig (Ed.): Libri vitae. Remembrance of prayer in early medieval society. Cologne et al. 2015, pp. 17–32, here: p. 28.
personal data
SURNAME Schmid, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Medievalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Rielasingen at Singen
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1993
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau