Regna
Regna is the plural of the Latin regnum (rule, domain, time). In Carolingian contexts, the term describes the domains of the decisive families of the aristocratic ruling class, the so-called greats , who only happened to have something to do with the “tribe” of the duchy , i.e. with the Alemanni , Bavaria , Saxony , etc.
background
In the Carolingian Empire, royal rule was structured by the delegation of military and administrative command powers in the various areas of the empire. The layout of these areas was based on the needs of the royal rule and not the local ethnic conditions, so that it only happened to correspond to a tribal area. At its head could be a Carolingian or a dux (duke). As a successor, the ruler's sons from Louis the Pious each received several regna , which together formed a regnum .
When dukes rose to the top of regna at the beginning of the 10th century , they did not primarily lead a tribe to represent its interests, but rather acted in the political and social structural field of royal rule. It was always about strengthening their own positions of power in the competition between the ducal families.
According to Joachim Ehlers , it was only the permanence of the political organization in the interplay of the duchies in the Franconian Empire that had “ethnogenetic consequences”. They gradually found expression in the rise of the French and Germans as different peoples.
The lingua franca in Eastern Franconia
For the East Franconian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire that followed it, this meant that it took a long time for a supra-regional lingua franca east of the Rhine, namely German as the common language , to develop beyond the various regna . "If a Saxon wanted to talk to an Alemannic and couldn't speak Latin, he had to use West Franconian for a long time, the lingua franca [lingua franca] of Western and Central Europe, from which French later emerged."
For Saxony as a power base the Liudolfinger was also considered to be "the most barbaric, the least civilized, the most remote from Mediterranean culture and highly dependent on outside help". Thus Old Saxon was the most incomprehensible dialect in the other regna .
In addition, the intercourse between the individual regna was made more difficult because they differed in their constitution, social structure and their law.
literature
- Johannes Fried : The way into history. The origins of Germany up to 1024. Ullstein, Frankfurt / M.-Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-548-26517-0 .
- Ludger Körntgen : Ottonen and Salier. 2nd, revised and bibliographically updated edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-534-21352-8 .
- Hagen Schulze : A short German story. With pictures from the German Historical Museum. CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-40999-7 .
Remarks
- ↑ Ludger Körntgen (2008), p. 5.
- ↑ Hagen Schulze (1996), p. 21.
- ↑ Johannes Fried (1998), p. 571 f.
- ↑ Werner Goez : Shaping the High Middle Ages. Personal history essays in a general historical context , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1983, p. 12 f.