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Eroberte im Mittelalter, oder: Wer schreibt die Geschichte?

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Eroberte im Mittelalter
This chapter is in the book Eroberte im Mittelalter

Abstract

Starting from the common dictum „The victor writes the history“ and Reinhart Koselleck’s statement „The vanquished writes the history“, this paper reflects about the case studies on conquered people and conquests during the medieval millennium dealt with in this volume. It addresses not only the terms ‚conquest‘ and ‚the conquered‘, the ambiguity of the categories conqueror-conquered, and the wide range of phenomena mentioned by the authors. But it also attempts to systematise the written sources mentioned, with the result that, although no genre specifics can be derived from this typology, certain narrative patterns can be discerned which help to raise our awareness of the specifics of the sources. Finally, it is argued that the victors, both literally and figuratively, would not have written history without the vanquished.

Abstract

Starting from the common dictum „The victor writes the history“ and Reinhart Koselleck’s statement „The vanquished writes the history“, this paper reflects about the case studies on conquered people and conquests during the medieval millennium dealt with in this volume. It addresses not only the terms ‚conquest‘ and ‚the conquered‘, the ambiguity of the categories conqueror-conquered, and the wide range of phenomena mentioned by the authors. But it also attempts to systematise the written sources mentioned, with the result that, although no genre specifics can be derived from this typology, certain narrative patterns can be discerned which help to raise our awareness of the specifics of the sources. Finally, it is argued that the victors, both literally and figuratively, would not have written history without the vanquished.

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