Knowledge History of the Middle Ages

1. Knowledge, historical and contemporary

There is one ideal way to get information on an unknown topic about the Middle Ages, for example knowledge: look it up in the ‘Glossarium mediae latinitatis’, first published by Charles du Cange ( 1610–1688 ) in 1678. He tells us under the lemma scire that “a lot of words describe the meaning of ‘to know’ but there is no single work to quote” ( Multorum nomina Scirem nominare, sed opus non est ea singula describere ) ^[1]. So that is no real help or at least it provides too little information. Is it impossible to give a clear definition of what knowledge is?

We can hardly find any suitable article in dictionaries usually consulted. It might help as a first step to consult the most popular encyclopedia of today: “Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, skills, or objects. By most accounts, knowledge can be acquired in many different ways and from many sources, including but not limited to perception, reason, memory, testimony, scientific inquiry, education and practice” ^[2]. This is Wikipedia’s explanation in 2021. Obviously, even contemporary definitions of knowledge are on the move. Some years ago, in 2018, the Wikipedia article included “information” and “description” besides “facts and skills”, understanding knowledge “acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning” ^[3]. The loss of “information” and “experience” in the updated version is, in fact, regrettable. Perhaps unexpectedly from a premodern point of view, the article was informative in connecting knowledge with information, experience and education. Although taken from contemporary contexts, this definition of knowledge can be helpful in guiding us towards historical contexts by focusing not exclusively on “inquiry and practice”.

Wikipedia did ( and does even now ), in fact, not ignore history. The article on ‘Knowledge’ quotes one of the most famous literary remarks concerning knowledge by Francis Bacon ( 1561–1626 ): “knowledge is power”, which does not focus on knowledge as an instrument of political power, but on understanding nature and verifying assertions by experiments. Not only in this respect does Francis Bacon represent a new beginning of science and a period of transformation from late medieval scholastic knowledge.

What then is knowledge in history? Again, Wikipedia has an article on the ‘History of Knowledge’: “The history of knowledge is the field of covering the accumulated and known human knowledge created or discovered during the history of the world and its historic forms” ^[4]. It obviously isn’t wrong to understand knowledge history necessarily as part of global history. No single element of a global history of knowledge is to be excluded or, vice versa, there is no conceivable knowledge history that can be restricted in principle ( such as, for instance, a ‘national’ knowledge history ). The distribution of knowledge will never accept man-made restrictions or any kind of limitation ( at least as far as regional distribution is concerned ).

Before continuing, I would like to announce at this point a specific distinction: in the following, I prefer to refer to “knowledge history” if the methodological approach on the “history of knowledge” is meant, and “history of knowledge” if the historical process itself is being discussed.

As mentioned above, knowledge history is always in principle ( and independent from concrete subjects in question ) conceptualized as global history. A history of knowledge in a particular period of time did and does not exist as such, but only because we are intentionally looking for it. The history of knowledge in the Middle Ages and in particular the European Middle Ages is not an isolated section or period within the global history of knowledge, but is only a distinguishable part of it, insofar as we pose a question about it. We should stay aware of the fact that a European perspective on the history of knowledge is an intended choice out of the totality of historical perspectives.

As the African historian Achille Mbembe reminds us: “A Eurocentric canon is a canon that attributes truth only to the Western way of knowledge production. It is a canon that disregards other epistemic traditions” ^[5]. That is, in other words, the global idea of knowledge, the “knowledge that is supposed to be universal and independent of context” ^[6]: Mbembe makes a new claim ( or, better, appeal ) to decolonize knowledge history and “[ … ] that our institutions must undergo a process of decolonization both of knowledge and of the university as an institution” ^[7]. The final horizon might then be “a horizontal strategy of openness to dialogue among different epistemic traditions” and to a “freedom of movement of knowledge – knowledge in motion” ^[8].

We might draw two lessons from this discourse for the European history of knowledge: First, European knowledge history, in particular concerning premodern times, must as far as possible avoid being Eurocentric. Second, knowledge should no longer be treated as a fixed canon of learned contents but rather be conceptualized in respect to processes of movement – between ancient and medieval or medieval and early modern traditions, between pagan, Christian and non-Christian, European and non-European values, between Latin and vernacular texts, between written and oral communication and between text-based contents and the materiality of knowledge delivery.

A remarkable attempt to compare European and Arabic academic learning was published in France in 2013, among others by one of the leading university historians, Thierry Kouamé, in the illustrated volume ‘Lumières de la sagesse. Écoles médiévales d’Orient et d’Occident’ ^[9]. A comparative history of schools and universities, learned contents, the transfer of knowledge and material aspects of instruction from late Antiquity to the late Middle Ages, this volume leads, for the first time, to real intercultural comparison. There is still a lot to do to better understand Arabic, Muslim as well as non-Muslim, learned traditions, which were of extraordinary, but up to now underestimated value for European knowledge history in the Middle Ages ^[10].

In 2017, the French philosopher Michel Blay presented a critical study on the usual definition of periodization and against the common understanding of progress within the global history of science ^[11]. Finally, in the same year French historians published a study on science and technology and proposed to distinguish between technical and scientific ideas and practices for a broad spectrum of materiality ^[12].

But meanwhile there are, apart from individual publications, institutional approaches to intensify research studies on the topic, although not necessarily titled as such. Since 2011 an interdisciplinary excellence project ( Laboratoire d’Excellence ) has been established at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, nominated as HaStec ‘Histoire et anthropologie des savoirs, des techniques et des croyances’ ^[13]. One of the main research areas is focused on the orientation of knowledge to practice, which is in particular investigated by the project SAPRAT ‘Savoirs et pratiques du Moyen Age au XIX^e siècle’ ^[14]. Also in 2011, a formal cooperation was installed in Germany between the three universities of Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science entitled ‘Berlin Center for the History of Sciences’, in order to intensify cooperation in research strategies and teaching ^[15].

New beginnings have also been made in Switzerland, by establishing the ‘Zentrum Geschichte des Wissens / Center History of Knowledge’, a joint interdisciplinary project at the University and the Technical University ( ETH ) of Zurich in 2005 ^[16]. Distinguishing the categories “forms of knowledge”, “circulations of knowledge” and “practices of knowledge”, the research program focuses on the cultural as well as technological conditions of knowledge and historical as well as philosophical reflexions on the development of knowledge.

The field of enquiry is chronologically focused on modern periods, while being open for comparative analysis with premodern and medieval times. Therefore, the meaning of knowledge is distinguished from the “traditional term of science” and pure “scientific knowledge”. It is definitely necessary to distinguish between knowledge and science, in particular concerning premodern history, especially in German: the terms of “Wissen” ( knowledge ) and “Wissenschaft” ( science ) suggest to be nearer to each other than their objects of research really are.

Discussions at the Zurich Center led to two of the most visible articles on the topic. Published in 2011, an article by Philip Sarasin deals with the programmatic question ‘What is Wissensgeschichte?’ ^[17] Sarasin uses a definition of knowledge as “the social production and circulation of knowledge” ^[18], which is convincing even for premodern periods, but he does not reach conclusive results in differentiating history of science and knowledge history. Moreover, he focuses almost exclusively on modern history and on science in contrast to the humanities ^[19].

Also focused on modern and contemporary history, Daniel Speich Chassé and David Gugerli published a concise research report entitled ‘Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Eine Standortbestimmung’. It summarizes the interdisciplinary efforts in recent research, but it necessarily detects that they have up to now not been brought together ^[20]. The authors intend to encourage a knowledge history which connects a history of science in the stricter sense with knowledge history concerning processes of professionalization, the distribution of knowledge, the development of institutions generating knowledge and the material history of instruments of research practices ^[21]. In other words, knowledge history in an up-to-date perspective brings together historical research of the humanities and the history of science ^[22].

Some initiatives in German research politics have been indicating the path to be followed: An interdisciplinary Collaborative Research Centre of the German Research Foundation at the Freie Universität of Berlin is entitled ‘Epistemes in Motion. The Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to Early Modern Times’ ^[23]. Putting into practice a methodologically innovative approach, the Berlin Centre aims to investigate the transfer of knowledge in European and non-European premodern cultures no longer under the assumption of static tradition, legitimized by authorities, but rather under the conditions of permanent movement and self-reflection, as processes of change in both knowledge and sciences. Consequently, a methodological shift is required, because “traditional knowledge history”, dealing with breaks and revolutions, cannot be suitable any more ^[24].

The volumes of the publication series ‘Epistemes in Motion. Contributions to a Transdisciplinary History of Knowledge’ are accessible online ( free open access downloads ) one year after publication ^[25]. They are focusing, for instance, on secrets in literature, strategies of negation and negative transfer, order and transgression in premodern cultures or magic knowledge and alchemy ^[26]. In the context of intercultural transformations, new light is shed on knowledge history in non-European cultures during the period of the European Middle Ages ^[27].

It is a remarkable coincidence that within the last decade the German Historical Institute in Washington DC established one of its key research areas in the field of knowledge history ^[28]. Concerning mainly modern and contemporary history, the project’s definition of knowledge is focused on production, practice and social as well as political contexts of knowledge: “The history of knowledge analyzes the production and circulation of knowledge, taking into consideration a broad spectrum of actors, practices, and social contexts. It seeks to understand the creation of knowledge orders and systems along with the power relationships upon which they rest” ^[29]. These aspects have, up to now, often been underestimated in research on premodern knowledge history, whereas processes of tradition or transfer, material conditions, and intercultural connections – essential for understanding the development and spread of knowledge in premodern times – may henceforth help to draw both research areas closer to each other. Innovative for both of them, the recent topic of “migrant knowledge / history of migration” highlights an essential contemporary challenge for historical research, modern and premodern, even medieval ^[30]. Both topics have therefore recently been drawn together in the research strategy of the German Historical Institute in Washington ^[31].

In 2016, the institute initiated a ‘History of Knowledge Blog. Research, Resources, and Perspectives’ ^[32]. The blog opens with a broad perspective on its subject: “Knowledge does not simply exist, awaiting discovery and use. Knowledge is produced, adapted, forgotten, rejected, superseded, expanded, reconfigured, and more – always by human beings [ … ]. Knowledge is central to most purposeful human practices [ … ], knowledge has a history. Indeed, human history cannot be understood apart from the history of knowledge” ^[33]. “Knowledge has a history” should be taken as the motto for further approaches to interdisciplinary as well as diachronic research on the history of knowledge.

At least two projects on medieval history were realized in this context: ‘Learning from early Printed Books’ by Paul Schweitzer-Martin in 2019 ^[34], and ‘Kuhn and Lambrecht’ by Roger Chickering, a study on methodology in historical research dealing with the 19^th-century dispute between the political and cultural approaches to medieval history, in 2018 ^[35].

In 2020, the publication of a new Journal for the History of Knowledge was initiated, in cooperation with the Belgian-Dutch Society for the History of Science and Universities, “devoted to the history of knowledge in its broadest sense. That means the history of knowledge not only of science and scholarship, but also of indigenous, artisanal and other types of knowledge” ^[36]. Both projects on medieval history of knowledge mentioned above were introduced in this journal ^[37]. In 2021, the publication of a collection of articles has been announced, edited in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin by Sebastian Felten and Christine von Oertzen under the title ‘Histories of Burocratic Knowledge’, which includes – in addition to articles on different continents in different periods – also studies on the medieval Latin West ^[38]. Premodern and medieval knowledge history will no doubt profit from transcultural horizons in interdisciplinary cooperation. In the broadest sense, the origins of European history of knowledge in the Middle Ages will hopefully find the place they deserve ^[39].

Another encouraging fresh start has been made recently: in 2019, Marian Füssel ^[40] published a collection of basic research texts on the field of “Wissensgeschichte” in the early modern period. As the first volume on this topic in German entitled as such, it contains reprints of articles from the 1980s onwards until 2012 ^[41]. Füssel’s opening article discusses the origins and development of terms and disciplinary approaches to the topic and helps to clear the up to now indistinct relationship between history of science and knowledge history ^[42]. In his words, knowledge history attributes knowledge to a broader circle of players and social contexts and is more in line with empirical research than history of science usually is ^[43].

Although the volume is devoted to the early modern period and modernity, the history of research by medievalists is also taken into account as the beginning of the social and practical contextualization of knowledge history ^[44]. The study of Markus Friedrich on ‘The Birth of the Archive’, subtitled ‘A Knowledge History’, published in 2013, is, in this respect, comparable. Friedrich derives the emergence of the archive as an institution from its origins in the Middle Ages ^[45]. Besides, he proposes to practically draw together the research interests of knowledge history as well as of the history of science ^[46].

In contrast to the recent publications presented just now there are still studies published within the last few years which stick to the idea of a strict separation of premodernity from modern perspectives. An introductory article on ‘Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissensgeschichte’ from 2017 argues the history of science to be an academic discipline, whose history is allegedly inseparably connected to European Modernity and which therefore did not emerge before the end of the 18^th century ^[47]. Knowledge is consequently understood in a broad and general sense and in contrast to recent approaches arguing towards an integration of knowledge history into a history of sciences ^[48].

All the more important is recent research, based on natural sciences, on the social and cultural contexts of knowledge, its development and history in premodern and modern times, published, for instance, by Jürgen Renn from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. His studies are not so much a traditional history of scientific progress, but rather an investigation of the historical processes of “intercultural transfer and transformation of knowledge” ^[49]. Insofar he is striving to establish a comparative global history of knowledge from the early modern period onwards ^[50]. By widening the focus of knowledge history towards global and intercultural history, recent research is open towards a long perspective from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity, i. e. including the Middle Ages as a period of unique development of knowledge ^[51].

2. Knowledge, medieval

The Wikipedia article on ‘History of Knowledge’ quoted above provides a link to another article called ‘Recorded History or Written History’, “a historical narrative based on a written record or other documented communication”, in other words on written, textual testimonies about what happened ^[52]. Although last edited in 2021, the article takes up the classical medieval definition of history, given by Hugh of Saint Victor ( 1096–1141 ) around 1128: “we call history the telling of what has happened” ( historiam esse dicamus rerum gestarum narrationem ) ^[53]. If there was any doubt about the timelessness of medieval thinking it can be shown here. Hugh also discusses knowledge ( scientia ), which he expected to be created by reading and reflecting ( lectio et meditatio ) ^[54].

Going back in time, one of the earliest medieval authors writing about knowledge was Isidore of Seville ( 560–636 ). His explanation is the following: “Science ( disciplina ) acquired its name from learning ( discere ) and is therefore also called knowledge ( scientia / scire )”. “Knowledge as expertise ( ars ), in contrast, is that which follows the rules and norms of an art” ^[55]. So, there are two meanings of knowledge, the one of knowing by learning ( scientia / scire ) and the other one of knowing by practice ( ars ). The first one ( scientia ) led, from the early Middle Ages onwards, towards the elaborated system of ecclesiastical schools within monasteries or at cathedrals and later, from the end of the 11^th century onward, to the establishment of universities and their erudite scholarly systems. The second one ( ars ) is linked to the system of the so-called seven liberal arts ( septem artes liberales ), as the official program of all such schools, and later on to the first and lowest faculty at the universities, the one of the arts ( artes ). Strictly taken, the arts faculty as an arrangement of learned disciplines became the philosophical faculty in the early modern period and was later transformed into the humanities.

Consequently, the question “What was knowledge in the Middle Ages?”, transposed into our own time, means not at least “What are the humanities?” The history of knowledge in the Middle Ages cannot be examined without taking into account this link between past and present, because the subject in question did not exist just as such: there was no doubt a significant development of interacting with learning and learned practice in the European Middle Ages, but contemporaries did not have a clear, normative definition of what “knowledge” was.

Two methodological problems are already evident at this point: first, the terminology and, second, possible translations. First, there is no established term for “knowledge” which does not necessarily include diverse semantic dimensions: in particular, the dualism between scientia and ars ( as mentioned above, learning and practice ) and also between a canon of knowledge ( scientia ) and the process of learning ( scire ). Second, the problems of translation from Latin sources into modern languages: As already shown above, knowledge could be understood as disciplina, scientia, scire or ars. Is it really permissible to translate all these words as “knowledge”? And even if so, what about the difference between the learning of knowledge ( scire ) or the theoretically learned and practically used knowledge ( scientia and ars ) and the process of understanding or cognition based on knowledge ( cognitio, intelligentia ) and, finally, the confirmation of knowledge by experience ( experientia )?

Albert the Great ( 1200–1280 ), the famous Dominican scholar, completed the series with the eagerness to learn ( studiositas ), which even included the often-criticized curiosity ( curiositas ). Thomas Aquinas ( 1225–1275 ) and later Nicholas of Cusa ( 1401–1464 ) followed him in that respect ^[56]. They were all clerics and theologians and for them, learning, knowledge and cognition were the only way to find out more about God and to come closer to wisdom ( sapientia ). There was a lot of reflection and discussion on this subject. In addition, from the early times of Saint Augustine ( 354–430 ) onwards and still in the later Middle Ages, texts were written on the ( fictional ) dialogues between teachers and their pupils, entitled de magistro or similar, which made clear that the learned cleric as a teacher was able to carefully lead his pupils from curiosity to correct learning, from knowing to cognition and finally on the way to wisdom ^[57]. Hugh of Saint Victor in the early 12^th century also made a distinction between knowledge ( scientia ) concerning human conditions, cognition ( intelligentia ) about truth and normative human behavior and finally wisdom ( sapientia ) as the highest level of ( divine ) omniscience ^[58].

But this was, in the end, just one side of the story. Martianus Capella claimed that knowledge ( scientia ) must be useful ( est autem bene dicendi scientia, utilis est igitur ) ^[59]. In later centuries, lay society reproached clerical knowledge for not providing any benefit. Public utility ( utilitas publica ) then became increasingly important; therefore, from the 13^th century onwards, it was no longer students of the liberal arts, theologians and philosophers who were most respected, but jurists, whose academic discipline possessed the value of being a profitable science ( scientia lucrativa ). From the 15^th century onwards, no royal or princely court and no town was able to meet the challenges of everyday political life without their counsellor’s advice, these counsellors being learned experts of Roman Law ^[60].

By this time, the contemporary use of the terminology seems to have become a bit clearer: the knowledge of those who were able to follow a personal career as erudite counsellors was, as well as the knowledge of scholars, called science ( scientia ), and it was an academic or university discipline, in particular Roman law, but also included Canon law, often medicine, sometimes theology, but rarely the arts. Any other knowledge was just an art ( ars ), and therefore comparable to the knowledge of practitioners, like craftsmen.

A summary at this point leads to the following conclusions. The contents and function of knowledge must be distinguished in order to explore the medieval history of knowledge. The more the semantic field is broadened, the less it remains clear what a generally binding definition of knowledge might be. Neither in the Middle Ages nor in our own times is there any unambiguous definition or indisputable term available without risking misinterpretations. All the common terms imply specific connotations and categorizations. Any concrete definition of the term knowledge depends on the intention of those who use it and on the situation in which it is used.

It is for this reason that a history of knowledge in general was no identifiable subject of historical research until the 21^st century. An open and interdisciplinary concept of studying knowledge and its history from about the year 2000 onwards has helped to establish growing research on this topic. Although it does not limit the semantic field, but even profits from the shifting or flexible use of the term knowledge, recent research has still not determined conclusively what exactly history of knowledge is and whether a history of knowledge or a history of science and its academic disciplines is intended. For that reason, the Berlin Collaborative Research Centre mentioned above preferred at its beginning the term “episteme”: “This term applies to ‘knowledge’ as well as to ‘science’ and defines knowledge as the ‘knowledge of something’” ^[61].

3. History of Knowledge, current trends and strategies of research: contexts

The openness of the terminology arguably remains a problem, but also offers an attractive playing field for interpretation and translation. To start with a modern perspective: the dualism of knowledge and science does not mean exactly the same as the one of humanities and natural sciences. In a medieval context, the dualism of knowledge and sciences is even more complicated, as seen above, because it includes the differentiation between artes and scientiae and as well the one between theoretical knowledge and its practical use.

Finally, translating these terms exactly between modern languages constitutes a practically unsolvable challenge. The English noun “knowledge” is different from the verb “to know”. In French it is translated as “savoir”, in Italian “sapere”, a verbal noun just as the German “Wissen”. The opposite in English and French is “ignorance”, in Italian “ignoranza” and in German more simply and directly “Nichtwissen”. To continue, the English “science” mirrors the French “science” and the Italian “scienza”, originally derived from the latin verb scire, and the German “Wissenschaft”, derived from the German noun “Wissen”, corresponding to Latin “scientia”.

Finally, there is the relatively new English term “knowledge history”, corresponding to the German “Wissensgeschichte”, grammatically different to the French “histoire du savoir” and the Italian “conoscere la storia”. All of them, as already mentioned above, address the humanities, in this respect principally distinguished from the English “history of science”, the French “histoire des sciences”, the Italian “storia della scienca” and the German “Wissenschaftsgeschichte”, all dealing with the history of the disciplinary ( and mostly natural ) sciences ^[62].

To finish summarizing these issues: translations from one modern language to another are nearly as complicated as from Latin to a modern language. Evidently this is not only a multilingual problem, but has serious consequences for international research and communication on the topic of knowledge history, not only because translating the titles of books and articles is often not without difficulties and may in each case lead to misunderstandings. Furthermore, even the designation of disciplines and professorships is affected. Chairs for “history of science” have existed for some time at European Universities, mostly as additions to systematic disciplines of natural sciences, whereas professorships for “knowledge history” or “history of knowledge” have been created only recently.

Now and then some authors claim to have dealt with the subject of knowledge history, but without labelling their publications as such; therefore, they are now afraid to be overlooked in the increasing discourse on knowledge history. In contrast, the label “knowledge history” is increasingly used to attract attention in the general context of university history ^[63]. In other words: it is possible to explore knowledge history without necessarily labelling it as such, as well as to label research results as knowledge history without, in a strict methodological sense, really dealing with it. Meanwhile, “knowledge history” has obviously gained recognition for labelling modern approaches to historical research.

To summarize the state of discussions we might have a look at some recent publications, as, for instance, an example from German medieval research. In 2017, Stefan Weinfurter wrote an article entitled ‘Charlemagne and the beginnings of the European culture of knowledge and science’ ^[64]. He wanted to explain the meaning of unambiguity ( “Eindeutigkeit” ) and truth ( “Wahrheit” ) in Carolingian reforms as culminating in the rule of correctness ( norma rectitudinis, correctio ). Teaching, collecting and using knowledge had to follow the Emperor’s reform towards a practice of correctness, which was believed to be the only way to obtain the grace of God. Correctness in using knowledge leads to the truth and because unambiguity and truth are the targets of practicing knowledge, the development of learned knowledge and science in the following centuries was, according to Stefan Weinfurter, strongly influenced by the Carolingian reform of knowledge.

As Wolfram Drews had already stated in 2009 on the same topic, Charlemagne’s loyal followers, by obeying his demand for reform, praised him for strengthening their knowledge ( scientia ) by his doctrine ( doctrina ) ^[65]. The Emperor’s own knowledge ( scientia ) was, in contrast, believed to result from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit ^[66]. The meaning of knowledge then is ambiguous and describes human knowledge as well as the result of divine inspiration.

The results of the research of both authors, Stefan Weinfurter and Wolfram Drews, provide substantial insights into the knowledge history of early medieval Europe, but did not explicitly claim to do so. Weinfurter intended to explore the idea of unambiguity, Drews the comparison between the European and Arabic political order.

There is no doubt a broad spectrum within the context of knowledge history. The ‘History of Knowledge Blog’, provided by the German Historical Institute in Washington, for instance offers recent and forthcoming articles on widely divergent topics from the early modern period to the present day ^[67]. The basic message therefore is twofold: “Knowledge has a history” and “One can relate Knowledge to all human practices and vice versa” ^[68].

In part, there is also a tendency to include practices of knowledge more intensively, as did a group of German historians in their collection of articles on ‘Knowledge History as History of Society’, dealing with “knowledge-related practices”, the “history of innovation”, and “historicity [ and ] materialism” ^[69].

It would, however, be a misunderstanding to think that just everything could be a topic of knowledge history, assuming that it would depend only on labelling it as such. On the contrary, as already explained in the beginning, it may be a bit more complicated to identify topics of knowledge history than it usually is in other contexts. The research field of knowledge history is relatively new and discussions will continue. But to attempt, on a provisional basis, a core definition, we might say that whatever people learnt and knew and used, whatever was understood in contemporary societies as learnable and practicable and whatever people collected, organized and institutionalized in order to arrange their individual and social life in theory and practice, could be turned into a topic of knowledge history.

4. History of knowledge, tendencies and strategies of research: fields

At the very beginning of knowledge history, there were two studies written by British historians. In 2000, Peter Burke published his book entitled ‘A Social History of Knowledge. From Gutenberg to Diderot’ ^[70]. It is in fact the first volume dealing with our topic. Strictly speaking, his book title does explicitly refer to history of knowledge, not to knowledge history. But as we have already seen, translation may help to distribute research results, but it may also cause problems in reception. In 2001, Peter Burke’s book was translated into German as ‘Papier und Marktgeschrei. Die Geburt der Wissensgesellschaft’ ( Paper and Shouting in the Marketplace. The Birth of Knowledge Society ), which does not, in fact, mean the same, as the original title clearly shows. On the one hand, the translation obscures the fact that the book is dealing with social history and with the history of knowledge as such. On the other hand, it created the previously unknown term of “Wissensgesellschaft” ( knowledge society ) and helped to extend Peter Burke’s approach from the early modern period to the Middle Ages.

In the same year, the term “Wissensgesellschaft” started its career in Germany. Johannes Fried, one of the most influential German mediaevalists at the time, published a short study on the ‘Topicality of the Middle Ages’, subtitled ‘Against the Arrogance of our ( i. e. modern ) Knowledge Society’ ^[71]. In 2008, an interdisciplinary volume on the “European Knowledge Society” was subtitled with the question whether it could provide a model for current European politics on research and innovation ^[72].

For the first time ever, medieval society was perceived as a knowledge society, interestingly in order to help to better understand modern, contemporary times. The terminological shift even indicates a change of parameters, because in 2000 the international exhibition Expo had preferred the motto “Information Society” ( Informationsgesellschaft ), but afterwards public discussion ( not caused, but accompanied by scholarly discourse ) changed over to “Knowledge Society”. Recently, “information” has again acquired increasing importance in public discussions, but it seems that there has been no renaissance of the idea of an “information society” so far ^[73]. Should there have been any doubt about the relevance of medieval history for today, the approaches to knowledge history could provide clear proof.

In the meantime, Peter Burke himself remained up to date: In 2011, he published a second volume of his ‘Social History of Knowledge’, entitled ‘From the Encyclopedia to Wikipedia’ ^[74]. The German translation from 2014 preferred instead the more dramatic title ‘Die Explosion des Wissens’ ( The Explosion of Knowledge ) ^[75]. It was no coincidence then that the author of the volume on knowledge history within a new series of textbooks was again Peter Burke with his book ‘What is the History of Knowledge’ from 2015 ^[76]. In 2017, he finally integrated his approach into today’s discourse on migration and exile with his book ‘Exiles and Expatriates in the History of Knowledge’, covering the period from the 16^th century to the year 2000, focusing on the impact of intellectual diasporas ^[77].

The other English book at the very beginning of knowledge history was ‘A History of Knowledge. Past, Present and Future’ by the American author Charles van Doren, already published in 1991 ^[78]. This time, translation was easier and the German version ‘Geschichte des Wissens’, which was published five years later, was clear enough ^[79]. Although translated and frequently quoted up to now, van Doren’s book is nothing more than a simple chronological trip through the world history of science, a collection worth knowing and whose author, by the way, was primarily famous for his success in a TV-Quiz-show, until he was exposed for having cheated.

Fortunately, there was no lack of a methodologically serious history of knowledge, which led to inspiring books as, for instance, Christian Kassing’s ‘The Pendulum’, subtitled ‘A History of Knowledge’ from 2007 ^[80]. It is at the same time a contribution to a new trend within knowledge history dealing with the materiality of tradition, as, for instance, Markus Friedrich also does in his publication from 2013 on ‘The Birth of the Archive’, mentioned above ^[81]. Friedrich understands the archive as a place of knowledge ( Wissensort ). These books seemingly position themselves within the research fields of cultural history, such as, for instance, the places of remembrance ( lieux de mémoires ) established by Pierre Nora or the studies on discourse theory and archives by Michel Foucault, both published in the second half of the 20^th century. Others, like, for instance, Ursula Klein in her book on ‘The Invention of Technical Sciences’, titled ‘Useful Knowledge’ from 2016, use a substantial element of knowledge history in order to categorize their studies ^[82]. Klein focuses on the function and usefulness of knowledge, which has always been part of historical research on knowledge, but has now been adopted from the originally separate history of technology ^[83].

Even without an explicit connection to knowledge history, recent research is often of great relevance for the field of knowledge history and can provide fruitful impulses, such as, for instance, the studies of Dominik Perler on intentionality as a subject of medieval philosophy or of contemporary historians on the question of limits and restrictions in research ^[84].

To conclude at this point: knowledge history remains a field of discovery and is, more than other fields of historical research, suitable to receive and configurate new approaches.

5. Knowledge in the middle ages and knowledge history of the middle ages: Final remarks

The latest German monograph relevant for our topic, published by Frank Rexroth in 2018, focuses on the run-up and the creation of the European universities in the 11^th and 12^th centuries, which has already been explored for a long time. But Rexroth’s approach is different and therefore entitled ‘Happy Scholasticism. The Scientific Revolution of the Middle Ages’ ^[85]. He examines the enthusiastic early period of the new forms of erudite discussions and teaching before the institutionalization of the University of Paris, the origins of a new form of methodological knowledge ( Wissen, corresponding to Latin ars ) resulting in a new science ( Wissenschaft, corresponding to Latin scientia ), scholasticism, and the beginning of the dualism between truth ( Wahrheit ) and utility ( Nutzen ). The establishment of a new science, according to Frank Rexroth, brought about the origins of scholarly communication ( wissenschaftliche Kommunikation ), a term without medieval Latin equivalent ^[86]. This process was instrumental in opening up the possibility to methodologically put into operation the difference between true and false and to finally organize systematically the principle of logical contradiction ^[87].

The progress in historical research on the early history of universities and particularly on the history of scholasticism is evident: neither the institutionalization of teaching learned knowledge nor the legal history of formally establishing the university are at the center of attention. What is most interesting is instead the history of individuals and social groups searching for and acting with knowledge under the conditions of contemporary society. In terms of categories, it is the field of cultural as well as social history and, last but not least, intellectual history. Although Frank Rexroth uses the terms knowledge and science side by side and avoids positioning himself between knowledge history and history of science ( just as did Markus Friedrich 2013 ), we can treat his book as a highly important contribution to our topic.

Rexroth’s monograph highlights one of the dominant fields of current research on medieval knowledge history: combining individual and social history, as well as political and cultural history and institutional and intellectual history, focusing on knowledge within contemporary society. French and German historians have recently developed profound insights into the self-organization of students at medieval universities and the intersection of social contexts and university life, like, for instance, Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet in 2012 and Antoine Destemberg in 2015 on social movements at the university, Marcel Bubert from 2018 onwards on disputes about the value of theoretical concepts and practical utility and Georg Jostkleigrewe in 2018 on the mutual influences between academic discourse and political interests ^[88]. These authors do not call themselves knowledge historians, but their research is focused on central subjects of knowledge history.

Only a few mediaevalists in the field of knowledge history identify themselves as “knowledge historians”, as does, for instance, Sita Steckel, who looks at “Wissenskulturen” ( cultures of knowledge ), understood as social practices of knowledge, and who researches a history of universities from within ^[89]. In 2003, an interdisciplinary group of authors declared “Wissenskulturen” to be a concept within their research strategy, dealing with the complexities of knowledge and its relation to contemporary societies ^[90].

Sita Steckel underlines a methodological difference distinguishing her research from the cultural history of knowledge and learned scholars, which also recently led to innovative and important results ^[91]. According to Sita Steckel, the term “Wissenskultur” ( culture of knowledge ) is too imprecise, because it focuses on processes and dynamics of the development of knowledge and also on detailed studies about erudite individuals. Therefore, she prefers the concept of communities of learning ( Wissensgemeinschaften ), which has provided a real renewal in the history of medieval teaching and of the quality of personal relationships between teachers and pupils in clerical schools ^[92].

We could summarize that knowledge history is still under discussion in international and interdisciplinary research on medieval history. There is, in other words, a future for the history of knowledge in the Middle Ages!