Historiography on the Ground: Saxon Chronicles from the 15th to the 17th Century
Project management and research: Joachim Schneider
Project period: 2019 -
Epoch-spanning, this project focuses on Saxon Medieval and Early Modern chronicles from the 15th century to the beginning of the Thirty Years‘ War. Up to now, research had focused mainly on the history of the Wettin princes. In contrast, this research project is interested in the decentralized chronicles, originating mainly from the Saxon towns. It aims to receive a comprehensive overview of the mainly manually written texts. For this purpose contexts of their origin will be researched as well as content-related profiles of the individual works are created. In a second step, the project will be dealing with questions like: From where did the material of the chronicles originate and which role played the Wettin inspired court historiography, even here, in a town environment? Which identity-creating topics can be identified, like the founding of a town and histories of origin of its inhabitants? Which European and regional events of the epoch, local crises or catastrophes are being narrated, and is the tradition of history constant or is it changing? In addition, the perception of processes of social change in the 15th and 16th century will be investigated, like the Reformation, the growth of the population and the towns themselves, the exploitation of the Erzgebirge, and more. Ultimately, the aim is to find out at what point in time the Saxons began to take their own history into their own hands, describing as well as analyzing.