INTERLOR
Lotharingien und das Papsttum. Interaktions-, Integrations- und Transformationsprozesse im Spannungsfeld zwischen zentraler Steuerung und regionaler Eigendynamik (11. – Anfang 13. Jahrhundert)
INTERLOR is an international project co-funded in Germany by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and in Luxembourg by the FNR (Fonds National de la Recherche). It is jointly executed by the Chair of Medieval Studies at the RWTH Aachen University and the Institute for History at the University of Luxembourg.
Objectives: The aim of the project is to provide an extensive enquiry of the relations between the papacy and Lotharingia (i.e. the region between Utrecht and southern Lorraine) from the middle of the 11th to the beginning of the 13th century. It focuses on forms of reciprocal communication and their impact on regional development in different aspects. For example, the use and form of script, cathedral cities, religious orders, or structures of secular government are taken into consideration. In this way, the institutional, power and identity changes resulting from interactions with the papacy on a regional level can be described more accurately, which allows us to sharpen the profile of Lotharingia as a zone of contact between the German Empire and France. In contrast to traditional tracks of research which concentrated almost on the relations between the papacy and the peripheries of Europe, now a region of its very centre is addressed. Consequently, the project may open new prospects on the way the papacy tried to establish its absolute claim to leadership in the Latin church.
Outcomes: creation of a database containing regesta as well as transcriptions of papal charters and other documents of interest (cartularies, episcopal charters, etc.); PhD thesis on the interactions between the papacy and the episcopal cities of Liège and Metz; monograph on the relations between the papacy and the new orders (Premonstratensians, Cistercians) in Lotharingia; articles on specific case studies (secular elites and papacy, impact of the “Gregorian Reform”, forging papal authority); publication of the proceedings of two international conferences held during the project (one on the reception and use of interactions with the papacy in their long-term effect, Journées Lotharingiennes 2022; another one aiming at a comparative analysis of the results of the project with other regional case studies on papal government and influence, Aachen 2023).
Partner: RWTH Aachen University
Image: © Saint-Julien-lès-Metz, Archives départementales de la Moselle, H 5, n° 2.
