Between dynastic raison and personal motivation: princely widowers and their scopes of action in the late medieval empire, 1250-1550

与守寡相比，对1250年至1550年期间的王公丧偶者的研究一直是人们所渴望的。在2018年获批的DFG项目的前两年半中，通过深入的研究取得了创新成果，并通过大量的讲座和论文为历史鳏夫研究做出了贡献和交流。该项目为“博士生和类似基础”类别的研究助理提供了0.65 TV-L 13的职位。收集后的语料库约为。58名有意义的鳏夫，在其妻子去世后至少十年未结婚，并使用欧洲家庭表获得数据，不仅可以在第一步对例如平均守寡时间、王子的年龄和配偶的年龄差进行统计评估，而且还可以指出他们长期守寡背后的动机。这些疾病涉及政治、经济、社会、王朝、个人、健康和宗教等多种因素。特别是通过个人主义的方法，以遗嘱、编年史、文件和信件为基础，鳏夫行为中的个人方面可以被突出，并首次被称为高级贵族决策的重要决定因素。在最后一步，申请人提出的研究概念“回旋余地”应用于长期守寡的王子。这涉及到在五个坐标(1)空间，(2)经济和金融，(3)王朝和家庭，(4)帝国的宪法地位和(5)等级之间平衡鳏夫及其行为的可能性和限制。有了这些认知目标，到目前为止，该项目遵循了Peter Moraw和Karl-Heinz spess的传统，他们提出了考虑王子行为的基础研究方法，从而启发了许多未来的项目。由于持续的冠状病毒大流行和相关的旅行限制，以及为了适当地结束项目，需要延长六个月的时间，以便对柏林的普鲁士文化遗产秘密国家档案馆、汉诺威、萨克森-安哈尔特、梅尼根和魏玛国家档案馆以及德累斯顿的主要国家档案馆进行最后必要的档案之旅，因为这些机构由于文件的规模而无法提供数字化副本。此外，扩展将用于纳入基尔秋季丧偶会议的结果，最终确定半成品手稿，并以这种方式将对王公丧偶者的分析，他们的动机和他们的活动空间进行成功和有益的结束。

In comparison to widowhood, research on princely widowers in the period from 1250 to 1550 has been a desideratum. In the first two and a half years of the DFG project approved in 2018 with a 0.65 TV-L 13 position for a research assistant in the category “PhD student and comparable” fundamental, innovative results were achieved through intensive research and could be contributed and communicated through numerous lectures and essays to the historical widower research. After the collection of a corpus of approx. 58 meaningful widowers with an unmarried state of at least ten years after the death of their wives and the data obtained using the European family tables, it was not only possible in a first step to make statistical evaluations of for example the average duration of widowhood, the age of the princes and the age difference of the spouses, but also to name the motives behind their long-term widowhoods. They spanned a multi-causal spectrum of i.a. political, economic, social, dynastic, personal, health and religious factors. Especially through an individualistic approach, based on till ex. wills, chronicles, documents and letters, personal aspects in the actions of the widower could be highlighted and named for the first time as important determinants for decision-making in the high nobility. In a concluding step, the research concept “room for maneuver” developed by the applicant was applied to the princes who remained long-term widowers. This involved balancing the possibilities and limits of widowers and their actions in between the five coordinates (1) space, (2) economy and finance, (3) dynasty and family, (4) constitutional position in the empire and (5) rank. With these cognitive goals, the project has so far followed the traditions of Peter Moraw, and Karl-Heinz Spiess, who presented fundamental research approaches to consider princely action and thus inspired numerous future projects. Due to the ongoing corona pandemic, the associated travel restrictions and in order to end the project appropriately, a six-month extension is required to make the last necessary archive trips to the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin, the state archives of Hanover, Saxony-Anhalt, Meinigen and Weimar and the main state archive in Dresden, as these institutions could not provide digitized copies due to the size of the files. Furthermore, the extension is to be used to incorporate the results of the Kiel autumn conference on widowerhood, to finalize the half-finished manuscript and in this way to bring the analysis of the princely widowers, their motives and their room of maneuver to a successful and profitable end.