Moral Economy and Ecclesiastical Office. Discourses about Simony in the Early Middle Ages (600-1050)

该项目涉及中世纪早期在法兰克王国及其后续王国以及意大利的买卖圣职话语。买卖圣职在这里被理解为一种金钱支付，接受金钱，或者更广泛地说，是一种礼物，在某种意义上，对具体的神职人员行为产生有意的物质影响。该项目的目标是基于广泛的源材料（教规和世俗法律，信件，圣徒传记和史学，神学文学，诗歌）和全面的系统基础（话语分析，历史腐败研究，对感知和社会知识的反思，道德经济和送礼理论），对当代的感知，解释和克服simonistic行为进行多维分析。分析的一个重要因素是评价来源对圣职行为使用的不同术语释义。它不仅有助于反映当时的语言用法，还有助于确定当时的人怀疑或推测或实际犯下的圣职行为的具体背景。参与买卖圣职的人，他们的动机和自我反思的程度，以及那些没有积极参与的同时代人对相应行为的评价。由此可以证实，在哪些情况下，买卖圣职被理解为犯罪行为或被社会接受的行为。对买卖圣职和其他通常被归入“腐败”一词的形式之间的相互关系的分析，使我们有可能对这个主题引入新的视角，并以比以前的研究更全面的方式分析当代买卖圣职的话语。特别注意的是在正典和世俗法律文本中关于买卖圣职的话语，不仅考虑了关于买卖圣职的规范性陈述，而且还考虑了这一现象在法律集合安排中的重要性。这一观点有助于揭示在法律文本中可以识别的与买卖圣职有关的问题的意识。最后，该项目重点分析了中世纪早期关于买卖圣职的思想是如何以及在何种程度上影响和改变了当代改革教会和社会的努力，以及当代神职人员办公室的概念。因此，该项目填补了中世纪研究领域的研究空白，并且由于该主题在方法和内容上的重新定位，证明了与当前研究领域的高度兼容性。

The project is concerned with early medieval discourses of simony in the Frankish kingdom and its succeeding realms as well as in Italy. Simony is understood here as a monetary payment, as the acceptance of money or more generally as a gift in the sense of an intentional material influence on a concrete clerical official act. The objective of the project is the multidimensional analysis of the contemporary perception, interpretation and overcoming of simonistic actions based on a wide range of source material (canon and secular law, letters, hagiography and historiography, theological literature, poems) and a comprehensive methodical fundament (discourse analysis, historical corruption research, reflections on perception and social knowledge, moral economy and gift-giving theory). An essential factor for the analysis is the evaluation of the diverging terminological paraphrases used by the sources for simonistic actions. It helps not only to reflect the linguistic usage of the time, but also to identify the specific contexts in which simonistic acts were suspected or else supposedly or actually committed by contemporaries. The persons involved in simony, their motivation and the degree of their self-reflection are examined as well as the evaluation of the corresponding actions by those contemporaries who were not actively involved. Hereby it can be verified in which cases simony was understood as an incriminating offence or as socially accepted behaviour. An analysis of the interrelations between simony and other forms which are generally subsumed under the term 'corruption' makes it possible to introduce new perspectives on the topic and to analyse the contemporary discourses of simony in a more holistic manner than in previous research studies. Particular attention is paid to the discourses of simony in canon and secular law texts by considering not only the normative statements about simony but also the importance of this phenomenon within the arrangement of the law collections. This perspective serves to reveal the awareness of problems relating to simony which can be identified in the legal texts. Finally, the project focuses on an analysis, of how and to which grade of intensity early medieval thinking about simony influenced and changed contemporary efforts to reform the church and society as well as the contemporary concept of the clerical office. Thus the project closes a research gap in the field of medieval studies and proves to be highly compatible with current research fields due to the reorientation of the topic in terms of method and content.