Decision-making between contingency and providence. Horizons of action and interpretation of the First Crusade

在偶然性和天意之间做出决策。

• 批准号: 465662081
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Jan Keupp
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Historisches Seminar
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/465662081?language=en
• 关键词: Decision; making; between; contingency; providence.

It corresponds to a well-established self-narrative of our presence to contrast the multi-optional ‘culture of contingency’ of modernity with the model of a closed ‘space of expectation’ (‚Erwartungsraum‘) in the Middle Ages, prefigured by divine providence and eschatological finality. Beyond these rather schematic and oversimplified readings, epochal differences in the way contingency is dealt with in terms of social contexts make for a promising field of research, when investigating the historical dimension of the phenomenon ‘decision-making’. The research project focuses on the period of the First Crusade and the first decades of Latin rule in Syria and Palestine. It will thus exemplarily examine events that are shaped by the experience of existential contingency, while, on the other hand, they could be interpreted by both participants and later chroniclers with recourse to divinely guided providence. This specific constellation of events may be considered in two respects as a laboratory for new modes and models of decision-making: Within the heterogeneously composed collective of the crusading army decisional power had to be constructed and constituted by means of complex negotiation processes. After the successful capture of Jerusalem, the crusaders’ decision-making has been remodelled into a coherent overall picture through the historiographic processing of the events in the light of a providential interpretation of history. In this context, different narratives of decision making were composed, distinguished by divergent political viewpoints, genre traditions as well as theological concepts. These accounts provide a solid source basis for the project’s approach, consisting of two complementary analytical perspectives. Firstly, the project inquires into practices and conditions linked to the constitution and attribution of decisional power within the social fabric of the crusaders. Selected case studies will serve to analyse actions, social mechanisms, and institutions that empowered actors to model a given situation in the manner of decision-making. Secondly, the actor-centred perspective is complemented by an analysis of retrospective interpretations. This perspective considers the way contemporary historiography attempted to disambiguate and (re-)conceptualise the events of the crusade. It examines theologically justifiable and narratively representable possibilities of human decision-making within the framework of the divine plan of salvation. By synopsizing these two perspectives, the project will discuss the importance of decision-making as a distinct form of social action in premodern ‘cultures of contingency’ in an exemplary way, assessing it on a differentiated and empirically grounded basis. Focusing on preconditions, practices, and reflections of decision-making, the project will contribute to sharpening our understanding of the crusade as a processual social action.

它对应于我们存在的一种既定的自我叙述，将现代性的多选择性“偶然性文化”与中世纪的封闭的“期待空间”（“Erwartungsraum”）模式进行对比，这种模式由神圣的普罗维登斯和末世论的终结所预示。除了这些相当示意性和过于简化的阅读，在社会背景方面处理偶然性的方式的时代差异，使一个有前途的研究领域，当调查的历史维度的现象“决策”。该研究项目的重点是第一次十字军东征时期和拉丁统治叙利亚和巴勒斯坦的头几十年。因此，它将作为范例，考察由存在的偶然性经验所塑造的事件，而另一方面，它们可以被参与者和后来的编年史家借助神圣引导的普罗维登斯来解释。这一系列特殊的事件可以从两个方面被视为新的决策模式和模型的实验室：在十字军这个异质组成的集体中，决策权必须通过复杂的谈判过程来构建和构成。在成功占领耶路撒冷之后，十字军的决策已经被重塑为一个连贯的整体画面，通过历史的处理，在一个天赐的历史解释的光。在这种背景下，不同的决策叙事组成，不同的政治观点，体裁传统以及神学概念的区别。这些账户为项目的方法提供了坚实的来源基础，包括两个互补的分析视角。首先，该项目探讨了与十字军社会结构内的决策权的构成和归属有关的做法和条件。选定的个案研究将有助于分析使行为者能够以决策方式模拟特定情况的行动、社会机制和机构。第二，以行为者为中心的视角得到了对追溯性解释的分析的补充。这种观点认为当代史学试图消除歧义和（重新）概念化的十字军东征的事件。它考察了神学上合理的和naradically代表人类决策的神圣拯救计划的框架内的可能性。通过概括这两个角度，该项目将讨论决策的重要性，作为一种独特的形式的社会行动在前现代的“文化的偶然性”的示范方式，评估它的差异和经验基础。该项目侧重于决策的先决条件，实践和反思，将有助于加深我们对十字军东征作为一种过程性社会行动的理解。