Priests in a post-imperial world, c. 900-1050

西欧在漫长的十世纪(约900-1050年)的历史长期以来一直存在着历史学家的分歧。对于一些人，尤其是那些从事英国和法国知识传统研究的人来说，这主要是一段加洛林帝国分裂后的崩溃历史；对另一些人，特别是那些从德国角度探讨这个话题的人来说，这首先是一段教廷改革动荡之前，教会领导人和世俗领导人史无前例地合作的历史。这个英国和德国的联合项目挑战了这两种观点，首次系统地调查了这个漫长的十世纪中普通当地牧师的生活世界。这些牧师目前是中世纪早期教堂在这一时期的“暗物质”。他们代表了其大部分人员，并充当了占人口绝大多数的普通民众与受过教育的精英和文化领袖之间的关键中间人。如果我们想要了解后卡罗林时代文化和社会变革的本质，并将那个时期的精英政治置于适当的背景下，那么我们必须了解这些地方牧师：他们的经济地位、他们知道的东西、他们设定的标准、他们如何适应当地社会--以及所有这些事情是如何变化的。然而，到目前为止，尽管他们明显的重要性和显著的档案足迹，10世纪的当地牧师几乎没有被研究，被更引人注目的精英人物和社区所青睐，如主教和修道院。通过结合为一系列证据量身定做的不同方法来研究这些牧师生活世界的变异和变化，主要是在加洛林王朝弗朗西亚的继承国(大约是今天的德国、意大利北部和法国)的土地上，并通过利用一个汇集了英国和德国独特的历史学传统的团队的专业知识，这个项目对漫长的十世纪的动态，从而对欧洲历史上一个关键的过渡时刻，提出了一个全新的看法。

The history of Western Europe in the long tenth century (c. 900 - c. 1050) has long divided historians. For some, especially those working in English and French intellectual traditions, it is primarily a history of collapse after the fragmentation of the Carolingian empire; for others, especially those approaching the topic from a German perspective, it is above all a history of unprecedented collaboration between ecclesiastical and secular leaders before the convulsions of papal reform. This joint UK-German project challenges both these views by investigating systematically for the first time the life-worlds of ordinary local priests in this long tenth century. These priests are currently the 'dark matter' of the early medieval church in this period. They represented the bulk of its personnel, and acted as the key brokers between the general lay populace who constituted the overwhelming majority of the population and the educated elites and cultural leaders. If we want to understand the nature of post-Carolingian cultural and social change, and to set the elite politics of the period into a proper context, then we must understand these local priests: their economic standing, what they knew, what standards they were set, how they fitted into their local societies - and how all these things changed. Until now, however, and despite their evident importance and significant archival footprint, tenth-century local priests have barely been studied, sidelined in favour of higher-profile elite figures and communities such as bishops and monasteries. By combining different methodologies tailored to a range of bodies of evidence to research the variation and change in the life-worlds of these priests primarily in the lands of the successor states to Carolingian Francia (approximately modern-day Germany, northern Italy and France), and by drawing on the expertise of a team that brings together the distinctive UK and German historiographical traditions, this project throws an entirely new light on the dynamics of the long tenth century, and thus on a crucial moment of transition in European history.