Where's Bruno?
It has been more than a year since I moved to Vienna and started my job in the RELEVEN project. In my first blog entry, I spoke about my individual research and my first assignments, which were related to PBW and our own prosopographical database. Since then, my work has been around locations and movements.
Locations are still going on…
The second assignment I mentioned in my first entry aimed at the revision of a specific segment of PBW, which recorded the location factoids linked to individuals. This task is still in progress after many months. Due to the enormous size of the dataset (even after the distribution of the material among some staff members), it was always clear that the assignment would take a long time. Still, the amount of work with the spreadsheet surpassed my expectations.
As I mentioned previously, the goal of this assignment is to find and separate all the location factoids of the PBW that are useful for our project. The PBW has a tremendously big dataset of locations without sorting out the different kinds of connections between the individuals and the places. This connection can be someone’s presence, an appointment to an office, a donation of lands, membership in a community, geographical origins etc. Only the very first category is in the interests of our project, since we focus on the question where the individuals appeared or moved to at a specific time. The other cases mostly keep one’s presence in question or do not even treat it.
This task seems simple at first, but we have to check the relevant parts of the source material, since the PBW descriptions linked to location factoids are sometimes misleading. For example, many PBW descriptions imply that individuals moved from certain places, but the cited sources indeed use the usual and simple phrases of geographic origin. The notions of origin give little to our project, because they are usually not accompanied by any reference to a specific time or period. Location factoids associated with dignities (e. g. doux of Thessalonike) raise an additional issue, since such an expression does not indicate the actual presence of the dignitary at the given place. The list of tricks goes on, but, at this point, I am rather drawing your attention to the other segment of my job, my individual research on Central Europe.
There and back again. A story of Bruno of Augsburg
In my first blog entry, I also talked about my intention to focus on the region of Central Europe, namely Bohemia, Hungary and Poland. It was still a plan then, but I finally started to conduct this individual research in the interim. The investigation deals with several aspects of the relations between the movement of individuals and political power: the interests of ducal and royal courts in geographical mobility of people, the role of different institutions (especially the church) in the progress, the effects of journeys on the person travelling.
The research soon turned into a case study, when some lines in the chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg caught my attention. Those few remarks by the German prelate and historian mention some journeys of Bruno of Augsburg between the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. The significance of this case comes from the remarks of our sources that indicate the involvement of the royal court of Hungary in the events.
Bruno of Augsburg was the brother of Henry II, king of Germany (1002–1024) and Italy (1004–1024), and Holy Roman Emperor (1014–1024), and Gisela, queen of Hungary. In 1003, Bruno joined the rebellion of Henry of Schweinfurt, margrave of Nordgau, against Henry II. The revolt was suppressed by the new German king by early 1004. Henry of Schweinfurt and Bruno of Augsburg fled to Bohemia, where their ally, Bolesław the Brave, then duke of Bohemia (1003–1004) and Poland (992–1025, as king in 1025) stayed with his army. After it became clear that Bolesław could not support them, both of the rebellious leaders, Henry and Bruno, sought to find their ways back to the empire. Margrave Henry returned to the German king, asked for a pardon, and was held in custody for years. Bruno, however, moved to Hungary and asked King Stephen I and Queen Gisela to mediate between him and Henry II. Stephen I sent him to the empire together with an embassy. Preparing a military campaign to Italy, Henry II received the embassy in Thingau probably in late March 1004, and forgave his brother too. Bruno soon became the chancellor (1005–1006) of the whole empire and then the bishop of Augsburg (1006–1029). As an ambassador of Henry II, he visited Hungary again, probably in 1007.
We do not have many sources for Bruno’s journeys to the Kingdom of Hungary. The Chronicon by Thietmar of Merseburg and the Life of Henry II by Adalbold of Utrecht inform us about the first case, while the second journey, Bruno’s embassy to Stephen I, is implied by a short remark by Bruno of Querfurt in his letter to Henry II. My main interest was the question of how Stephen I used these occasions to increase or maintain his influence on the imperial court and his prestige there. I also wanted to analyse the impact of these events on the career of Bruno of Augsburg.
Concerning the first subject, we can find differences between Bruno’s two journeys. The ending of the first case was the meeting in Thingau, where Henry II pardoned his brother. Despite the implications of the authors, Thietmar and Adalbold, this event was mainly a representative and ceremonial act. The actual negotiations between Bruno and Henry were most likely done through the previous embassies of Stephen I, as some accounts suggest. Therefore, the king of Hungary could use the meeting in Thingau to represent his military successes, the occupation of Transylvania and his initial steps for the (re)organisation of the church in the same region. Such themes might have been well-received in the court of Henry II who was about to lead his armies to Italy, and had re-established the bishopric of Merseburg shortly before. Stephen I could also expect that Bruno would promote Hungarian interests in the politics of the empire after his rehabilitation. Meanwhile, Bruno’s second journey in 1007 presumably aimed at a diplomatic negotiation. I agreed with the widely accepted theory that the main objective of this embassy was to convince Stephen I to intervene in the war between the Holy Roman Empire and Poland on Henry II’s side. I made two additions to this hypothesis. First, Stephen I possibly agreed to enter the conflict because, in turn, he also needed the emperor’s support for the conquest and conversion of the so-called “Black Hungarians”. Second, Bruno’s embassy could have a strong connection with the attendance of Anastasius, archbishop of Esztergom, at the council of Frankfurt held in the same season, the autumn of 1007. The Hungarian prelate likely led a diplomatic mission to discuss the same subjects as Bruno. In both cases, it was important to Stephen I that the journeys were taken by Bruno himself, the brother of Henry II. Even more than the significance of personal connections, this shows the key role of the movement and presence of the right individual at the proper place.
I intend to publish two articles about this case of Bruno of Augsburg. The first paper is almost finished, and I am mainly concerned about its length. Nevertheless, the article proved to me how many questions and ideas can arise from a few lines in our sources.
