Royal Rulership in the Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries: German and Italian Approaches in Dialogue

Over the last few decades, German and Italian scholarships in the field of medieval constitutional history widened their traditional differences in research approach, as the studies on royal rulership ('Königsherrschaft') in the tenth and early eleventh centuries seem to reveal. These studies define the subject of this article, which aims at raising awareness of the need to once again increase German-Italian cooperation. In this respect, the present essay briefly deals with selected issues and problems that are differently tackled by German and Italian scholarly traditions, and subsequently outlines four promising research paths for investigating royal rulership and kingship in the tenth and early eleventh centuries by means of an in-depth exchange between the two historiographies. These four new proposals concern macro-themes such as space, time, power-sharing practices, and the circulation of political models by making use of hostages.