HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

160 ROLF SPRANDELaforementioned purpose. 14 The Good, when it is confirmed throughmany testimonies, plurimorum noticia, appears quanto communius, tantodivinius.One layer beyond these motives one finds the ubiquitous ressentimentsand biases, which may be explained on the basis of the author’sexperiences and political affinities. These will be elaborated in whatfollows. Another theme of the following pages is the motivations ofan even higher layer, which we will characterize as conceptions.Which ideas could carry such conceptions? The oldest concern ofmedieval world chronicles is the expectation of the end of the world.A conception that developed from that perspective could be said tohave validity independent of the views of the popes and emperors.In contrast, a conception indebted to Heilsgeschichte can lend a functionto pope and emperor, regardless of the positions of power, whichthe tradition continues.Martin of Troppau is more pragmatically, less eschatologically orientedthan other world chroniclers of the High Middle Ages. Thelatter begin with the creation of the world or with the first worldempire. One must be cognizant of which of the late medieval writersreach further back than Martin of Troppau in their continuationsand thus represent Old Testament and Greek world history.Whether with weak pope and strong council and in spite of anyintervening schism and also despite the more or less recognized splitting-offof the Greeks, the Church remains institutionally Catholicand ecumenical. Among and alongside the authors who continue thework of Martin of Troppau there are pope chronicles that have aworld-historical horizon of events, which in turn however relate thathorizon exclusively to the papacy. They latch onto either the papalsection of the Martin of Troppau chronicle or they continue theolder type of church historiography that goes back to Eusebius andwith which the Liber pontificalis is connected as well, even if the latterbelongs simultaneously to the Gesta of public officials. In addition tothe papal historiography of Avignon, one should mention the ItalianTholomeus of Lucca, whose work is continued in Germany especiallyby Heinrich of Diessenhofen and Martin of Fulda. 1514Andreas von Regensburg, Chronica pontificum et imperatorum Romanorum, bis 1438,ed. G. Leidinger, in Andreas von Regensburg, sämtliche Werke, Quellen und Erörterungenzur bayerischen und deutschen Geschichte, N.F. 1 (München, 1903), 1–158; 461–501.15Tholomeus of Lucca, Historia ecclesiastica nova, ed. L. A. Muratori, Rerum Italicarum