HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

CHAPTER THREELOCAL AND INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY (300–1000)Michel SotWhen investigating local history, the twentieth-century researcherthinks of a particular place: a town, a city, even a region. Historiansfrom French universities speak somewhat condescendingly about ‘eruditelocals’, those who are very knowledgeable about certain detailsbut who often lack an understanding of the big picture. In this perspective,‘local history’ is opposed to ‘general history’.When investigating institutional history, today’s scholar thinks ofthe different structures that allow society to function: political institutionsfirst, such as representative assemblies; judicial institutionswith the various courts; religious institutions, with churches preeminent;and, finally, institutions for education and research. It is inreference to the latter that the word institute has been preserved inthe French and the English languages.In the period with which we are concerned (300–1000), whatmight local and institutional history mean? The most important place,that which appears in history and which is the object of historiography,is the city (civitas). The city is considered based on its variousaspects: the topographic dimension of the land itself, organizedbetween inhabitants and buildings; the Roman administrative dimensionof territorial subdivision; and, finally, its religious dimension asthe seat of a bishop at the head of a diocese. The most elementaryform of local history is the list of bishops of a city. Over the centuries,this list has been enriched with various types of informationto become, in the ninth and tenth centuries and beyond, the Gestaepiscoporum. 1 In this genesis of local history, one place in particularhas played an important role: the city of Rome, where the Liberpontificalis was created and put into place for the first time in thesixth century. 21Sot (1981); Kaiser (1999).2Liber pontificalis, 3 vols., ed. L. Duchesne and C. Vogel (Paris, 1955–57).