World History As The History Of Foundations, 3000 BCE To 1500 CE

784 Pages·2020·13.878 MB·English

by  Michael Borgolte, Zachary Chitwood

World History as the History of Foundations, 3000 BCE to 1500 CE
Handbook of Oriental Studies
Handbuch der Orientalistik
section one
The Near and Middle East
Edited by
Maribel Fierro (CSIC Madrid)
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu (Princeton)
Renata Holod (University of Pennsylvania)
Florian Schwarz (Vienna)
volume 136
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ho1
World History as the
History of Foundations,
3000 BCE to 1500 CE
By
Michael Borgolte
Translated by
Zachary Chitwood
LEIDEN | BOSTON
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the
European Union’s Seventh Framework Program
(FP7/2007–2013) / ERC grant agreement no 287389
Cover illustration: Founder Stefano Porro with church model of his foundation. Wall painting about 1370,
Lentate sul Sèveso (Lomberly, Italy) – Akg images.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Borgolte, Michael, author. | Chitwood, Zachary, translator.
Title: World history as the history of foundations, 3000 BCE to 1500 CE /
 Michael Borgolte ; [translated by Zachary Chitwood].
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2020. | Series: Handbook of Oriental
 studies. Section 1, the Near and Middle East, 0169-9423 ; vol. 136 |
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019037996 (print) | LCCN 2019037997 (ebook) |
 ISBN 9789004414488 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004415089 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Endowments—History—To 1500. | Charitable uses, trusts,
 and foundations—History—To 1500.
Classification: LCC HV16 .B6713 2019 (print) | LCC HV16 (ebook) |
 DDC 361.7/63209—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037996
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037997
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 0169-9423
isbn 978-90-04-41448-8 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-41508-9 (e-book)
Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
List of Illustrations xi
Introduction 1
1 Religious Basis and Sovereign Practice: Intercultural Comparisons 4
1.1 Foundations for Gods and Ancestors 4
1.2 Foundations for Individuals after the Revolution of the Axial Age 18
1.2.1 The Reevaluation of the Individual through Foundations in
Ancient Egypt 19
1.2.2 “Foundations for the Salvation of the Soul” in Zoroastrianism 25
1.2.3 Genesis and Variations of Christian Foundations 40
1.2.4 “Foundations for Nearness to God” in Islam 64
1.2.5 Salvation for the Soul through Foundations in Judaism? 77
1.2.6 Foundations for Merit and Temporal Salvation: Indian
Religions 96
1.2.7 Temporal Ethics without Divine Judgment: Confucianism and
Daoism 119
1.3 Rulers as Founders and Policymakers of Foundations 137
1.3.1 Pharaohs, “Kings of the Four Regions of the World” and Hellenistic
Rulers 138
1.3.1.1 Rulers of the Ancient Kingdoms on the Nile, Euphrates
and Tigris 138
1.3.1.2 From Cyrus the Persian to Alexander of Macedon 145
1.3.1.3 Monarchical Euergetai 157
1.3.1.4 An Autocrat as Founder in the Kingdom of the
Commagene 176
1.3.2 Foundations and State Formation in India 182
1.3.3 Ancient Founders, a Cultural Breakthrough and Orthodox
Christian Rulers 203
1.3.3.1 Foundations in the Context of State Worship and
Christian Congregations 206
1.3.3.2 Byzantine Emperors as Leaders of the Church and Great
Founders 212
1.3.3.3 Monasteries, Emperors, Economies 228
1.3.3.4 The Free Monasteries 238
1.3.3.5 Sovereign Foundations in the Fragmentation and
Spread of Orthodoxy 245
vi Contents
1.3.4 Caliphs and Their Epigones: Foundations for the Support of the
Community 257
1.3.4.1 The Legal and Political Basis 257
1.3.4.2 The Caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad as
Founders 265
1.3.4.3 Regional Rulers between al-Andalus and Iran 270
1.3.5 Foundations Require Association: Latin Christian Kings and
Princes 308
1.3.5.1 Laypersons, Bishops and the Accumulation of Church
Property 308
1.3.5.2 Monasteries of “German” Kings from the 5th Century
Onwards 314
1.3.5.3 Irish Kings and Networks of Ascetics 342
1.3.5.4 English Minsters between “Proprietary Churches” and
“Foundations” 358
1.3.5.5 Foundations in the Context of Carolingian Ecclesiastical
Policy 370
1.3.5.6 The Time of Strong Founders 417
2 Societal Development and Philanthropic Motivations: Diversification of
the Actors and Purposes  508
2.1 China and India 509
2.2 Greece and Rome in Antiquity 544
2.3 Judaism and Muslim Lands 559
2.4 Greek Orthodox and Latin Christianity 572
3 A Transcultural Synthesis 622
Bibliography 637
Abbreviations and Acronyms 637
Sources 638
Literature 657
Index 752
Acknowledgments
One could trace back the beginning of the history of this book to the Summer se-
mester of 1984; at that time, as a young private docent at the University of Basel,
I held a lecture on “The Foundations of the Middle Ages as a Problem of Social
History (Churches, Hospitals, Universities”) [“Die Stiftungen des Mittelalters
als Problem der Sozialgeschichte (Kirchen, Hospitäler, Universitäten)”]. Until
recently, that manuscript offered the most comprehensive treatment of the
subject, so that I myself in the following decades was able again and again to
resort to it.1 The next milestone one could name is my Berlin inaugural lecture
on 2 June, 1992 (“‘Total History’ of the Middle Ages?” [“‘Totale Geschichte’ des
Mittelalters?”], printed in 1993), which was dedicated to the topic of founda-
tions, as was my valedictory lecture at the Humboldt University on 12 July, 2016
(“Sigismund, Radegunde and the Origins of Foundations in Latin Christian
Europe” [“Sigismund, Radegunde und die Anfänge des Stiftungswesens im
lateinchristlichen Europa”], published in 2018). Meanwhile, such a perspective
would thereby exclude the greater portion of my other works and the consid-
erable breaks and changes of directions of my studies.
In this sense I can and should thankfully mention the indelible impression
and the long-lasting influence of my teachers Karl Schmid and Otto Gerhard
Oexle. Schmid (1923–1993), as my doctoral advisor in Münster and then as
my mentor in Freiburg, introduced me to the topic; he himself was interest-
ed in foundations as a researcher of aristocracy and monasticism of the Early
and High Middle Ages (cf. his “Commemorative Prayer and Aristocratic Self-
Understanding in the Middle Ages” [“Gebetsgedenken und adliges Selbst-
verständnis im Mittelalter”], 1983). As I became enthusiastic and began to go
my own way he was, as is usually the case between students and teachers, at
first irritated, then, however, forbearing. Without Schmid’s former assistant, the
Hannoverian professor and director of the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen,
Otto Gerhard Oexle (1939–2016), I would not have had the courage, at least at
the beginning, to concern myself with foundations from a decidedly social-his-
torical perspective and with the concept of the “total social phenomenon” ac-
cording to Marcel Mauss. Above all the expansion Oexle brought about of the
research on “memoria” beyond the traditional studies on confraternity (cf. his
“Reality and Knowledge” [“Die Wirklichkeit und das Wissen”], 2011, 99–283),
strongly influenced me.
1  Recently, Tillmann Lohse has submitted his habilitation on “Stiftungen im Okzident, ca. 500
bis 1500”.
viii Acknowledgments
My plan to develop Berlin into a center for the historical study of foun-
dations again and again fell behind other projects during the quarter cen-
tury of my activity there, even disappearing from time to time from my
thoughts. My colleague Frank Rexroth, who while still in Freiburg was the
first of my students to have written a dissertation within this field of inquiry
(s. his “German University Foundations from Prague to Cologne” [“Deutsche
Universitätsstiftungen von Prag bis Köln”], 1988, published 1992), occasional-
ly reminded me of this. A workgroup on foundations (“Arbeitsgemeinschaft
Stiftungen”), established in January 1995 at the HU with junior researchers,
was supported by the German Science Foundation with multi-year financing
for studies on sources, whose results also entered this book (“The Corpus of
Sources for Medieval Foundations” [“Quellencorpus zum mittelalterlichen
Stiftungswesen”], 1997–8; “The Foundations of the Frankish and German Kings
of the Middle Ages and their Realities” [“Die Stiftungen der fränkischen und
deutschen Könige des Mittelalters und ihre Wirklichkeiten”], 1999–2000).
Collaborators on these projects, whose eagerness for discussion and imagina-
tion often inspired me, presented some monographs, which for the most part
have appeared in the series “Foundation Histories” [“StiftungsGeschichten”,
from 2000 onwards) (Ralf Lusiardi, “Foundations and Urban Society” [“Stiftung
und städtische Gesellschaft”], 1998, published: 2000; Wolfgang Eric Wagner,
“University Chapter und Collegium in Prague, Vienna and Heidelberg”
[“Universitätsstift und Kollegium in Prag, Wien und Heidelberg”], 1999, pub-
lished: 1999; Benjamin Scheller, “Memoria at a Turning Point” [“Memoria
an der Zeitenwende”], 2002, published: 2004; Claudia Moddelmogg, “Royal
Foundations of the Middle Ages in Historical Change” [“Königliche Stiftungen
des Mittelalters im historischen Wandel”], 2009, published: 2012; Tillmann
Lohse, “The Permanence of Foundations” [“Die Dauer der Stiftung”], 2009,
published: 2011).
Studies and presentations of European history, which for a long time bound
my interest more strongly and increasingly were conceived along the lines of
intercultural comparison, around the turn of the millennium changed the way
I viewed foundations. In 2003 the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung facilitated a trans-
culturally-oriented international conference (s. “Foundations in Christianity,
Judaism and Islam in the Premodern Period” [“Stiftungen in Christentum,
Judentum und Islam vor der Moderne”], 2005) and between 2006 and 2008 a
research project on the closure of foundations in the “West” and in Byzantium
(s. Tim Geelhaar / John Thomas [eds.], “Foundations and the State in the
Middle Ages” [“Stiftung und Staat im Mittelalter”], 2011). When in 2010 I was
made aware of the “7th Framework Programme in Research. Technological
Development and Demonstration” of the European Commission and the call
for well-financed Advanced Grants, I nonetheless initially would have had
Acknowledgments ix
to turn my attention away from other projects on medieval global history, if
I wanted to submit a promising application. Almost contrary to my presump-
tions I was successful, so that a decisive change was brought about, without
which this book, despite all preliminary work, would not have been possible.
The project “Foundations in Medieval Societies. Cross-cultural Comparisons”
of the European Research Council enabled me between 2012 and 2017 to em-
ploy, besides post-docs in medieval history, also experts in Byzantine Studies,
Indology, Islamic Studies, Judaism and for time Sinology as well, who with me
worked on and published a three-volume “Encyclopedia of Foundations in
Medieval Societies” [“Enzyklopädie des Stiftungswesens in mittelalterlichen
Gesellschaften”] (2014, 2016 and 2017). This “World History of Foundations”
was from the start planned as a second undertaking of the Advanced Grant,
which was, in contrast to the analytically-conceived encyclopedia, not only to
interpret the history of foundations in a narrative fashion, but was also, where
possible, to extend far beyond the five or six “cultures” of the shared endeav-
or. Without the “preliminary work” of my colleagues, especially of other dis-
ciplines, who came from Israel, Italy, Romania, Spain/Great Britain and the
USA to Berlin, this book would not have been written. I thus thank Zachary
Chitwood, Susanne Härtel, Patrick Koch, Emese Kozma, Corrado La Martire,
Tillmann Lohse, Volker Olles, Ignacio Sánchez and Annette Schmiedchen
more than I can here express. I would also like to expressly thank my student
assistants Laura Haßler, Ruth Schwerdtfeger and Benjamin Wolff, who con-
stantly sought to sate my insatiable hunger for source editions and secondary
literature, even outside of working hours on weekends.
Something that I did not expect at the start of my studies was the revision of
certain fundamental conceptions. In the tradition of Schmid and Oexle, I had
been able still in 2012 to publish my older articles in the collection “Foundations
and Memoria” [“Stiftung und Memoria”]. What was intended to be the theoret-
ical and methodological cornerstone of FOUNDMED soon was proven to be
in need of correction. To wit, in universal comparison one cannot substantiate
the assumption that foundations always served the memory of the founder or
the salvation of the soul of the founders, as important as these motivations
remained for certain “cultures”. I am forever grateful for this new insight, since
there is nothing greater for a researcher than to be able to correct one’s own
errors and thereby at the same time see oneself as a cultivator of international
scholarship.
Alongside all the aforementioned and many still-unnamed collaborators
and colleagues who have enabled this work, I would like to thank the European
Research Council for the financial means, the Humboldt University of Berlin,
which has proven itself not only to be my home, but through its committee,
administration and intellectual climate to be my veritable alma mater, and the