The 10th century has long occupied a prominent place in German historical research: it has been regarded as the period in which German history began. For this reason, research on the Ottonian period (919-1024) was for a longtime conducted in a national framework. Against this back-ground, the aim of this article is to identify and discuss some specific traditions of German re-search. To this end, it first introduces the model of Neue Verfassungsgeschichte, which was de-veloped from the 1930s onwards and remained influential in Germany until the 1980s. It then discusses the new approaches of the 1990s, in which a model of Ottonian kingship was developed that still has a strong influence on German research today: as a result, the 10th century no longer appears in German accounts as a „secolo di ferro“, but is still very much regarded as a „saeculum obscurum“. At the end, three suggestions are made to nuance this currently prevailing image.
University of Tübingen, Germany - ORCID: 0000-0003-0533-4731
Chapter Title
The Long Tenth Century from a German Perspective
Authors
Steffen Patzold
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-1094-2.04
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Repenser le Xe siècle. États des lieux et perspectives / Ripensare il X secolo. Bilanci e prospettive
Editors
Gianmarco De Angelis, Tiziana Lazzari
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
490
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-1094-2
ISBN Print
979-12-215-1093-5
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-1094-2
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-1096-6
Series Title
Reti Medievali E-Book
Series ISSN
2704-6362
Series E-ISSN
2704-6079