Pre-modern Kinship

Pre-modern Kinship

Verwandtschaft en korr Goody Verwandtschaft en korr

Project

Project

Since the early twentieth century researchers have explored the question of why Latin Europe turned out the way it has. Why is it that the structural and ideological foundations for state formation, pluralistic decision-making, and a concept of the individual defined by rights rather than duties were laid in this part of the world? Researchers have only recently begun to concentrate more intensively on the role of kinship systems in these developments. Cross-cultural comparison reveals that societies under the dominion of the Latin Church engendered specific forms of kinship organization - and not first as a consequence of the Enlightenment and the advent of the Modern Age, but rather much earlier. As Christianity, a religion hostile to kinship systems, became the prevailing explanatory framework in societies of the Early Middle Ages, there was a fundamental weakening of the kinship system - to the benefit of the conjugal bond and non-relational institutions of social organization. As early as the fifth or sixth century, kinship seems to have governed life within the domain of the Latin Church to a far lesser extent than in comparable societies.

     

Individual projects

Individual projects

The project is operationalised in individual research projects, which analyse specific topics in the research fields of social history, history of law, literary studies, Jewish studies and historical discourse.

Workshops and Lectures

Workshops and Lectures

The project includes different Workshops and Lectures about the hole concept and new approaches in historical and literary aspects of kinship systems. In this context, the research results of the individual projects were also discussed frequently.