Translatio imperii Herrschaftsraum, politische Theologie und die matière de Rome im höfischen Roman des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts

Abstract

In this paper, Lea Braun puts forward a case study aiming at historically reconstructing some spatial categories in the realm of Middle High German literature. Thereby the early topographic and territorial referentiability visibly/rapidly changes into a cultural and literary semantization. The author aims at showing how the translation imperii could be considered as a cultural model where space fulfills a central function and where, at the same time, the «nexus of space, power, literature and theology in the pre-moderns» can be made consistent. World history turns into literary history, topography into topology. As a consequence of this spatial replacement of historical-geographic contexts, Braun notes a semantic enrichment of the narrative, exemplary and allegorical contents of the toponyms, that ultimately leads to a new referentialization shown in the paper through the case of Apollonius von Tyrland.