Gerd Althoff (born 9 July 1943) is a German historian of the Early and High Middle Ages. He presents himself (in words used as part of the title of one of his many books) as a researcher into the "political rules of the game" in the Middle Ages. He has held professorships at the University of Münster (1986–1990 and 1997–2011), the University of Giessen (1990–1995) and the University of Bonn (1995–1997).
The fruits of Althoff's research on the Ottonian period have been enriched by collaboration with his fellow medievalist at the University of Münster, Hagen Keller. Together they have, in the eyes of admirers, significantly raised the status of the University of Münster as a centre for the study of medieval history. Althoff's own research on the operation of medieval statehood, medieval forms of public communication, the connections binding different groups together and the means of conflict resolution applied, have since the 1980s exercised a significant influence on German and international "Mediävistics" and driven important re-evaluations of Early and High Medieval kingship.
Life Gerd Althoff was born in Hamburg during the Second World War, and grew up in the Münsterland region near the Dutch border. He attended the "Amtsgymnasium" (secondary school) in Ibbenbüren until 1963. Between 1965 and 1970 he studied Germanistics at the University of Münster and Heidelberg University. The switch to History was triggered by Althoff's involvement in the "68 movement" and the need, cited by many West Germans of his generation, to confront recent history and the Hitler nightmare in which most Germans of the older generationalbeit with wildly varying levels of enthusiasm and commitmentwere believed by the young people to have participated. He launched his academic career at Münster by assisting the medievalist on the latter's "Personen und Gemeinschaften" (loosely, "individuals and society") project, which was part of a broader Medieval Research programme at Münster. His first piece of published research, in 1973, concerned a list of monks at the old monastery in Prüm that is included in Prüm's Carolingian "Liber aureus". He received his doctorate (post-graduate degree) at the University of Münster a year later in return for a piece of work on the Necrology of the at Borghorst.Gerd Althoff: Das Necrolog von Borghorst. Edition und Untersuchung. Münster 1978. The work was supervised by Karl Schmid who, a little earlier had been offered and accepted a teaching chair at the University of Freiburg. Althoff followed him, remaining at the University of Freiburg as a research assistant for the next six years.
It was at the University of Freiburg that in 1981 Althoff received his habilitation (higher degree). His dissertation on this occasion was based on research into the Billung and Ottonian dynasties: it was published in 1984, entitled "Adels- und Königsfamilien im Spiegel ihrer Memorialüberlieferung ..." (loosely, "Nobility and royalty through the mirror of their memorialised traditions ...").Gerd Althoff: Adels- und Königsfamilien im Spiegel ihrer Memorialüberlieferung. Studien zum Totengedenken der Billunger und Ottonen. München 1984. In 1986 Althoff succeeded as Professor for Medieval History at the University of Münster. He moved again in 1990 when he took over the teaching chair in Medieval and Modern History at Gießen in succession to Carlrichard Brühl. There, between 1991 and 1995, he was co-instigator and then supervisor of the graduate school of "Medieval and Modern Statehood". He also served in 1992 as managing director of the university's Historical Institute and during 1993/94 as Dean of the History Faculty. In 1995, Althoff accepted an invitation to transfer to the University of Bonn. At the University of Bonn, he was again appointed to a professorship in Medieval and Modern History, this time in succession to Rudolf Schieffer who had moved to LMU Munich. He delivered his inaugural lecture in December 1995 on the topic of "Outrage, tears and contrition: Emotion in the public communication of the Middle Ages". The theme was one to which he would return. In 1996, Althoff was appointed managing director of the University of Bonn's "Historical Seminar" (department). He nevertheless accepted the opportunity presented by the retirement in 1996 of Joachim Wollasch to return to the University of Münster in 1997 as Professor for Medieval History. He gave his inaugural lecture on the importance of for understanding the Middle Ages.Gerd Althoff: Zur Bedeutung symbolischer Kommunikation für das Verständnis des Mittelalters. In: Frühmittelalterliche Studien, vol. 31 (1997), pp. 370–389 During 1998/99, he served as managing director at the University of Münster's "Historical Seminar" (department). He retired from his full-time posts at the University of Münster in 2011. His farewell lecture, which was also published in Frühmittelalterliche Studien, concerned "Monarch in the High Middle Ages".
Althoff taught several students at the University of Giessen, the University of Bonn and the University of Münster who have subsequently achieved significant academic notability in their own right, including , , and .
Beyond his wide-ranging mainstream professorial work in Germany, Althoff acquired several international guest professorships, notably at the University of California, Berkeley (1995), the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris (1998), and at Moscow State University (2011). He was critically involved in planning, organising and publicising the high-profile 2012 "Goldene Pracht. Mittelalterliche Schatzkunst in Westfalen" (exhibition of medieval goldsmiths' work and other precious jewellery), presented in Münster, also authoring the 482-page programme for the exhibition. Three years earlier he had been similarly engaged with the "Spektakel der Macht" (loosely, "Visions of power") exhibition in Magdeburg.
Althoff's long association with the specialist journal Frühmittelalterliche Studien has included a decade as sole editor-publisher, between 2001 and 2011, and further terms as co-editor-publisher, between 1998 and 2001, and again since 2012.: 50 Jahre Frühmittelalterliche Studien. In: Frühmittelalterliche Studien, vol. 50 (2016), pp. 1–13, hier: p. 12f. In 1997, he became director of the Münster Institute of Early Middle Ages Research, and became supervisor of Münster's graduate school of "Writing culture and society in the Middle Ages".
Memberships Althoff has been a member of the Medieval Working Circle at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel since 1999, of the , of the Konstanz Working Circle for Middle Ages History (since 1993) and, since 2003, a full member of the .
Research focus Althoff's principal research themes include the modalities of medieval state structures, conflict management and resolution in the Middle Ages, the forms and frameworks governing public communication (so-called "symbolic communication") and networking within and between groups in the medieval period. Many of his essays on these themes, produced since the 1980s, have been gathered together and published in two volumes Many of his studies on the Ottonian and Salian periods have become standard works for scholars, along with Althoff's publications on the power of ritual and his biographical pieces on relatives, friends and collaborators of the dynasts. A particularly fruitful exchange took place between Althoff and his University of Münster colleague Hagen Keller on the subject of Ottonian historiography in respect of group behaviour and the nature of the Ottonian "state". In 1985, the two historians teamed up to produce a double biography of the first two Ottonian rulers, Henry I and Otto I. They were able to show that Henry had secured his rule with friendship-based political alliances (amicitiae). In a departure from the traditional view, Althoff and Keller interpreted Henry's rejection of an episcopal anointment not as a provocative anti-church move intended to rile the bishops, but as a sign that he preferred to consolidate his royal rule through a more collaborative approach. This contrasted strikingly with the accepted nineteenth century interpretations which had anachronistically imputed to tenth century kingship a strong and powerfully assertive exercise of "royal prerogative" constantly seeking to prevail over a permanently truculent nobility. For Althoff and Keller, Henry I and Otto I were not symbolic precursors of Germany's later power and grandeur, but distant representatives of an archaic society, firmly rooted not in subsequent developments but in its own past.Gerd Althoff, Hagen Keller: Heinrich I. und Otto der Große. Neubeginn auf karolingischem Erbe. Bd. 1–2, Göttingen u. a. 1985, p. 14. In 1996 Althoff added a biography of Otto III and in 2006 another, this time of the Salian, "Canossa pilgrim" Henry IV. Both books have entered the historical canon as standard works.
In the first part of April 2006 Althoff initiated Spring conference of the to be held on the Island of Reichenau and mark the 900th anniversary year of Henry's death. Speakers included , Rudolf Schieffer, Steffen Patzold, , and Stefan Weinfurter. Many of the allegations made against the king by generations of historians were revisited. In 2008 a jointly authored volume by Althoff and Keller appeared in the series entitled "Die Zeit der späten Karolinger und der Ottonen. Krisen und Konsolidierungen 888–1024". The book's stated objective was to provide nothing less than "a fundamental revision of the traditional historical perspective .... [by] denationalising the [hitherto mainstream historiographical] vision of the Ottonian state".Hagen Keller & Gerd Althoff: "Die Zeit der späten Karolinger und der Ottonen. Krisen und Konsolidierungen 888–1024". Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2008, 475 pages, . The book's insights and conclusions would not have come as a total surprise to attentive students of the period, since Althoff had already provided an overview of them eight years earlier.
In 2011, jointly with , Althoff produced a study of Irony in the Middle Ages. The authors' objective was to provide "a new start for future research" on the theme.Gerd Althoff, Christel Meier: Ironie im Mittelalter. Hermeneutik – Dichtung – Politik. Darmstadt 2011, p. 17 In 2013, Althoff published his study "Selig sind, die Verfolgung ausüben" as a contribution to the "Excellence Cluster" for "Religion und Politik in den Kulturen der Vormoderne und der Moderne". In it, he tackled some of the contentious themes involving the papacy and the frequent application of papal violence in the High Middle Ages. Althoff had inferred that the papacy had developed its own structure of theories to justify the application of violence as a device to validate the prioritization of its own vision for the world. This immediately brought the question of obedience to the fore as a guiding necessity. Disobedience was characterised as a heresy against which force should be applied.Gerd Althoff: „Selig sind, die Verfolgung ausüben“. Päpste und Gewalt im Hochmittelalter. Stuttgart 2013. The book resonated strongly with commentators and readers because the situation at the time of its appearance made it particularly topical, notably because of its approach to the history of ideas and the way in which its structure incorporated tightly source-based argumentation.