Hans Hummer
Wayne State University, History, Faculty Member
What meaning did human kinship possess in a world regulated by biblical time, committed to the primacy of spiritual relationships, and bound by the sinews of divine love? In the process of exploring that question, this book offers a... more
What meaning did human kinship possess in a world regulated by biblical time, committed to the primacy of spiritual relationships, and bound by the sinews of divine love? In the process of exploring that question, this book offers a searching re-examination of kinship in Europe between late Roman times and the high Middle Ages, the period bridging Europe’s primitive past and its modern present. It critiques the modernist and Western bio-genealogical and functionalist assumptions that have shaped kinship studies since their inception in the nineteenth century, when biblical time collapsed and kinship became a signifier of the essential secularity of history and a method for conceptualizing a deeper prehistory guided by autogenous human impulses. It argues that this understanding of kinship is fundamentally antagonistic to medieval sentiments and is responsible for the frustrations researchers have encountered as they have tried to identify the famously elusive kin groups of medieval Europe. It delineates an alternative ethnographic approach inspired by recent anthropological work that privileges indigenous expressions of kinship and the interpretive potential of native ontologies. The book reveals that kinship in the Middle Ages was not biological, primitive, or a regulator of social mechanisms; nor is it traceable by bio-genealogical connections. In the Middle Ages kinship signified a sociality that flowed from convictions about the divine source of all things and wove together families, institutions, and divinities into an expansive eschatological vision animated by “the most righteous principle of love.”
How exactly did political power operate in early medieval Europe? Taking Alsace as his focus, Hans Hummer offers an intriguing new case study on localised and centralised power and the relationship between the two from c. 600–1000.... more
How exactly did political power operate in early medieval Europe? Taking Alsace as his focus, Hans Hummer offers an intriguing new case study on localised and centralised power and the relationship between the two from c. 600–1000. Providing a panoramic survey of the sources from the region, which include charters, notarial formulas, royal instruments, and Old High German literature, he untangles the networks of monasteries and kin groups which made up the political landscape of Alsace, and shows the significance of monastic control in shaping that landscape. He also investigates this local structure in light of comparative evidence from other regions. He tracks the emergence of the distinctive local order during the seventh century to its eventual decline in the late tenth century in the face of radical monastic reform. Highly original and well balanced, this 2006 work is of interest to all students of medieval political structures.
Other cartularies from the East Frankish regions show processes of archival reorganization in response to Carolingian expansion similar to those visible at St Gall, but with very different material outcomes. Carolingian expansion also led... more
Other cartularies from the East Frankish regions show processes of archival
reorganization in response to Carolingian expansion similar to those visible at
St Gall, but with very different material outcomes. Carolingian expansion also
led to the centralization of scribal practice in churches and monasteries; though
the Carolingian state was a very different kind of polity from that of Roman
Late Antiquity, here, too, the state and its imperatives shaped documentary
culture. Most importantly, however, monastic archives in this region appear
once again not as timeless givens, but rather institutional creations that emerged
in particular contexts for particular reasons – reasons tied to the ways that the
Carolingians changed the relationships between ecclesiastical institutions and
the people around them.
reorganization in response to Carolingian expansion similar to those visible at
St Gall, but with very different material outcomes. Carolingian expansion also
led to the centralization of scribal practice in churches and monasteries; though
the Carolingian state was a very different kind of polity from that of Roman
Late Antiquity, here, too, the state and its imperatives shaped documentary
culture. Most importantly, however, monastic archives in this region appear
once again not as timeless givens, but rather institutional creations that emerged
in particular contexts for particular reasons – reasons tied to the ways that the
Carolingians changed the relationships between ecclesiastical institutions and
the people around them.
This article demonstrates that the Vita Sadalbergae, once deemed a Carolingian forgery of the ninth century, was actually written in the later seventh century.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The European Middle Ages are an extraordinarily rich field of interdisciplinary study. Cultural forms and institutions central to European identity took shape during this period. The rise of Europe from an obscure backwater to cultural... more
The European Middle Ages are an extraordinarily rich field of interdisciplinary study. Cultural forms and institutions central to European identity took shape during this period. The rise of Europe from an obscure backwater to cultural and colonial expansion on the world stage found it origins in the Middle Ages.
In this volume 26 distinguished scholars examine major issues in the study of medieval Europe. Much recent scholarship has sought to identify and strip away later intellectual categories and seek a fresh understanding of medieval culture and society on its own terms. That approach is reflected in the articles in this volume on questions such as the end of late antiquity, reform, the crusades, the family, chivalric culture, Romanesque and Gothic architecture, Christianization and heresy. It addresses key themes such as sexuality, gender, and power and class. More traditional topics are also explored including economic and demographic expansion and change, urban politics, kingship, hospitals, education, and scholasticism. The volume is vital for European specialists and an important resource for comparative world history.
In this volume 26 distinguished scholars examine major issues in the study of medieval Europe. Much recent scholarship has sought to identify and strip away later intellectual categories and seek a fresh understanding of medieval culture and society on its own terms. That approach is reflected in the articles in this volume on questions such as the end of late antiquity, reform, the crusades, the family, chivalric culture, Romanesque and Gothic architecture, Christianization and heresy. It addresses key themes such as sexuality, gender, and power and class. More traditional topics are also explored including economic and demographic expansion and change, urban politics, kingship, hospitals, education, and scholasticism. The volume is vital for European specialists and an important resource for comparative world history.
In the pages of the New York Times a couple of years ago, Thomas Bisson (2008) fumed about the disaster [the Republican] party has inflicted. He offered two lessons from medieval Europe: the failure of the crusades, and just when... more
In the pages of the New York Times a couple of years ago, Thomas Bisson (2008) fumed about the disaster [the Republican] party has inflicted. He offered two lessons from medieval Europe: the failure of the crusades, and just when Europe was full of unfettered violent ...
Research Interests:
Page 17. FRANKS AND ALAMANNI: A DISCONTINUOUS ETHNOGENESIS HANS J. HUMMER Department of History, 6265 Bunche Hall, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1473 A history of barbarian groups is difficult to... more
Page 17. FRANKS AND ALAMANNI: A DISCONTINUOUS ETHNOGENESIS HANS J. HUMMER Department of History, 6265 Bunche Hall, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1473 A history of barbarian groups is difficult to construct. ...
Research Interests:
A 100 plaque forming unit (pfu) dose of a temperature-sensitive (ts) mutant of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), tsG31 KS5, engendered a slowly progressive paralytic central nervous system (CNS) disease that killed all BALB/c nude mice... more
A 100 plaque forming unit (pfu) dose of a temperature-sensitive (ts) mutant of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), tsG31 KS5, engendered a slowly progressive paralytic central nervous system (CNS) disease that killed all BALB/c nude mice within 28 days. Reconstitution of nude mice with 107 syngeneic splenocytes 24 h before intracerebral inoculation with tsG31 KS5 VSV, however, protected 92% of the animals from death. When these reconstituted animals were injected intracerebroventricularly with 14 pmol of β-endorphin 24 h after reconstitution with splenocytes and 24 h befor inoculation with tsG31 KS5 VSV, only 72% of the animals survived. Furthermore, whereas 40% of the afflicted reconstituted nude mice given intracerebroventricular injections of sterile water were able to recover from the symptoms of disease, those surviving animals which received β-endorphin were unable to do so. A single intravenous injection of 14 pmol β-endorphin, or repeated postinfection administration of 28 pmol of β-endorphin intravenously into nude mice reconstituted with syngeneic splenocytes, which were pretreated with β-endorphin, did not alter the course of CNS disease induced by tsG31 KS5 VSV. The effect induced by intracerebroventricular injection of β-endorphin as antagonized by naloxone, but not by the neuropeptide fragment β-endorphin-(1–27). A simultaneous intracerebroventricular injection of reconstituted nude mice with 1220 pmol of naloxone and 14 pmol of β-endorphin resulted in a 89% survival rate, and 33% of the afflicted animals were able to overcome the symptoms of the disease induced by tsG31 KS5 VSV. Intracerebroventricular injection of reconstituted nude mice with 330 pmol of β-endorphin-(1–27) and 14 pmol of β-endorphin resulted in a 72% survival rate and the surviving animals were unable to improved appreciably the clinical status of their disease. Injection of reconstituted nude mice with either 1220 pmol of naloxone or 330 pmol of β-endorphin-(1–27) alone did not alter the course of the CNS disease in any way. A single intracerebroventricular injection of 29 pmol of another psychoactive peptide, [Des-Tyr]-endorphin, 24 h after reconstitution of nude mic with splenocytes and 24 h prior to infection with virus, resulted in 74% survival; and 39% of the afflicted animals were able to recover from the clinical symptoms.