Räumlichkeit in der Universalchronik Ottos von Freising

Extensive research on Otto of Freising’s Historia de duabus civitatibus has left us with a thorough understanding of concepts of time and of history in this well-known twelfth-century universal chronicle. The insight that techniques of the social production of space differ depending on the discursive context however makes a new reading of the text worthwhile in order to analyze spatiality in Otto’s narrative of universal history. On the one hand, hypotheses of medieval space as a space of emplacement can be shown to apply to the actions and events of earthly politics, even though networks of emplaced events become more complex over time and elements of terrain and spatial extension come up in the later passages. On the other hand, events that are part of salvation history are shown to have specific spatial characteristics different from those of the mutatio rerum.