What is prosopography?

Prosopography is the historical study of individuals as groups and of groups as individuals. When one wishes to have information about a group, one studies the individual members of that group. When one desires a general profile of an individual, one familiarizes oneself with that person’s group. The medieval period of European history is a fertile landscape for prosopography, since a significant quantity of information on important individuals exists only in forms applicable to the study of groups.

Prosopography and the study of government. More than one expert has expressed the belief that the prosopographical approach should be pursued in connection with the study of government. We are devoted to the fullest scope of that ideal, where government is understood not only as persons performing specific regulatory functions, but as a unique system. Prosopography may be used to determine the foundations of the system in legal notions – in other words the constitution. Since the law of the middle ages is (with the exception of canon law) primarily unwritten customary law, prosopography seems indispensable in this regard.

Public inheritance. We are especially concerned with law pertaining to succession in public office, but twentieth-century historians have sought to establish the doctrine that there was no fundamental law of succession. The princely dynasties that emerged from the dark ages supposedly won their rights of hereditary succession through usurpation of a royal right of installment. Even the hereditary nature of medieval monarchy is questioned, being viewed as custom established by particularly successful dynasties rather than underlying legal principle. Germany presents a specialized set of problems, but also a representative case.

Primacy of the sources. Without accurate genealogical data, it cannot be possible to establish whether succession was conditioned by heritability. Almost since the very period in question, the study of aristocratic genealogy has been rife with speculation, invention, falsification, and myth-making. Despite a continuing and largely successful movement towards accuracy and authenticity in historical research, genealogical falsification is occasionally pursued quite brazenly by supposedly eminent historians. If the inquiry is to be historical, inferences must be based solely on the applicable sources and related considerations. This presupposes the development of methods to help determine how sources can contribute.

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