Wagner, Silvan: Das Geheimnis um den Schwanritter

Zitation

Wagner, Silvan: Das Geheimnis um den Schwanritter. Agnatische und kognatische Herrschaftsbegründung in Konrads von Würzburg Märe. In: Conermann, Stephan/Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, Harald/Quiering, Miriam (Hg.): Geheimnis und Verborgenes im Mittelalter. Funktion, Wirkung und Spannungsfelder von okkultem Wissen, verborgenen Räumen und magischen Gegenständen. Berlin/Boston 2021, S. 509-521

Beschreibung

So far, research has tended to leave out the part about the secret of Konrad’s of Würzburg ‘Schwanenritter’: The focus of interest was almost continuously the legal case about the either agnatic or cognatic inheritance. With the swan knight’s intervention during the litigation over Gottfried’s of Bouillon inheritance, the cognatic succession would be ultimately enforced. The second part of the Märe, though, the violation of the question ban and the subsequent disappearance of the swan knight, got out of focus of research. However, the story is not complete without the lasting secret about the identity of the swan knight and his disappearance: Konrad does not only tell the case of successful passing on reign cognatically, but also, overlaying, the beginning of a new genealogic line. And typical for this kind of Märe, this new approach to genealogy goes along with an insoluble paradox: The genealogy is based on both male and female and goes along four genealogic ignitions. Here, the secret about the identity of the swan knight (which is radicalized in Konrad’s version by staying anonymous) has the function to make the paradox possible and by that to propagate agnatic and cognatic passing on reign simultaneously. The Märe doesn’t choose between the two possibilities, but rather offers an observation of its structures.

(Abstract)