Antizipation von Zukunft?

Abstract

Abstract Current research in medieval studies focuses on how the future was dealt with in medieval culture. While Reinhart Koselleck has denied the Middle Ages any interest in an inner-worldly future, recent contributions show a variety of diverse endeavours to know and influence the future. By examining naval campaigns of the city commune of Genoa from the 12th–14th centuries, this article argues in favour of examining the social practice of medieval societies more intensively in terms of how people tried to influence what would happen in the future. The study of three military campaigns – the attacks on the Spanish harbour cities of Almería and Tortosa in 1147 and 1148, the conquest of Chios and Phocaea in 1346 and a failed expedition to Cyprus in 1383 – shows that in all cases the exercise of military force was at best planned in outline. As a rule, it was assumed that the available contingents and experience would be sufficient for success. Concrete tactics, but in the case of Chios and Phokaia also the targets of the attacks, were only agreed upon during the campaigns. A record of one such negotiation has even been preserved from Cyprus. On the other hand, there were diplomatic and, above all, economic planning horizons that stipulated long-term agreements even before the attack, in which precise deadlines and dates for payments were fixed as well as alliance obligations. The interference between these futures, which were planned and plannable to varying degrees, resulted in the inherent dynamics of non-synchronised temporalities.