II. Kirchliche Zufluchtsorte im Frühmittelalter

Abstract

Abstract Church Spaces for Refugees in Early Medieval Ages. The paper deals with the spatial regulations of asylum. It shows that the spacious area of asylum of Late Antiquity was considerably reduced by many gentile Germanic kings. However, with the increasing Christianisation and the founding of monasteries and regional churches, the ability to grant asylum was extended to these churches, whereas in Late Antiquity in the Western Roman Empire, very likely only the episcopal churches – partly due to the lack of too many other churches – were qualified to grant asylum. In this way, a harmonization between profane and ecclesiastical places of refuge took place for just as “all” churches were (before?) all royal courts and not only the king’s residence were spaces of refuge. In the case of church spaces of refuge, it increasingly became a qualitative requirement that the church building or its parts (altar, gates etc.) had been sanctified by episcopal ordination. The reduction in the size of the asylum area did not initially go hand in hand with an impairment in the right of asylum. The bishop’s (priest’s) obligation to intercede or right to intercede was only levelled under emperor Charlemagne with reference to the competence of any worthy person to intercede.