History Professor Lisa Wolverton has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for 2018-2019, in support of her project titled “Henry and Vratislav: Medieval Central Europe Transformed.”

Abstract:
Henry and Vratislav: Medieval Central Europe Transformed reframes one of the most divisive religious conflicts of the Middle Ages—the so-called “Investiture Contest”—around issues of secular politics and civil war.  Recentering the story around the alliance between the embattled King Henry IV of Germany, beset by internal enemies, and his powerful Czech neighbor Vratislav of Bohemia, it analyzes the causes and consequences of the protracted “Saxon War” beyond Germany and German historiographical concerns.  Emphasizing human actions and motivations over institutions, concentrating on the Saxon-Slav borderlands, and reaffirming Slavic agency vis-à-vis long-presumed German hegemony, it offers a new vision of Central Europe and its political culture in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.