Wie anders war das Mittelalter?

Modern mediaeval studies nowadays almost habitually model their object of study, the Middle Ages, as alteritary. The concept of alterity has attained a particular significance in Old German studies, which is why especially experts from this field now proceed to critically examine the capability of this term. The weakness of alterity is emerges particularly when used as an historical descriptive term. It presents the Middle Ages and their literature in various ways, not least by emphasizing difference. It therefore seems apposite to take the contrary standpoint and ask whether our notion of the Middle Ages would not become clearer and more complete if we paid more attention to invariables. Such invariables can be derived from general attributes of language, text and literature, but also from anthropology.