Dr. des. Marian Hefter

since October 2024 
Freelance employee in the project "Digitale Auswahledition der Tagebücher Johann Christian Senckenbergs" at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

November 2024 - December 2024 
Freelance employee of the Gotha Research Centre (preparation of a third-party funding application)

August 2024 - September 2024
Freelance employee of the Gotha Research Library (cataloguing early modern manuscripts)

April 2024 - September 2024
Adjunct lecturer at the University of Leipzig - Chair of Early Modern History (Professor Julia Schmidt-Funke)

January 2024 - June 2024
Research employee in the project "Cataloguing the Correspondence and Testimonies of Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff" 
(University of Erfurt - Gotha Research Library)

since 2021
Member of the Gotha Research Centre

April 2019 - August 2023
Christoph Martin Wieland Scholarship of the University of Erfurt

2019 - 2024
Doctoral student at the University of Erfurt - Gotha Research Centre in the graduate centre "History of Knowledge in the Modern Era"; supervisor: Professor Martin Mulsow

2018 - 2019
Student at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel: MA programme in History and Philosophy

2016 - 2018
Student at the University of Erfurt: MA programme in History

2014 - 2016
Student assistant at the Professorship of Ancient History (Professor Veit Rosenberger †) at the University of Erfurt

2013-2016
Student at the University of Erfurt: BA programme in History (major) and Catholic Religion (minor)

1994
Born in Aschaffenburg (Bavaria)

• Ritual Studies
• Residence research
• Everyday and cultural history
• Costume studies

The emergence, preservation and passing on of ceremonial knowledge in the 18th century using the example of the Gotha court

Contemporary historians see the social interaction and antagonism of the 17th and 18th centuries as being significantly characterised by a great sense of class in all social strata. The knowledge of one's own rank demanded its defence both against attacks from above and against ambitions from below. The frequent attempts to raise one's own status were the source of constant political, legal and social conflicts. The controversial questions about the order in which documents should be sealed, the coach parking spaces in the imperial Hofburg or the introduction of the office of chamberlain at the imperial courts were the outward expression of the rank accorded to oneself and others. Based on precedents, negotiations and provocative pretensions, political and courtly ceremonial reflected the hierarchy of the Holy Roman Empire.

The research project examines the emergence, preservation and dissemination of knowledge about ceremonial as a form of communication in the 18th century using the example of the Gotha ducal court. The extensive correspondence between the dukes of Gotha and other ecclesiastical and secular imperial princes plays just as important a role as the internal court documentation of individual ceremonial events. In addition to the files of the Privy Council and the Oberhofmarschallamt, including the well-known Fourierbücher, the holdings of ceremonial publications in the ducal libraries, the individual court orders and the dukes' private notes also bear witness to the omnipresence of ceremonial knowledge at court. A high value was placed on the consciously communicated external localisation of one's own rank within the political and social structure of Europe. In order to fulfil this requirement, those responsible had to be well informed at all times and have a large store of ceremonial knowledge at their disposal.

We will now examine how this politically vital knowledge of the numerous and interlinked questions of rank was created, preserved and passed on. The central question here is not so much what the ceremonies themselves looked like as acts, but rather what was considered worth passing on and why, and what benefits were derived from these traditions.

Essays:

Die Entstehung der ersten Gothaer Fourierbücher zwischen Hofökonomie und Zeremoniell (1694-1699), in: Zeitschrift für Thüringische Geschichte 76 (2022), pp. 73-101.

"in assembly of the whole court". Observations on the participation of commoners in festivities at the Gotha ducal court in the 17th and 18th centuries, in: Fürstliche Feste. Höfische Festkultur zwischen Zeremoniell und Amüsement, Petersberg 2020, pp. 209-223 (= Jahrbuch der Stiftung Thüringer Schlösser und Gärten, vol. 23).

Online contributions:

Organising the société des princes: The Management of Titles in Eighteenth-Century German Chancelleries, in: The Court Observer. The Society for Court Studies Blog, 20 September 2023.
https://courtstudies.hypotheses.org/1072

Eloquent silence. Symbols, words and rites as elements of communication at the European court in the early modern period, in: Clio-online, Themenportal Europäische Geschichte, 26 January 2023.
https://www.europa.clio-online.de/essay/id/fdae-131327

United through the crisis? Unexpected encounters with the Corresponding Princes, in: Forschen in Gotha. A blog of Gotha research institutions, 14 May. 2020.
https://www.gotha3.de/forschungsblog/archives/4665.

Reviews:

Elisabeth Ruffert: Das Gesandtschaftszeremoniell des brandenburgisch-preußischen Hofes um 1700. Berlin 2022, in: HSozKult, 19 October 2022.
https://www.hsozkult.de/searching/id/reb-129282?title=e-ruffert-das-gesandtschaftszeremoniell-des-brandenburgisch-preussischen-hofes-um-1700&recno=1&q=ruffert&sort=&fq=&total=8

Thomas Dorfner, Thomas Kirchner, Christine Roll (eds.): Reporting as a communicative challenge. European envoy reports of the early modern period in praxeological perspective. Cologne 2021, in: HSozKult 10.05.2022.
https://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-114285?title=t-dorfner-u-a-hrsg-berichten-als-kommunikative-herausforderung

Conference reports:

Report on the workshop 'Erfurt, Gotha and the world. A colloquium on the 400th birthday of the Ethiopianist and polymath Job Ludolf (1624-1704)', in: HSozKult 08.10.2024.
https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-150368utm_source=hskhtml&utm_medium=email&utm_tm=2024-10&utm_campaign=htmldigest

Report on the theme day on early modern coin knowledge at the Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt, in: OZeAN. Online Journal of Ancient Numismatics 6 (2024), pp. 11-17.
www.uni-muenster.de/Ejournals/index.php/ozean/article/view/5484

Report on the workshop 'Vom Erkunden zur Erkenntnis? Approaches and perspectives of digital collection visualisations', in: Blog der Gotha Research Library, 13 December 2023. 
blog-fbg.uni-erfurt.de/2023/12/bericht-zum-workshop-am-10-11-2023/.

Report on the workshop 'Digitales Storytelling in der (sammlungsbezogenen) Wissenschaftskommunikation', in: Blog der Gotha Research Library, 20 October 2021.
https://blog-fbg.uni-erfurt.de/2021/10/bericht-ueber-den-workshop-digitales-storytelling-in-der-sammlungsbezogenen-wissenschaftskommunikation/.

Gefährliche Freundschaften. Scientific colloquium for Martin Mulsow on his 60th birthday. 1 November 2019 to 2 November 2019 in Gotha, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 21 November 2019.
https://www.hsozkult.de/searching/id/tagungsberichte-8530?title=gefaehrliche-freundschaften-wissenschaftliches-kolloquium-fuer-martin-mulsow-zum-60-geburtstag&q=gef%C3%A4hrliche%20freundschaften&sort=&fq=&total=7&recno=2&subType=fdkn.