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The Konradiner: A study in genealogical methodology (Ius commune)

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If there were a graduate-level university course in the genealogy of the Continental nobility, this would be the textbook. Jackman began with the desire to understand the workings of medieval German government and found himself drawn into the eternal problems of medieval research: separating individuals of the same name, evaluating the reliability of sources whose authors themselves are only slightly known, and determining the intrinsic quality of data reported second- or third-hand. This extremely detailed test case begins with the progeny of Count Odo of Orléans and Ingeltrud of Paris in the 9th century and continues through Otto of Hammerstein, the last true Konradiner in the Hessian homeland. Those readers to whom this family means nothing will gain nevertheless by the author's tightly argued and rigorously documented work because (for example) the concept of explicit, inferential, and incidental data is as useful in 19th century England as in medieval Germany. A book to be read carefully and digested slowly.