Final Report Summary - FOUNDMED (Foundations in medieval societies: Cross-cultural comparisons)
The work on the encyclopaedia is accompanied by a monograph “World History of Foundations, 3000 BCE to 1500 CE” by the principal investigator Michael Borgolte that covers even more material in time and space (about 750 pages). It has become apparent that all experts collaborating in the project have quarried new insights in their respective fields and material following the leads from questions by their colleagues from different academic disciplines and that new starting points are created for further research. Above all work in this project proves that the decade-old thesis is true that foundations can be regarded as total social phenomena that make it possible to grasp the overall fabric of a society. It is no exaggeration to claim that foundations, their shape, purpose, and implementation, serve as a fundamental petrification of the relationship between individuals, their desires, hopes, sorrows, and options, and the respective historical society, economy, religion, politics and arts in the course of universal history.
Since the volumes of our encyclopaedia appeared online and in print, the results of our work are accessible everywhere to the general public.