Michael Rothmann

Prof. Dr. Michael Rothmann is a Professor for the History of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period at the Leibniz University Hannover. His research spans three core areas: history of ideas, European economic history, and legal/constitutional history, with methodological focus on archival analysis, interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge cultures, and spatial transformation studies.

• Full affiliation: Faculty of Philosophy, Historical Seminar
• Current research includes high medieval encyclopedias and early regional cartography (1500-1650)

Research Themes:
His work examines universal knowledge cultures through medieval encyclopedias and emerging natural science, analyzing sign theories, text-image relationships, and printing/book markets. In economic history, he investigates free market emergence, commercial accounting, and transnational credit systems. Constitutional studies focus on municipal-state dynamics, judicial instruments, and violence monopolization processes.

Publication Trends:
Recent articles reveal expertise in urban communication networks (2000, 2005), medieval credit systems (2007, 2015), and cartographic development (2018-2024). Key projects include DFG-funded studies on regional mapping (2016-2019) and Pro*Niedersachsen research on knowledge cultures (2013-2015).