“This chance discovery was a real stroke of luck for me”

Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Fuerteventura: most people, when they hear these names, think of holidays on the beach. But historian Julia Bühner doesn’t. For her doctoral thesis she undertook research in archives and libraries on the Canary Islands – with little opportunity for sunbathing and swimming. On the contrary: “The University of Tenerife is located in La Laguna, in a valley surrounded by laurel forests. The weather there was more like in Münster,” she says. The reason for her stays there was her research on the history of international law in the conquest of the Canary Islands by the Crown of Castile in the years from 1402 to 1496. For her thesis she received from the city of Münster a special commendation in the category of the city’s Young Historians Prize. The jury praised the cross-disciplinary approach taken in the thesis, as a result of which she “boldly explored uncharted academic territory”.

As she grew up in Werl, a town roughly 70 kilometres south of Münster, choosing to go to Münster University made sense for Julia Bühner. Her passion for the history of the Middle Ages was soon kindled. “Like most students,” she says, “I had hardly any previous knowledge of the Middle Ages from school lessons – and I was surprised by the rich diversity of this era. Münster happens to be so full of medieval history. This chance discovery was a real stroke of luck for me,” she recalls. A course on international law in the Middle Ages in her master’s programme, as well as her fondness for the Spanish language, ultimately led her to her doctoral thesis.

In her thesis, Bühner relativises the popular notion that international law is a purely European achievement. “Among other things,” she explains, “the Peace of Westphalia is seen as a milestone in the history of international law, laying the foundations for the modern system of nation states. But this view of things is very Eurocentric. What interests me,” she continues, “is whether in other cultures – indigenous ones, for example – there is anything similar to what we nowadays understand by international law and international relations. Europeans are not the sole players involved,” is her conclusion. “We should understand conquest more as a meeting of cultures, in which differing ideas of normativity and law confront each other.” In doing so, she says, it’s not a question of denying the violent act of conquest, but of developing an awareness that indigenous people too made contributions to the achievements of the modern world.

Julia Bühner worked with sources written in medieval Spanish, medieval French and Latin – for example, papal bulls, royal edicts and scholarly tracts. The premodern forms of language were a challenge in themselves – so her delight at the award from the city of Münster was all the greater. The laudation from Prof. Wilfried Reininghaus impressed her in particular. “That was my first laudation, and it was a special moment to hear something about my own research from the lips of someone else and to receive so much acclaim for it,” says Bühner. “This feedback, before my book has even been published, means a lot to me.”

While she was writing her thesis under the supervision of Prof. Martin Kintzinger at the Department of History, Julia Bühner benefited from the fruitful environment of the University of Münster. In addition, she received important stimulation from the colloquium for doctoral students at the Max Planck Institute of Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt, whose Director, Prof. Thomas Duve, was one of the supervisors of her thesis. Münster was the right place for the historian Bühner, who finds relaxation in playing the piano. “I love the Domplatz and Fürstenberg House and the libraries,” she says. What she likes about the area she lives in – Gievenbeck – is all the greenery. Might she perhaps fly back to the Canary Islands for a holiday? “Probably not,” she says with a laugh. “What I find much more interesting there are the archaeological digs. There’s still a lot of research being done there and it’s reasonable to expect that in future we’ll be able to learn new things about the fascinating history of the Canaries.”

Anke Poppen

This article is from the brochure "Twelve months, twelve people", published in February 2024.

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