For seven years, a collaboration between the Institute for Medieval Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Universities of Utrecht, Cambridge, Leeds and Paris I, Sorbonne provided the opportunity for young researchers to discuss and coordinate their work. The title of the project and of this volume, 'Texts and identities', provides the framework for case studies in different fields of early medieval history. They include apparently disparate topics such as historiography and hagiography, monastic spaces and memories, lay and ecclesiastic legislation, as well as liturgy and penance.
Rather than defining a common field of research, the meetings from which these papers have emerged derived their coherence from their common methodological framework. This approach combines two elements: on the one hand, emphasis has been laid on the careful analysis of the transmission of texts and of the manuscript evidence; on the other, research has focused on the problem of identity, or rather, of processes of identification, including the perception of differences between specific social, political and religious communities.
In the combination of these two approaches the extant texts from the early medieval period are not only seen as mere reflections of ethnic, social and cultural identities, but also as media that gave meaning to social practices and were often intended to inspire, guide, change or prevent action, directly or indirectly. The written texts that have been transmitted to us can be seen as part of a cultural effort to shape the present by means of restructuring the past. The often discordant voices of medieval authors allow modern historians to grasp something of the multiplicity of the early medieval world, and of the disagreements, conflicts, idiosyncrasies and individual perceptions among the people who lived in that period.
Many contributions in this volume propose specific methods for studying changing identities. They analyse differences between similar texts over time, or, specifically, changes in texts in the course of their transmission. The papers collected in this volume illustrate that texts were integral parts of a world in transformation.
Author(s): Richard Corradini, Rob Meens, Christina Pössel, Philip Shaw (eds.)
Series: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse. Denkschriften, 344. Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 12
Publisher: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Year: 2006
Language: English, German, French
Pages: 460
City: Wien
Vorwort der Herausgeber 9
Mayke de Jong, Rosamond McKitterick, Walter Pohl, Ian Wood / Introduction 11
1. The perception of Roman past in early Medieval Europe
Bart Jaski / Aeneas and Fénius: a classical case of mistaken identity 17
Andrew Merrills / Comparative histories: the Vandals, the Sueves and Isidore of Seville 35
Benjamin Cornford / Paul the Deacon’s understanding of identity, his attitude to barbarians, and his "strategies of distinction" in the Historia Romana 47
Emma Beddoe / Memory and identity in Flodoard of Reims: his use of the Roman past 61
2. Historiography and memory: the presence of the Frankish past
Gerda Heydemann / Zur Gestaltung der Rolle Brunhildes in merowingischer Historiographie 73
Helmut Reimitz / The art of truth. Historiography and identity in the Frankish world 87
Maximilian Diesenberger / Dissidente Stimmen zum Sturz Tassilos III. 105
Richard Corradini / Die Annales Fuldenses – Identitätskonstruktionen im ostfränkischen Raum am Ende der Karolingerzeit 121
Bernhard Zeller / Liudolfinger als fränkische Könige? Überlegungen zur sogenannten Continuatio Reginonis 137
Ewan Johnson / Origin myths and the construction of medieval identities: Norman chronicles 1000–1100 153
Marianne Pollheimer / 'Wie der jung weiß kunig die alten gedachtnus insonders lieb het': Maximilian I., Jakob Mennel und die frühmittelalterliche Geschichte der Habsburger in der "Fürstlichen Chronik" 165
3. Texts, authority and identities
Pascal Bertrand / Shaping authority and identity: Saint Antony and his followers in early monastic texts 179
Adriaan Gaastra / Penitentials and canonical authority 191
Karl R. Giesriegl / Autorität, Chronologie und Gesetzgebung. Königskataloge in fränkischen Leges-Handschriften 205
Carine van Rhijn / Priests and the Carolingian reforms: the bottlenecks of local 'correctio' 219
Jasmijn Bovendeert / Royal or monastic identity? Smaragdus’ Via regia and Diadema monachorum reconsidered 239
Christina Pössel / Authors and recipients of Carolingian capitularies, 779–829 253
4. Temporal and spatial distinctions as markers of identity
Rob Meens / The sanctity of the basilica of St Martin. Gregory of Tours and the practice of sanctuary in the Merovingian period 277
Els Rose / Fasting flocks. Lenten season in the liturgical communities of early medieval Gaul 289
Janneke Raaijmakers / Memory and identity: the Annales necrologici of Fulda 303
Irene van Renswoude / Time is on our side: liturgical time and political history in the Chronicle of Lobbes 323
5. Religious identifications and difference
Philip Shaw / Hair and heathens: picturing pagans and the Carolingian connection in the Exeter Book and Beowulf-manuscript 345
Ann Christys / "How can I trust you, since you are a Christian and I am a Moor?": The multiple identities of the Chronicle of Pseudo-Isidore 359
Peter Erhart / 'Contentiones inter monachos' – Ethnische und politische Identität in monastischen Gemeinschaften des Frühmittelalters 373
Owen M. Phelan / The Carolingian renewal and Christian formation in ninth century Bavaria 389
Thomas Lienhard / De l’intérêt d’une identité ethnique: les chefs slaves et la Chrétienté d’après la Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum 401
Abbreviations 413
Bibliography 415
Primary sources 415
Literature 427
