Conversion to Christianity is arguably the most revolutionary social and cultural change that Europe experienced throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Christianization affected all strata of society and transformed not only religious beliefs and practices, but also the nature of government, the priorities of the economy, the character of kinship, and gender relations. It is against this backdrop that an international array of leading medievalists gathered under the auspices of the Converting the Isles Research Network (funded by the Leverhulme Trust) to investigate social, economic, and cultural aspects of conversion in the early medieval Insular world, covering different parts of Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Iceland.
This volume analyses the effects of religious conversion on landscapes of cult and on religious practice in Europe, focusing in particular on Britain and Ireland. Adopting an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, the volume investigates the interaction between different forms of belief, their coexistence and competition. It discusses the coming of writing, the power of the word, landscapes of ritual, and converting communities. The contributors include leading historians, archaeologists, linguists, and literary scholars. This is the second volume to emerge from research undertaken by contributors to the Converting the Isles Research Network and forms a companion volume to 'The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World'.
Author(s): Nancy Edwards, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Roy Flechner (eds.)
Series: Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 23
Publisher: Brepols
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 548
City: Turnhout
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xiii
Converting the Isles: An International Network for the Study of Conversion to Christianity in the Insular World xv
Abbreviations xvii
Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond: An Introduction / Nancy Edwards and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh 1
Part I. The Coming of Writing
Literacy and Conversion on Ireland’s Roman Frontier: From Emulation to Assimilation? / Elva Johnston 23
Languages and Literacy in Mid-First-Millennium Ireland: New Questions to Some Old Answers / Anthony Harvey 47
Conversion and the Origin of Irish Script / Mark Stansbury 65
Runic Carvings as Evidence for the Conversion of Scandinavia: A Comparison between the Rune Stones in the Provinces of Uppland and Västergötland / Anne-Sofie Gräslund 87
Part II. The Power of the Word
'Mensa in Deserto': Reconciling Jonas’s 'Life of Columbanus' with Recent Archaeological Discoveries at Annegray and Luxeuil / Sébastien Bully and Jean-Michel Picard 119
Searching for Conversion in the Early English Laws / Helen Foxhall Forbes 145
The Christian Message and the Laity: The 'Heliand' in Post-Conquest Saxony / Ingrid Rembold 175
From Story to History: Narrating Conversion in Medieval Ireland / Máire Ní Mhaonaigh 207
The Agency of the Female Saint in Hagiographical Conversion Narratives: Íte in Apposition to Monenna / Julianne Pigott 233
Part III. Landscapes of Ritual
From Burial among the Ancestors to Burial among the Saints: An Assessment of Some Burial Rites in Ireland from the Fifth to Eighth Centuries AD / Elizabeth O’Brien 259
Converting Kingship in Early Ireland: Redefining Practices, Ideologies, and Identities / Patrick Gleeson 287
Barrows and the Conversion of the Landscape at Forteviot, Perthshire / Adrián Maldonado 319
Pagan and Christian: Practice and Belief in a Pictish Landscape / Meggen M. Gondek 351
Chi-Rhos, Crosses, and Pictish Symbols: Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Early Medieval Wales and Scotland / Nancy Edwards 381
Part IV. Converting Communities
Early Christianity in South-West Germany: The Conversion of the Alamanni / Bernhard Maier 411
Investigating 'Peasant Conversion' in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England: A Preliminary Enquiry / Roy Flechner 429
Church Sites and Other Settlements in Early Medieval Ireland: Densities, Distributions, Interactions / Tomás Ó Carragáin 457
Conclusion
Converting the Isles: Reflections and Reconsiderations / Nancy Edwards, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, and Roy Flechner 493
Index 515
