Changing Perspectives on England and the Continent in the Early Middle Ages
Changing Perspectives on England and the Continent in the Early Middle Ages

Author: Anton Scharer

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-04-21

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 100094025X

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This volume brings together a set of articles by Professor Anton Scharer dealing with the themes of conversion, court culture and royal representation in Anglo-Saxon England and Carolingian Europe. It includes two previously unpublished papers, and another four specially translated into English for this publication. Three papers focus on different aspects of conversion: the spread of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England by means of social relations, the role of language in this process and the monastic and social background of the insular mission to the Continent. With conversion came the import of Latin written culture, including charters, and one study focuses on royal styles in Anglo-Saxon charters. A second paper on early mediaeval royal diplomas, and what they at times reveal about very personal reactions and sentiments, leads to the theme of court culture. This is further explored in a batch of papers centred on Alfred the Great and covering the subjects of historiography, of inauguration rites or ordines, and of hitherto neglected personal contacts, as a clue to the transmission of experiences, ideas and texts. Closely linked are studies on the role of Charlemagne's daughters at their fathe's court and on objects of princely and royal representation. Throughout, particular attention is given to the examination of mutual, Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian, influences and to viewing the matters under discussion from an 'Anglo-Saxon' as well as a 'Continental' perspective.

Early Medieval Britain, c. 500–1000
Early Medieval Britain, c. 500–1000

Author: Rory Naismith

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-07-15

Total Pages: 493

ISBN-13: 1108341543

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Early medieval Britain saw the birth of England, Scotland and of the Welsh kingdoms. Naismith's introductory textbook explores the period between the end of Roman rule and the eve of the Norman Conquest, blending an engaging narrative with clear explanations of key themes and sources. Using extensive illustrations, maps and selections from primary sources, students will examine the island as a collective entity, comparing political histories and institutions as well as societies, beliefs and economies. Each chapter foregrounds questions of identity and the meaning of 'Britain' in this period, encouraging interrogation and contextualisation of sources within the framework of the latest debates and problems. Featuring online resources including timelines, a glossary, end-of-chapter questions and suggestions for further reading, students can drive their own understanding of how the polities and societies of early medieval Britain fitted together and into the wider world, and firmly grasp the formative stages of British history.

Law, Literature, and Social Regulation in Early Medieval England
Law, Literature, and Social Regulation in Early Medieval England

Author: Andrew Rabin

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2023-02-21

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1783277602

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Valuable new insights into the multi-layered and multi-directional relationship of law, literature, and social regulation in pre-Conquest English society. Pre-Conquest English law was among the most sophisticated in early medieval Europe. Composed largely in the vernacular, it played a crucial role in the evolution of early English identity and exercised a formative influence on the development of the Common Law. However, recent scholarship has also revealed the significant influence of these legal documents and ideas on other cultural domains, both modern and pre-modern. This collection explores the richness of pre-Conquest legal writing by looking beyond its traditional codified form. Drawing on methodologies ranging from traditional philology to legal and literary theory, and from a diverse selection of contributors offering a broad spectrum of disciplines, specialities and perspectives, the essays examine the intersection between traditional juridical texts - from law codes and charters to treatises and religious regulation - and a wide range of literary genres, including hagiography and heroic poetry. In doing so, they demonstrate that the boundary that has traditionally separated "law" from other modes of thought and writing is far more porous than hitherto realized. Overall, the volume yields valuable new insights into the multi-layered and multi-directional relationship of law, literature, and social regulation in pre-Conquest English society.

History, Frankish Identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity, 550–850
History, Frankish Identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity, 550–850

Author: Helmut Reimitz

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-08-06

Total Pages: 529

ISBN-13: 1316381021

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This pioneering study explores early medieval Frankish identity as a window into the formation of a distinct Western conception of ethnicity. Focusing on the turbulent and varied history of Frankish identity in Merovingian and Carolingian historiography, it offers a new basis for comparing the history of collective and ethnic identity in the Christian West with other contexts, especially the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. The tremendous political success of the Frankish kingdoms provided the medieval West with fundamental political, religious and social structures, including a change from the Roman perspective on ethnicity as the quality of the 'Other' to the Carolingian perception that a variety of Christian peoples were chosen by God to reign over the former Roman provinces. Interpreting identity as an open-ended process, Helmut Reimitz explores the role of Frankish identity in the multiple efforts through which societies tried to find order in the rapidly changing post-Roman world.

Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England
Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England

Author: Brandon W. Hawk

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2018-01-01

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1487503059

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Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England is the first examination of Christian apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England, focusing on the use of biblical narratives in Old English sermons. This work demonstrates that apocryphal media are a substantial part of the apparatus of Christian tradition inherited by Anglo-Saxons.

Translating Europe in ?lfric's Lives of Saints
Translating Europe in ?lfric's Lives of Saints

Author: Luisa Ostacchini

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-07-23

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0198913753

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Translating Europe in ?lfric's 'Lives of Saints' is the first study of the representation of European peoples, places, and geographies in the Lives of Saints, one of early medieval England's most famed works. It examines the Lives of Saints as a unified collection whose various items work cumulatively and concurrently to provide audiences with teachings far beyond the scope of an individual homily or saints' life. In doing so, it demonstrates that ?lfric's European characters and settings served not merely as a convenient skeleton on which to frame his hagiographical narratives, but rather lay at the heart of his didactic praxis and pedagogic aims. Luisa Ostacchini systematically compares each of the 30 plus items that comprise ?lfric's Lives of Saints to their Latin sources and to one another to highlight previously unnoticed patterns and formulae within collection. In so doing, she demonstrates that ?lfric's interest in community was both inward and outward looking: he sought on the one hand to situate England within the wider Christian world, and on the other hand to promote the internal unity of the English kingdom and the reformed monastic establishment. This book sheds new light on the ways that ?lfric wrote about the Christian world and England's place within it, and further illuminates of the didactic praxis and ideology of one of the most influential and significant authors of the early medieval period. Luisa Ostacchini is a college lecturer at St John's College, Oxford, where she teaches Old and Middle English literature.

Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom
Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom

Author: Fiona Edmonds

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1783273364

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WINNER OF THE FRANK WATSON BOOK PRIZE 2021. SHORTLISTED IN SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS 2021 The first full-scale, interdisciplinary treatment of the wide-ranging connections between the Gaelic world and the Northumbrian kingdom.

King and Emperor
King and Emperor

Author: Janet L. Nelson

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2019-07-25

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 0241305268

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A DAILY TELEGRAPH AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019 'A remarkable book: the dramatic story of a truly extraordinary man ... brilliant' Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves A major new biography of one of the most extraordinary of all rulers, and the father of present-day Europe Charles, King of the Franks, is one of the most remarkable figures ever to rule a European super-state. That is why he is so often called 'Charles the Great': by the French 'Charlemagne', and by the Germans 'Karl der Grosse'. His strength of character was felt to be remarkable from early in his long reign. Warfare and accident, vermin and weather have destroyed much of the evidence for his rule in the twelve centuries since his death, but a remarkable amount still survives. Janet L. Nelson's wonderful new book brings together everything we know about Charlemagne and sifts through the evidence to come as close as we can to understanding the man and his motives. Nelson has an extraordinary knowledge of the sources and much of the book is a sort of detective story, prying into and interpreting fascinating material and often obdurate scraps, from prayerbooks to skeletons, gossip to artwork. Above all, Charles' legacy lies in his deeds and their continuing resonance, as he shaped duchies and counties, rebuilt and founded towns and monasteries, and consciously set himself up not just as King of the Franks, but as the new 'Emperor governing the Roman Empire'. His successors - in some ways to the present day - have struggled to interpret, misinterpret, copy or subvert Charlemagne's legacy. Nelson gets us as close as we can ever hope to come to the real figure, as understood in his own time.

Saxon Identities, AD 150–900
Saxon Identities, AD 150–900

Author: Robert Flierman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-07-13

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 135001947X

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This study is the first up-to-date comprehensive analysis of Continental Saxon identity in antiquity and the early middle ages. Building on recent scholarship on barbarian ethnicity, this study emphasises not just the constructed and open-ended nature of Saxon identity, but also the crucial role played by texts as instruments and resources of identity-formation. This book traces this process of identity-formation over the course of eight centuries, from its earliest beginnings in Roman ethnography to its reinvention in the monasteries and bishoprics of ninth-century Saxony. Though the Saxons were mentioned as early as AD 150, they left no written evidence of their own before c. 840. Thus, for the first seven centuries, we can only look at the Saxons through the eyes of their Roman enemies, Merovingian neighbours and Carolingian conquerors. Such external perspectives do not yield objective descriptions of a people, but rather reflect an ongoing discourse on Saxon identity, in which outside authors described who they imagined, wanted or feared the Saxons to be: dangerous pirates, noble savages, bestial pagans or faithful subjects. Significantly, these outside views deeply influenced how ninth-century Saxons eventually came to think about themselves, using Roman and Frankish texts to reinvent the Saxons as a noble and Christian people.

Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium
Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium

Author: Levi Roach

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-08-09

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 0691217866

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An in-depth exploration of documentary forgery at the turn of the first millennium Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium takes a fresh look at documentary forgery and historical memory in the Middle Ages. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, religious houses across Europe began falsifying texts to improve local documentary records on an unprecedented scale. As Levi Roach illustrates, the resulting wave of forgery signaled major shifts in society and political culture, shifts which would lay the foundations for the European ancien régime. Spanning documentary traditions across France, England, Germany and northern Italy, Roach examines five sets of falsified texts to demonstrate how forged records produced in this period gave voice to new collective identities within and beyond the Church. Above all, he indicates how this fad for falsification points to new attitudes toward past and present—a developing fascination with the signs of antiquity. These conclusions revise traditional master narratives about the development of antiquarianism in the modern era, showing that medieval forgers were every bit as sophisticated as their Renaissance successors. Medieval forgers were simply interested in different subjects—the history of the Church and their local realms, rather than the literary world of classical antiquity. A comparative history of falsified records at a crucial turning point in the Middle Ages, Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium offers valuable insights into how institutions and individuals rewrote and reimagined the past.