The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages
The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages
This volume investigates the ways in which people in the early Middle Ages used the past: to legitimate the present, to understand current events, and as a source of identity. Each essay examines the mechanisms by which ideas about the past were subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) reshaped for present purposes. As well as written histories, also discussed are saints' lives, law codes, buildings, Biblical commentary, monastic foundations, canon law and oral traditions. This is the first book to investigate systematically this important topic.
- An important volume of essays which addresses a wholly original theme
- Brings a different dimension to the way in which medieval societies identified themselves, and how historians should evaluate the evidence of the past
- Includes contributions from both younger scholars and senior established figures in the field of early medieval history
Reviews & endorsements
"The volume cannot be recommended highly enough. Specialists will find careful and thought-provoking scholarship, and amateurs will discover a quick fix into the newest ways of thinking about Carolingian society, history, and historiography...the volume is like having an expert guide to some labyrinthine old city who can point out the secret gardens hidden in alleyways and tell the dramatic story behind an overlooked facade." The Historian
Product details
June 2000Paperback
9780521639989
294 pages
229 × 152 × 17 mm
0.45kg
Available
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Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction: using the past, interpreting the present, influencing the future Matthew Innes
- 2. Memory, identity and power in Lombard Italy Walter Pohl
- 3. Memory and narrative in the cult of the early Anglo-Saxon saints Catherine Cubitt
- 4. The uses of the Old Testament in early medieval canon law: the Collectio vetus gallica and the Collectio hiberniensis Rob Meens
- 5. The transmission of tradition: Gregorian influence and innovation in eighth-century Italian monasticism Marios Costambeys
- 6. The world and its past as Christian allegory in the early middle ages Dominic Janes
- 7. The Franks as the new Israel? Education for an identity from Pippin to Charlemagne Mary Garrison
- 8. Political ideology in Carolingian historiography Rosamond McKitterick
- 9. The annals of Metz and the Merovingian past Yitzhak Hen
- 10. The empire as ecclesia: Hrabanus Maurus and Biblical historia for rulers Mayke de Jong
- 11. Teutons or Trojans? The Carolingians and the Germanic past Matthew Innes
- 12. A man for all seasons: Pacifus of Verona and the creation of a local Carolingian past Cristina La Rocca.
