Download or read book Writing the Barbarian Past Studies in Early Medieval Historical Narrative written by Shami Ghosh and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing the Barbarian Past examines the presentation of the non-Roman, pre-Christian past in Latin and vernacular historical narratives composed between c.550 and c.1000: the Gothic histories of Jordanes and Isidore of Seville, the Fredegar chronicle, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, Waltharius, and Beowulf; it also examines the evidence for an oral vernacular tradition of historical narrative in this period. In this book, Shami Ghosh analyses the relative significance granted to the Roman and non-Roman inheritances in narratives of the distant past, and what the use of this past reveals about the historical consciousness of early medieval elites, and demonstrates that for them, cultural identity was conceived of in less binary terms than in most modern scholarship.

Download or read book The Barbarian Past in Early Medieval Historical Narrative written by Shami Ghosh and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis presents a series of case studies of early medieval narratives about the non-Roman, non-biblical distant past. After an introduction that briefly outlines the context of Christian traditions of historiography in the same period, in chapter two, I examine the Gothic histories of Jordanes and Isidore, and show how they present different methods of reconciling notions of Gothic independence with the heritage of Rome. Chapter three looks at the Trojan origin narratives of the Franks in the Fredegar chronicle and the Liber historiae Francorum, and argues that this origin story, based on the model of the Roman foundation myth, was a means of making the Franks separate from Rome, but nevertheless comparable in the distinction of their origins. Chapter four studies Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum, and argues that although Paul drew more on oral sources than did the other histories examined, his text is equally not a record of ancient oral tradition, but presents a synthesis of a Roman, Christian, and of non-Roman and pagan or Arian heritages, and shows that there was actually little differentiation between them. Chapter five is an examination of Waltharius, a Latin epic drawing on Christian verse traditions, but also on oral vernacular traditions about the distant past; I suggest that it is evidence of the interpenetration between secular, oral, vernacular culture and ecclesiastical, written and Latin learning. Beowulf, the subject of chapter six, is similar evidence for such intercourse, though in this case to some extent in the other direction: while in Waltharius Christian morality appears to have little of a role to play, in Beowulf the distant past is explicitly problematised because it was pagan. In the final chapter, I examine the further evidence for oral vernacular secular historical traditions in the ninth and tenth centuries, and argue that the reason so little survives is because, when the distant past had no immediate political function---as origin narratives might---it was normally seen as suspect by the Church, which largely controlled the medium of writing.

Download or read book The Barbarian Past in Early Medieval Historical Narrative written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PhD.

Download or read book Vera Lex Historiae written by Catalin Taranu and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2022-08-18 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing circa 731 CE, Bede professes in the introduction to his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum that he will write his account of the past of the English following only vera lex historiae. Whether explicitly or (most often) implicitly, historians narrate the past according to a conception of what constitutes historical truth that emerges in the use of narrative strategies, of certain formulae or textual forms, in establishing one's own ideological authority or that of one's informants, in faithfulness to a cultural, narrative, or poetic tradition. If we extend the scope of what we understand by history (especially in a pre-modern setting) to include not just the writings of historians legitimated by their belonging to the Latinate matrix of christianized classical history writing, but also collective narratives, practices, rituals, oral poetry, liturgy, artistic representations, and acts of identity - all re-enacting the past as, or as representation of, the present, we find a plethora of modes of constructions of historical truth, narrative authority, and reliability. Vera Lex Historiae? will be constituted by contributions that reveal the variety of evental strategies by which historical truth was constructed in late antiquity and the earlier Middle Ages, and the range of procedures by which such narratives were established first as being historical and then as "true" histories. This is not only a matter of narrative strategies, but also habitus, ways of living and acting in the world that feed on and back into the commemoration and re-enactment of the past by communities and by individuals. In doing this, we hope to recover something of the plurality of modes of preserving and reenacting the past available in late antiquity and the earlier middle ages which we pass by because of preconceived notions of what constitutes history writing.

Download or read book Origin Legends in Early Medieval Western Europe written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-07-25 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains work by scholars actively publishing on origin legends across early medieval western Europe, from the fall of Rome to the high Middle Ages. Its thematic structure creates dialogue between texts and regions traditionally studied in isolation.

Download or read book The Origin Legends of Early Medieval Britain and Ireland written by Lindy Brady and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-04 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This holistic study demonstrates the interconnected nature of early medieval origin legends and traces their growth over time.

Download or read book Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity written by Marta Szada and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study offers new insights into early medieval Christianity, exploring how religious diversity and politics shaped post-Roman Europe.

Download or read book Barbarians Maps and Historiography written by Walter Goffart and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To complement his first collection of articles (Rome's Fall and After, 1989), Walter Goffart presents here a further set of essays, all but two published between 1988 and 2007. They mainly focus on two types of historiography: early medieval narratives, with special attention to Bede's Historia ecclesiastica; and printed maps designed to portray and teach history, with special attention to the ubiquitous 'map of the barbarian invasions'. The wide-ranging concerns represented extend from the underside of the Life of St Severinus of Noricum, and further evidence for dating Beowulf, to the questions whether the barbarian invasions period was a 'heroic age' and how Charlemagne shaped his own succession. Attention is also paid to the earliest map illustrating the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy and to the historical vignettes of the Vatican Galleria delle carte geografiche. The collection opens with the appraisal of certain writings dealing with what is now called 'ethnogenesis theory'. To conclude, Professor Goffart adds brief second thoughts about each of these essays and supplies an annotated list of his articles that have not been reprinted.

Download or read book Vernacular Verse Histories in Early Medieval England and Francia written by Catalin Taranu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-08 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a provocative take on Germanic heroic poetry, Taranu reads texts like Beowulf, Maldon, and the Waltharius as participating in alternative modes of history-writing that functioned in a larger ecology of narrative forms, including Latinate Christian history and the biblical epic. These modes employed the conceit of their participating in a tradition of oral verse for a variety of purposes: from political propaganda to constructing origin myths for early medieval nationhood or heroic masculinity, and sometimes for challenging these paradigms. The more complex of these historical visions actively meditated on their own relationship to truthfulness and fictionality while also performing sophisticated (and often subversive) cultural and socio-emotional work for its audiences. By rethinking canonical categories of historiographical discourse from within medieval textual productions, Vernacular Verse Histories in Early Medieval England and Francia: The Bard and the Rag-Picker aims to recover a part of the wide array of narrative poetic forms through which medieval communities made sense of their past and structured their socio-emotional experience.

Download or read book Columbanus and the Peoples of Post Roman Europe written by Alexander O'Hara and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-11 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The period 550 to 750 was one in which monastic culture became more firmly entrenched in Western Europe. The role of monasteries and their relationship to the social world around them was transformed during this period as monastic institutions became more integrated in social and political power networks. This collected volume of essays focuses on one of the central figures in this process, the Irish ascetic exile and monastic founder, Columbanus (c. 550-615), his travels on the Continent, and the monastic network he and his Frankish disciples established in Merovingian Gaul and Lombard Italy. The post-Roman kingdoms through which Columbanus travelled and established his monastic foundations were made up of many different communities of peoples. As an outsider and immigrant, how did Columbanus and his communities interact with these peoples? How did they negotiate differences and what emerged from these encounters? How societies interact with outsiders can reveal the inner workings and social norms of that culture. This volume aims to explore further the strands of this vibrant contact and to consider all of the geographical spheres in which Columbanus and his monastic communities operated (Ireland, Merovingian Gaul, Alamannia, Lombard Italy) and the varieties of communities he and his successors came in contact with - whether they be royal, ecclesiastic, aristocratic, or grass-roots.

Download or read book A Companion to Isidore of Seville written by Andrew Fear and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A standard work in nineteen chapters from leading international scholars on bishop Isidore of Seville (d. 636), addressing the contexts in which the seventh-century bishop lived and worked, exploring his key works and activities, and finally considering his later reception.

Download or read book Interpreting Early Modern Europe written by C. Scott Dixon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-11 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpreting Early Modern Europe is a comprehensive collection of essays on the historiography of the early modern period (circa 1450-1800). Concerned with the principles, priorities, theories, and narratives behind the writing of early modern history, the book places particular emphasis on developments in recent scholarship. Each chapter, written by a prominent historian caught up in the debates, is devoted to the varieties of interpretation relating to a specific theme or field considered integral to understanding the age, providing readers with a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at how historians have worked, and still work, within these fields. At one level the emphasis is historiographical, with the essays engaged in a direct dialogue with the influential theories, methods, assumptions, and conclusions in each of the fields. At another level the contributions emphasise the historical dimensions of interpretation, providing readers with surveys of the component parts that make up the modern narratives. Supported by extensive bibliographies, primary materials, and appendices with extracts from key secondary debates, Interpreting Early Modern Europe provides a systematic exploration of how historians have shaped the study of the early modern past. It is essential reading for students of early modern history. For a comprehensive overview of the history of early modern Europe see the partnering volume The European World 3ed Edited by Beat Kumin - https://www.routledge.com/The-European-World-15001800-An-Introduction-to-Early-Modern-History/Kuminah2/p/book/9781138119154.

Download or read book Why History written by Donald Bloxham and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the point of history? Why has the study of the past been so important for so long? Why History? A History contemplates two and a half thousand years of historianship to establish how very different thinkers in diverse contexts have conceived their activities, and to illustrate the purposes that their historical investigations have served. Whether considering Herodotus, medieval religious exegesis, or twentieth-century cultural history, at the core of this work is the way that the present has been conceived to relate to the past. Alongside many changes in technique and philosophy, Donald Bloxham's book reveals striking long-term continuities in justifications for the discipline.

Download or read book The Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia written by Santiago Castellanos and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-11-13 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The structures of the late ancient Visigothic kingdom of Iberia were rooted in those of Roman Hispania, Santiago Castellanos argues, but Catholic bishops subsequently produced a narrative of process and power from the episcopal point of view that became the official record and primary documentation for all later historians. The delineation of these two discrete projects—of construction and invention—form the core of The Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia. Castellanos reads documents of the period that are little known to many Anglophone scholars, including records of church councils, sermons, and letters, and utilizes archaeological findings to determine how the political system of elites related to local communities, and how the documentation they created promoted an ideological agenda. Looking particularly at the archaeological record, he finds that rural communities in the region were complex worlds unto themselves, with clear internal social stratification little recognized by the literate elites.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World written by Bonnie Effros and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-01 with total page 1056 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Merovingian era is one of the best studied yet least well known periods of European history. From the fifth to the eighth centuries, the inhabitants of Gaul (what now comprises France, southern Belgium, Luxembourg, Rhineland Germany, and part of modern Switzerland), a mix of Gallo-Roman inhabitants and Germanic arrivals under the political control of the Merovingian dynasty, sought to preserve, use, and reimagine the political, cultural, and religious power of ancient Rome while simultaneously forging the beginnings of what would become medieval European culture. The forty-six essays included in this volume highlight why the Merovingian era is at the heart of historical debates about what happened to Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. The essays demonstrate that the inhabitants of the Merovingian kingdoms in these centuries created a culture that was the product of these traditions and achieved a balance between the world they inherited and the imaginative solutions they bequeathed to Europe. The Handbook highlights new perspectives and scientific approaches that shape our changing view of this extraordinary era by showing that Merovingian Gaul was situated at the crossroads of Europe, connecting the Mediterranean and the British Isles with the Byzantine empire, and it benefited from the global reach of the late Roman Empire. It tells the story of the Merovingian world through archaeology, bio-archaeology, architecture, hagiographic literature, history, liturgy, visionary literature and eschatology, patristics, numismatics, and material culture.

Download or read book Old Names New Peoples Listing Ethnonyms in Late Antiquity written by Salvatore Liccardo and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-10-30 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No people is nameless, and lists of words are as old as writing systems. And yet, both subjects can appear unpromising to historians. This volume shows the contrary by examining the various meanings and functions of ethnonyms in Late Antiquity: added to catalogues of provinces, they reflect the political messages and the regulating power of the imperial bureaucracy; included in schoolbooks, they mirror educational practices and reveal the geographical and ethnic landscapes taught at school; placed on a map, they help make sense of the world in times of transition.

Download or read book Historiography and Space in Late Antiquity written by Peter Van Nuffelen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The later Roman Empire was shrinking on the map, but still shaped the way historians represented the space around them.