Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire

Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire
Author: Rutger Kramer
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2019-02-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 904853268X

By the early ninth century, the responsibility for a series of social, religious and political reforms had become an integral part of running the Carolingian empire. This became especially clear when, in 813/4, Louis the Pious and his court seized the momentum generated by their predecessors and broadened the scope of this correctio ever further. These reformers knew they constituted a movement greater than the sum of its parts; the interdependence of imperial authority and ecclesiastical reformers was driven by comprehensive, yet surprisingly diverse expectations. Taking this diversity as a starting point, this book takes a fresh look at these optimistic decades. Extrapolating from a series of detailed case studies rather than presenting a grand narrative, it offers new interpretations of contemporary theories of correctio, and shows the self-awareness of its main instigators as they pondered what it meant to be a good Christian in a good Christian empire.

Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire

Rethinking Authority in the Carolingian Empire
Author: Rutger Kramer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Authority
ISBN: 9789462982642

This book offers new interpretations of contemporary theories of correctio, and shows the self-awareness of its main instigators as they pondered what it meant to be a good Christian in a good Christian empire.

Rethinking the Carolingian reforms

Rethinking the Carolingian reforms
Author: Arthur Westwell
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2023-04-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526149540

The Carolingian period (c. 750-900) has traditionally been described as one of ‘reform’ or ‘renaissance’, where cultural and intellectual changes were imposed from above in a programme of correctio. This view leans heavily on prescriptive texts issued by kings and their entourages, foregrounding royal initiative and the cultural products of a small intellectual elite. However, attention to understudied texts and manuscripts of the period reveals a vibrant striving for moral improvement and positive change at all levels of society. This expressed itself in a variety of ways for different individuals and communities, whose personal relationships could be just as influential as top-down prescription. The often anonymous creators and copyists in a huge range of centres emerge as active participants in shaping and re-shaping the ideals of their world. A much more dynamic picture of Carolingian culture emerges when we widen our perspective to include sources from beyond royal circles and intellectual elites. This book reveals that the Carolingian age did not witness a coherent programme of reform, nor one distinct to this period and dependent exclusively on the strength of royal power. Rather, it formed a particularly intense, well-funded and creative chapter in the much longer history of moral improvement for the sake of collective salvation.

Rethinking Reform in the Latin West, 10th to Early 12th Century

Rethinking Reform in the Latin West, 10th to Early 12th Century
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2023-09-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004681086

This collection of studies investigates how people of the 10th to early 12th century experienced and represented processes of intentional change in the Church, and what the consequences are of modern scholars’ reliance on ‘reform’ to describe and interpret these processes. In 11 thematic chapters it takes stock of the current state of research and offers suggestions to deepen our understanding of the ideological, institutional, and cultural dynamics at play. Contributors are Julia Barrow, Robert F. Berkhofer III, Gordon Blennemann, Katy Cubitt, Nicolangelo D'Acunto, Anne-Marie Helvétius, Ludger Körntgen, Rutger Kramer, Brigitte Meijns, Diane Reilly, Rachel Stone, and Steven Vanderputten.

Past Convictions

Past Convictions
Author: Courtney M. Booker
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2012-02-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0812201388

How do people, in both the past and the present, think about moments of social and political crisis, and how do they respond to them? What are the interpretive codes by which troubling events are read and given meaning, and what part do these codes play in suggesting specific strategies for coping with the world? In Past Convictions Courtney Booker attempts to answer these questions by examining the controversial divestiture and public penance of Charlemagne's son, the Emperor Louis the Pious, in 833. Historians have customarily viewed the event as marking the beginning of the end of the Carolingian dynasty. Exploring how both contemporaries and subsequent generations thought about Louis's forfeiture of the throne, Booker contends that certain vivid ninth-century narratives reveal a close but ephemeral connection between historiography and the generic conventions of comedy and tragedy. In tracing how writers of later centuries built upon these dramatic Carolingian accounts to tell a larger story of faith, betrayal, political expediency, and decline, he explicates the ways historiography shapes our vision of the past and what we think we know about it, and the ways its interpretive models may fall short.

The Carolingian World

The Carolingian World
Author: Marios Costambeys
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2011-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521563666

A comprehensive and accessible survey of the great Carolingian empire, which dominated western Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries.

Weeds and the Carolingians

Weeds and the Carolingians
Author: Paolo Squatriti
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2022-06-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 131651286X

In early medieval Europe, unwanted plants that persistently appeared among crops created extra work, reduced productivity, and challenged theologians who believed God had made all vegetation good. This book presents a dynamic picture of early medieval people struggling to control their ecosystems, and their relationship with their environments.

Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, c.775-900

Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice, c.775-900
Author: Claire Burridge
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2024-07-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9004466177

Carolingian Medical Knowledge and Practice explores the practicality and applicability of the medical recipes recorded in early medieval manuscripts. It takes an original, dual approach to these overlooked and understudied texts by not only analysing their practical usability, but by also re-evaluating these writings in the light of osteological evidence. Could those individuals with access to the manuscripts have used them in the context of therapy? And would they have wanted to do so? In asking these questions, this book unpacks longstanding assumptions about the intended purposes of medical texts, offering a new perspective on the relationship between medical knowledge and practice.

Prophecy and Politics in the Early Carolingian World

Prophecy and Politics in the Early Carolingian World
Author: Andrew Sorber
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2024-04-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040020313

Prophetic and apocalyptic rhetoric play critical roles in the development and articulation of political authority in the reigns of Charlemagne (d. 814) and Louis the Pious (d. 840). The rhetorical authority derived from claims of receiving revelation, interpreting divine communication, speaking for God, and foreseeing calamities became a competitive medium through which individuals legitimized political behaviour, debated their long- and short-term aspirations, and struggled for political supremacy. Ranging from claims of revelations, dreams, and visions, to the adoption of rhetorical voices based on biblical prophets, to the interpretation of signs and portents, prophetic rhetoric enjoyed extensive experimentation and varied application throughout early medieval political discourse. Prophecy and Politics in the Early Carolingian World argues that claims of divine revelation, resistant to any attempts to monopolize them, provided a powerful means of speaking with authority for all participants in Frankish political discourse. This authority proved instrumental in the articulation and dismantling of effective Carolingian royal authority from 768 to 840. The volume introduces and reinterprets early Carolingian political discourse and intellectual activity, as well as the centrality of apocalypticism in the Carolingian period, by emphasizing prophecy, or revelation and authority, rather than prediction and calamity. Early Carolingian political discourse was a dialogue that took place across royal proclamations, legal statements, historical texts, visions, scriptural commentaries, and manifestations of the natural world, and in this dialogue, the ability to interpret God’s will was as powerful as it was problematic.