Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768

Archaeology of Frankish Church Councils, AD 511-768
Author: Gregory I. Halfond
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2010
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004179763

Despite growing scepticism concerning the evidentiary value of normative legal sources, scholars continue to mine the legislative acts of ecclesiastical councils for insight into political, religious, and quotidian life in Frankish Gaul. Between the reigns of Clovis and Charlemagne (AD 511-768) at least eighty councils assembled, often on royal command, to discuss issues of concern to the episcopal and clerical attendees. Their published canons were intended to communicate ecclesiastical policy in the Frankish regnum. However, scholars have paid comparatively slight attention to the institution responsible for this body of legislation. This book remedies this lacuna by delineating the functions and modus operandi of the Frankish church council as an administrative body.

Collecting Early Christian Letters

Collecting Early Christian Letters
Author: Bronwen Neil
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2015-02-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1316241025

Letter collections in late antiquity give witness to the flourishing of letter-writing, with the development of the mostly formulaic exchanges between elites of the Graeco-Roman world to a more wide-ranging correspondence by bishops and monks, as well as emperors and Gothic kings. The contributors to this volume study individual collections from the first to sixth centuries CE, ranging from the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline letters through monastic letters from Egypt, bishops' letter collections and early papal collections compiled for various purposes. This is the first multi-authored study of New Testament and late antique letter collections, crossing the traditional divide between these disciplines by focusing on Latin, Greek, Coptic and Syriac epistolary sources. It draws together leading scholars in the field of late antique epistolography from Australasia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Medieval Riverscapes

Medieval Riverscapes
Author: Ellen F. Arnold
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2024-01-31
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1009299409

Fishermen, monks, saints, and dragons met in medieval riverscapes; their interactions reveal a rich and complex world. Using religious narrative sources to evaluate the environmental mentalities of medieval communities, Ellen F. Arnold explores the cultural meanings applied to rivers over a broad span of time, ca. 300-1100 CE. Hagiographical material, poetry, charters, chronicles, and historiographical works are explored to examine the medieval environmental imaginations about rivers, and how storytelling and memory are connected to lived experiences in riverscapes. She argues that rivers provided unique opportunities for medieval communities to understand and respond to ecological and socio-cultural transformations, and to connect their ideas about the shared religious past to hopes about the future.

Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity

Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity
Author: Marta Szada
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2024-06-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1009426478

As the Roman Empire in the west crumbled over the course of the fifth century, new polities, ruled by 'barbarian' elites, arose in Gaul, Hispania, Italy, and Africa. This political order occurred in tandem with growing fissures within Christianity, as the faithful divided over two doctrines, Nicene and Homoian, that were a legacy of the fourth-century controversy over the nature of the Trinity. In this book, Marta Szada offers a new perspective on early medieval Christianity by exploring how interplays between religious diversity and politics shaped post-Roman Europe. Interrogating the ecclesiastical competition between Nicene and Homoian factions, she provides a nuanced interpretation of religious dissent and the actions of Christians in successor kingdoms as they manifested themselves in politics and social practices. Szada's study reveals the variety of approaches that can be applied to understanding the conflict and coexistence between Nicenes and Homoians, showing how religious divisions shaped early medieval Christian culture.

The Cambridge Companion to French Music

The Cambridge Companion to French Music
Author: Simon Trezise
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2015-02-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1316239616

France has a long and rich music history that has had a far-reaching impact upon music and cultures around the world. This accessible Companion provides a comprehensive introduction to the music of France. With chapters on a range of music genres, internationally renowned authors survey music-making from the early middle ages to the present day. The first part provides a complete chronological history structured around key historical events. The second part considers opera and ballet and their institutions and works, and the third part explores traditional and popular music. In the final part, contributors analyse five themes and topics, including the early church and its institutions, manuscript sources, the musical aesthetics of the Siècle des Lumières, and music at the court during the ancien régime. Illustrated with photographs and music examples, this book will be essential reading for both students and music lovers.

Hincmar of Rheims

Hincmar of Rheims
Author: Rachel Stone
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2015-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1784991899

Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims (d. 882) is a crucial figure for all those interested in early medieval European history in general, and Carolingian history in particular. For forty years he was an advisor to kings and religious controversialist; his works are a key source for the political, religious and social history of the later ninth century, covering topics from papal politics to the abduction of women and the role of parish priests. For the first time since Jean Devisse’s biography of Hincmar in the 1970s, this book offers a three-dimensional examination of a figure whose actions and writings in different fields are often studied in isolation. It brings together the latest international research across the spectrum of his varied activities, as history-writer, estate administrator, hagiographer, canonist, pastorally engaged bishop, and politically minded royal advisor. The introduction also provides the first substantial English-language survey of Hincmar’s whole career.

The Haskins Society Journal 26

The Haskins Society Journal 26
Author: Laura L. Gathagan
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2015-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783270713

The essays here consider a broad range of topics focused around the early to central Middle Ages. These include a fascinating glimpse of the controversy surrounding Theodoric of Ostrogoth's identity as a builder king; evidence of Byzantine slavery that emerges from a ninth-century Frankish exegetical tract; conciliar prohibitions against interfaith dining; and a fresh look at the doomed Danish marriage of Philip II of France. The Journal's commitment to source analysis is continued with chapters examining female authority on the coins of Henry the Lion; the use and meaning of monastic depredation lists; and the relationship between Henry of Huntingdon and Robert of Torigni. In this issue, Wales provides a particular focus, with considerations of the use and manipulation of English annalistic sources by Welsh chroniclers, a close reading of the Brut y Tywysogion, and a survey of the dynamic interactions and the sometimes unexpected political frameworks of Welsh and Anglo-Saxon kings. Contributors: Shane Bobrycki, Gregory I. Halfond, Thomas Heeboll-Hom, Georgia Henley, Jitske Jasperse, Simon Keynes, Cristina La Rocca, Corinna Matlis, Benjamin Pohl, Thomas Roche, Owain Wyn Jones

Queens, Consorts, Concubines: Gregory of Tours and Women of the Merovingian Elite

Queens, Consorts, Concubines: Gregory of Tours and Women of the Merovingian Elite
Author: E. T. Dailey
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2015-04-14
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 900429466X

Gregory of Tours hoped to inspire the believers in sixth-century Gaul with examples of righteous and wicked deeds and their consequences. Critiquing his own society, Gregory contrasted vengeful queens, rebellious nuns, and conniving witches with pious widows, humble abbesses, and tearful saints. By examining his thematic treatment of topics including widowhood, marriage, sanctity, authority, and political agency, Queens, Consorts, Concubines reassesses the material shaped by such concerns, including e.g. Gregory’s accounts of Brunhild, Fredegund, Radegund, and other important elite women, Merovingian political policies (marital alliances, ecclesiastical intrigue, even assassinations), and seemingly unrelated topics such as Hermenegild’s rebellion and the career of Empress Sophia. The result: a new interpretation of an important witness to the transformations of Late Antiquity.

A Companion to Gregory of Tours

A Companion to Gregory of Tours
Author: Alexander C. Murray
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 685
Release: 2015-11-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004307001

Gregory, bishop of Tours (573-594), was among the most prolific writers of his age and uniquely managed to cover the genres of history, hagiography, and ecclesiastical instruction. He not only wrote about events (of the secular, spiritual, and even natural variety) but about himself as an actor and witness. Though his work (especially the Histories) has been recycled and studied for centuries, our grasp of an even basic understanding of it, never mind Gregory’s significance in the history of the late antique West, has hardly yet attained a definitive perspective. A Companion to Gregory of Tours brings together fourteen scholars who provide an expert guide to interpreting his works, his period, and his legacy in religious and historical studies. Contributors are: Pascale Bourgain, Roger Collins, John J. Contreni, Stefan Esders, Martin Heinzelmann, Yitzhak Hen, John K. Kitchen, Simon Loseby, Alexander Callander Murray, Patrick Périn, Joachim Pizarro, Helmut Reimitz, Michael Roberts, Richard Shaw.