Writing the Early Medieval West

This innovative collection re-evaluates the function and significance of the written word in early medieval Europe.

Elina Screen (Edited by), Charles West (Edited by)

9781107198395, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 May 2018

330 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.9 cm, 0.66 kg

'There are many ways to measure the enormous impact Rosamond McKitterick has had on the study of early medieval history over the past four decades. The present volume provides one index: the fifteen contributors include just fourteen of the forty-seven (!) scholars whose PhD dissertations she has supervised. After an Introduction by Marios Costambeys and Matthew Innes that offers a more qualitative assessment of McKitterick's influence and shows how her work points to the future, the book unfolds in three parts, each with a brief introduction, that echo her principal lines of research: history and memory, the study of manuscripts, and the Carolingian construction of power through the written word. … this [book] … repays time spent with several chapters. That will be especially true for young scholars starting out on research in this vibrant field.' Adam J. Kosto, The Medieval Review

Far from the oral society it was once assumed to have been, early medieval Europe was fundamentally shaped by the written word. This book offers a pioneering collection of fresh and innovative studies on a wide range of topics, each one representing cutting-edge scholarship, and collectively setting the field on a new footing. Concentrating on the role of writing in mediating early medieval knowledge of the past, on the importance of surviving manuscripts as clues to the circulation of ideas and political and cultural creativity, and on the role that texts of different kinds played both in supporting and in subverting established power relations, these essays represent a milestone in studies of the early medieval written word.

List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Preface
List of abbreviations
1. Introduction: a study in the education of a society? Marios Costambeys and Matthew Innes
Part I. Knowledge of the Past: 2. Flavius Josephus: the most influential classical historian of the early Middle Ages Richard Matthew Pollard
3. Bede and the changing image of Rome and the Romans Paul Hilliard
4. Paul the Deacon and Rome Marios Costambeys
5. History and (selective) memory: articulating community and division in Folcuin's Gesta abbatum Lobiensium Ingrid Rembold
6. 'Appropriate to the religion of their time': Walahfrid's historicisation of the liturgy Christina Pössel
7. The order of history: liturgical time and the rhythms of the past in Amalarius of Metz's De ordine Antiphonarii Graeme Ward
Part II. The Written Word in Early Medieval Europe: The View from the Manuscripts: 8. The manuscript evidence for pharmacy in the early Middle Ages Nicholas Everett
9. Monte Cassino's network of knowledge: the earliest manuscript evidence Sven Meeder
10. Strategies of knowledge organisation in early medieval Latin glossary miscellanies: the example of Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14388 Anna Dorofeeva
11. 'Dissonance of speech, consonance of meaning': the 862 Council of Aachen and the transmission of Carolingian conciliar records Charles West
Part III. Texts and Early Medieval Rulers: 12. The Moorish kingdoms and the written word: three 'textual communities' in fifth- and sixth-century Mauretania Andy Merrills
13. When liturgy gets out of hand Yitzhak Hen
14. The formation of a European identity: revisiting Charlemagne's coinage Simon Coupland
15. Queenship in dispute: Fastrada, history and law Matthew Innes
16. Remembering and forgetting Lothar I Elina Screen
Bibliography
List of manuscripts
General index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]