Leadership and Community in Late Antiquity
Essays in Honour of Raymond Van Dam
Edited by Young Richard Kim Edited by A. E. T. McLaughlin
Throughout a distinguished career, Raymond Van Dam has contributed significantly to our understanding of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages with ground-breaking studies on Gaul, Cappadocia, and the emperor Constantine. The hallmarks of his scholarship are critical study of a wide variety of written and material sources and careful historical analysis, insightfully rooted in sociological and anthropological methodologies. The essays in this volume, written by Van Dam’s former students, colleagues, and friends, explore the dynamics between leaders and their communities in the fourth through seventh centuries. During this period, people negotiated profound religious, intellectual, and cultural change while still deeply enmeshed in the legacy of the Roman Empire. The memory of the classical past was a powerful and compelling social and political force for the denizens of Late Antiquity, even as their physical surroundings came to resemble less and less the ideals of the Greco-Roman city. These themes – leadership, community, and memory – have been central to Van Dam’s work, and the contributors to this volume build on the legacy of his scholarship. Their papers examine how leaders exercised their authority in their communities, at times exhibiting continuity with ancient patterns of leadership, but in other cases shifting toward new paradigms characteristic of a post-classical world. Taken together, the essays produce a fuller picture of the Mediterranean world and add further nuance to our understanding of Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages as a time of both continuity and transformation.
Throughout a distinguished career, Raymond Van Dam has contributed significantly to our understanding of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages with ground-breaking studies on Gaul, Cappadocia, and the emperor Constantine. The hallmarks of his scholarship are critical study of a wide variety of written and material sources and careful historical analysis, insightfully rooted in sociological and anthropological methodologies. The essays in this volume, written by Van Dam’s former students, colleagues, and friends, explore the dynamics between leaders and their communities in the fourth through seventh centuries. During this period, people negotiated profound religious, intellectual, and cultural change while still deeply enmeshed in the legacy of the Roman Empire. The memory of the classical past was a powerful and compelling social and political force for the denizens of Late Antiquity, even as their physical surroundings came to resemble less and less the ideals of the Greco-Roman city. These themes – leadership, community, and memory – have been central to Van Dam’s work, and the contributors to this volume build on the legacy of his scholarship. Their papers examine how leaders exercised their authority in their communities, at times exhibiting continuity with ancient patterns of leadership, but in other cases shifting toward new paradigms characteristic of a post-classical world. Taken together, the essays produce a fuller picture of the Mediterranean world and add further nuance to our understanding of Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages as a time of both continuity and transformation.
- Edited by Young Richard Kim
- Edited by A. E. T. McLaughlin
Other Titles in this Series
From Sun-Day to the Lord’s Day
The Cultural History of Sunday in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Volume 39
Historiography and Identity V
The Emergence of New Peoples and Polities in Europe, 1000-1300
Volume 31
De Sion exibit lex et verbum domini de Hierusalem
Essays on Medieval Law, Liturgy and Literature in Honour of Amnon Linder
Volume 1
Between Personal and Institutional Religion
Self, Doctrine, and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity
Volume 15
The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World
Converting the Isles I
Volume 19
Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Studies from Western Europe and North Africa
Volume 44
D’Orient en Occident
Les recueils de fables enchassees avant les Mille et une Nuits de Galland (Barlaam et Josaphat, Calila et Dimna, Disciplina clericalis, Roman des Sept Sages)
Volume 16
Writing in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem
Inscription and Graffiti in a Multilingual and Multigraphic Perspective
Volume 45
Historiography and Identity VI
Competing Narratives of the Past in Central and Eastern Europe, c. 1200 -c. 1600
Volume 32
Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond
Converting the Isles II
Volume 23
Incubation in Early Byzantium
The Formation of Christian Incubation Cults and Miracle Collections
Volume 41
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