Shepherds of the Lord
Priests and Episcopal Statutes in the Carolingian Period
By (author) C van Rhijn
This book is the first study of the rural priesthood, its significance, and the statutes written for them in the time of the Carolingians. It seeks to trace and explain the rise and emergence in the Carolingian period of both local priests and episcopal statutes that aimed at steering their behaviour. It was in the context of Carolingian ideals of reform, formulated in court-centred circles from the late eighth century onwards, that local priests increasingly came to be seen as those that held the key to turning the local Frankish population into ideal Christians by their word and living example. First of all, however, these educators needed to be educated themselves, hence the emergence of the Episcopal statutes, a new tool to direct the local diocesan clergy into becoming the ideal ‘Shepherds of the Lord’ that they needed to be. Smooth as this process of empire-wide reform theoretically was, however, obstacles lurked, both from a top-down (episcopal) and a grass-roots (local) perspective on the status, role, and function of priests. Nevertheless, the ninth century saw the emergence of the priesthood and the development of their role as an important group that connected bishops with the lay inhabitants of their dioceses and, from a higher-up perspective, those who opened up the vast Carolingian country-side to the implementation of the ideal society in the minds of contemporary reformers.
- By (author) C van Rhijn
Other Titles in this Series
The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World
Converting the Isles I
Volume 19
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
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
Incubation in Early Byzantium
The Formation of Christian Incubation Cults and Miracle Collections
Volume 41
Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond
Converting the Isles II
Volume 23
Political Ritual and Practice in Capetian France
Essays in Honour of Elizabeth A. R. Brown
Volume 34
Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle
Music, Relics, and Sacral Kingship in Thirteenth-Century France
Volume 35
Carolingian Scholarship and Martianus Capella
Ninth-Century Commentary Traditions on 'De nuptiis' in Context
Volume 12
Les transferts culturels dans les mondes normands medievaux (VIIIe-XIIe siecle)
objets, acteurs et passeurs
Volume 36
From Sun-Day to the Lord’s Day
The Cultural History of Sunday in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Volume 39
Motions of Late Antiquity
Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown
Volume 20
Writing ‘True Stories’
Historians and Hagiographers in the Late Antique and Medieval Near East
Volume 9
Historiography and Identity V
The Emergence of New Peoples and Polities in Europe, 1000-1300
Volume 31
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