Strategies of Identification
Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe
Edited by Walter Pohl Edited by Gerda Heydemann
Hardback (Published)
(July 2013)
ISBN: 9782503533841
6.1 x 9.17 inches
Price: $138.00
In stock
The contributions reconstruct some of this discursive matrix and its development from the age of Augustine to the Carolingians. In the course of this process, ethnicity and religion were amalgamated in a new way that became fundamental for European history, and acquired an important political role in the post-Roman kingdoms.
How were identities created in the early Middle Ages and when did they matter? This book explores different types of sources to understand the ways in which they contributed to making ethnic and religious communities meaningful: historiography and hagiography, biblical exegesis and works of theology, sermons and letters. Thus, it sets out to widen the horizon of current debates on ethnicity and identity. The Christianization and dissolution of the Roman Empire had provoked a crisis of traditional identities and opened new spaces for identification. What were the textual resources on which new communities could rely, however precariously? Biblical models and Christian discourses could be used for a variety of aims and identifications, and the volume provides some exemplary analyses of these distinct voices. Barbarian polities developed in a rich and varied framework of textual ‘strategies of identification’. The contributions reconstruct some of this discursive matrix and its development from the age of Augustine to the Carolingians. In the course of this process, ethnicity and religion were amalgamated in a new way that became fundamental for European history, and acquired an important political role in the post-Roman kingdoms. The extensive introduction not only draws together the individual studies, but also addresses fundamental issues of the definition of ethnicity, and of the relationship between discourses and practices of identity. It offers a methodological basis that is valid for studies of identity in general.
- Edited by Walter Pohl
- Edited by Gerda Heydemann
Other Titles in this Series
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
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
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
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
Carolingian Scholarship and Martianus Capella
Ninth-Century Commentary Traditions on 'De nuptiis' in Context
Volume 12
Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle
Music, Relics, and Sacral Kingship in Thirteenth-Century France
Volume 35
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