Lay Intellectuals In The Carolingian World

Download or read book Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World written by Patrick Wormald and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did the laity have a part in the Carolingian Renaissance? If so, how were lay elites, and through them the laity at large affected? This fascinating and wide-ranging volume examines these questions through a study of lay involvement in literary and artistic activity in early medieval Europe. Leading historians explore a diverse range of Latin and vernacular texts written by secular authors and use richly drawn case studies to illuminate such key issues as the extent of lay literacy, the contexts in which learned laity could flourish, the transformative impact of the Carolingian Renaissance, and the interaction of 'lay' and 'clerical' values on both sides of the Channel. This volume demonstrates that the learned laity, both women as well as men, contributed much more as writers and patrons to early medieval culture than was previously thought and it will be essential reading for scholars of Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon history.

Download or read book Making and Unmaking the Carolingians written by Stuart Airlie and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-24 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does power manifest itself in individuals? Why do people obey authority? And how does a family, if they are the source of such dominance, convey their superiority and maintain their command in a pre-modern world lacking speedy communications, standing armies and formalised political jurisdiction? Here, Stuart Airlie expertly uses this idea of authority as a lens through which to explore one of the most famous dynasties in medieval Europe: the Carolingians. Ruling the Frankish realm from 751 to 888, the family of Charlemagne had to be ruthless in asserting their status and adept at creating a discourse of Carolingian legitimacy in order to sustain their supremacy. Through its nuanced analysis of authority, politics and family, Making and Unmaking the Carolingians, 751-888 outlines the system which placed the Carolingian dynasty at the centre of the Frankish world. In doing so, Airlie sheds important new light on both the rise and fall of the Carolingian empire and the nature of power in medieval Europe more generally.

Download or read book The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages written by Hannah W. Matis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-01-28 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Song of Songs in the Early Middle Ages, Hannah W. Matis examines how the Song of Songs, the collection of Hebrew love poetry, was understood in the Latin West as an allegory of Christ and the church. This reading of the biblical text was passed down via the patristic tradition, established by the Venerable Bede, and promoted by the chief architects of the Carolingian reform. Throughout the ninth century, the Song of Songs became a text that Carolingian churchmen used to think about the nature of Christ and to conceptualize their own roles and duties within the church. This study examines the many different ways that the Song of Songs was read within its early medieval historical context.

Download or read book Trafficking with Demons written by Martha Rampton and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-15 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trafficking with Demons explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society, informing how people understood the cosmos, divinity, and their own Christian faith. As Rampton shows, throughout the first Christian millennium, magic was thought to play a natural role within the functioning of the universe and existed within a rational cosmos hierarchically arranged according to a "great chain of being." Trafficking with the "demons of the lower air" was the essense of magic. Interactions with those demons occurred both in highly formalistic, ritual settings and on a routine and casual basis. Rampton tracks the competition between pagan magic and Christian belief from the first century CE, when it was fiercest, through the early Middle Ages, as atavistic forms of magic mutated and found sanctuary in the daily habits of the converted peoples and new paganisms entered Europe with their own forms of magic. By the year 1000, she concludes, many forms of magic had been tamed and were, by the reckoning of the elite, essentially ineffective, as were the women who practiced it and the rituals that attended it.

Download or read book The Cultural Power of Medieval Monarchy written by Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez de la Peña and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-22 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on why the diffusion of the political theology of royal wisdom created “Solomonic” princes with intellectual interests all around the medieval West and how these learned rulers changed the face of Western Europe through their policies and the cultural power of medieval monarchy. Princely wisdom narratives have been seen simply as a tool of royal propaganda in the Middle Ages but these narratives were much more than propaganda, being rather a coherent ideology which transformed princely courts, shaped mentalities, and influenced key political decisions. This cultural power of medieval monarchy was channelled mainly through princely patronage of learning and the arts, but the rise of administrative monarchy and its bureaucracy are equally related to these policies. This can only be understood through a cultural approach to the history of medieval politics, that is, a history of the relationship between knowledge and power in the Middle Ages, a topic much analyzed regarding the medieval church but sometimes neglected in the princely sphere. This volume is a study that supplies an important comparative study of the reception in princely courts of a key aspect of European medieval civilization: The ideal of Christian sapiential rulership and its corollary, rationality in government. This volume is essential reading for students and scholars interested in understanding the medieval roots of the cultural process which gave rise to the modern state.

Download or read book Term Paper Resource Guide to Medieval History written by Jean Shepherd Hamm and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-11-25 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Help students get the most out of studying medieval history with this comprehensive and practical research guide to topics and resources. Term Paper Resource Guide to Medieval History brings key historic events and individuals alive to enrich and stimulate students in challenging and enjoyable ways. Students from high school to college will be able to get a jump start on assignments with the hundreds of term paper projects and research information offered here. The book transforms and elevates the research experience and will prove an invaluable resource for motivating and educating students. Each event entry begins with a brief summary to pique interest and then offers original and thought-provoking term paper ideas in both standard and alternative formats that often incorporate the latest in electronic media, such as the iPod and iMovie. The best primary and secondary sources for further research are annotated, followed by vetted, stable website suggestions and multimedia resources, usually films, for further viewing and listening.

Download or read book Church and People in the Medieval West, 900-1200 written by Sarah Hamilton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-08-12 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the middle ages, belief in God was the single more important principle for every person, and the all-powerful church was the most important institution. It is impossible to understand the medieval world without understanding the religious vision of the time, and this new textbook offers an approach which explores the meaning of this in day-to-day life, as well as the theory behind it. Church and People in the Medieval West gets to the root of belief in the Middle Ages, covering topics including pastoral reform, popular religion, monasticism, heresy and much more, throughout the central middle ages from 900-1200. Suitable for undergraduate courses in medieval history, and those returning to or approaching the subject for the first time.