ENGLISH

Language and Power in the Early Middle Ages

By Patrick J. Geary

Book information

Publisher
Brandeis
Year
2013
ISBN
1611683904, 9781611683905
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
673 kB (689217 bytes)
Series
The Menahem Stern Jerusalem Lectures
Pages
136\137
Time added
2018-05-26 20:55:54
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Description

The eminent historian Patrick J. Geary has written a provocative book, based on lectures delivered at the Historical Society of Israel about the role of language and ideology in the study and history of the early Middle Ages. He includes a fascinating discussion of the rush by nationalist philologists to rediscover the medieval roots of their respective vernaculars, the rivalry between vernacular languages and Latin to act as transmitters of Christian sacred texts and administrative documents, and the rather sloppy and ad hoc emergence in different places of the vernacular as the local administrative idiom. This is a fascinating look at the weakness of language as a force for unity: ideology, church authority, and emerging secular power always trumped language.

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