Strategies of Identification: Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe

Description

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. Front Matter ("Editorial Board", "Title Page", "Copyright Page", "Table of Contents", "Illustrations", "Preface"), p. i Free Access Introduction — Strategies of Identification: A Methodological Profile, p. 1 Walter Pohl https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA.1.101574 Die Ankunft der Zukunft: Babylon, Jerusalem und Rom als Modelle von Aneignung und Entfremdung bei Augustinus, p. 65 Richard Corradini https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA.1.101575 Biblical Israel and the Christian gentes: Social Metaphors and the Language of Identity in Cassiodorus’s Expositio psalmorum, p. 143 Gerda Heydemann https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA.1.101576 Repertoires and Strategies in Bavaria: Hagiography, p. 209 Maximilian Diesenberger https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA.1.101577 Of Shepherds and Sheep: Preaching and Biblical Models of Community in the Ninth Century, p. 233 Marianne Pollheimer https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA.1.101578 Cultural Brokers of a Common Past: History, Identity, and Ethnicity in Merovingian Historiography, p. 257 Helmut Reimitz https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA.1.101579 The Label ‘Greeks’ in the Papal Diplomatic Repertoire in the Eighth Century, p. 303 Clemens Gantner https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA.1.101580 Back Matter ("Titles in Series"), p. 351