This volume explores the extent to which the reinstitution of the Empire in Western Europe brought about new ways of reconciling the multitude of post-Roman identities with the way the past was shaped in historiographical narratives. From universal histories to local chronicles, and from narratives that support Carolingian rule to histories with a more local focus, the centralization of power and authority in the course of the eighth and ninth centuries forced those who engaged with their own past and that of their community to acknowledge the new situation, and situate themselves in it. The contributions in this volume each depart from a single source, event, or community, and relate their findings to the broader issue of whether the rise of the multi-ethnic Carolingian court allowed for more inclusive narratives to be created, or if their self-proclaimed place at the centre of the Frankish world actually created a context in which local communities were given new tools to assert themselves.

Helmut Reimitz is Professor in the Department of History at Princeton University.
Rutger Kramer is Assistant professor at the Radboud Institute for Culture and History, Radboud University Nijmegen.
Graeme Ward is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford.

Table des matières :

Histories of Carolingian Historiography: An Introduction — HELMUT REIMITZ

Carolingian Uses of History

From the Order of the Franks to the World of Ambrose: the Vita Adalhardi and the Epitaphium Arsenii Compared — MAYKE DE JONG
Remembering the Ostrogoths in the Carolingian Empire — MATTHIAS M. TISCHLER
A Carolingian Epitome of Orosius from Tours: Leiden VLQ 20 — ROSAMOND MCKITTERICK & ROBERT EVANS
Approaches to History: Walahfrid’s Parallel Universe — RICHARD CORRADINI

Carolingian Histories

Enhancing Bede: The Chronicon Universale to 741 — SÖREN KASCHKE
A Crowning Achievement: Carolingian Imperial Identity in the Chronicon Moissiacense — RUTGER KRAMER
Much Ado about Vienne? A Localizing Universal Chronicon — SUKANYA RAISHARMA
The Sense of an Ending in the Histories of Frechulf of Lisieux — GRAEME WARD

Uses of Carolingian History

Historiography of Disillusion: Erchempert and the History of Ninth-Century Southern Italy — WALTER POHL
‘A Man of Notable Good Looks Disfigured by a Cruel Wound’: The Forest Misadventure of Charles the Young of Aquitaine (864) in History and Legend — ERIC GOLDBERG
Index

Informations pratiques :

Historiography and Identity III: Carolingian Approaches, dir. Rutger Kramer, Helmut Reimitz et Graeme Ward, Turnhout, Brepols, 2021 (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 29). VIII+396 p., 2 b/w ill., 2 b/w tables, 156 x 234 mm. ISBN: 978-2-503-58655-7. Prix : 100 euros.

Source : Brepols