Europe after Rome A New Cultural History 500-1000

by Smith, Julia M. H.

• ISBN13: 9780199244270
• ISBN10: 0199244278
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This is the first single-author study in over fifty years to offer anintegrated appraisal of the early Middle Ages as a dynamic and formative periodin European history. Written in an attractive and accessible style, it makesextensive use of original sources to introduce early medieval men and women atall levels of society from slave to emperor, and allows them to speak to thereader in their own words. It overturns traditional narratives and insteadoffers an entirely fresh approach to the centuries from c.500 to c.1000.Rejecting any notion of a dominant, uniform early medieval culture, it arguesthat the fundamental characteristic of the early middle ages is diversity ofexperience. To explain how the men and women who lived in this period orderedtheir world in cultural, social, and political terms, it employs an innovativemethodology combining cultural history, regional studies, and gender history.Ranging comparatively from Ireland to Hungary and from Scotland and Scandinaviato Spain and Italy, the analysis highlights three themes: regional variation,power, and the legacy of Rome.The book's eight chapters examine the following subjects: Speaking and Writing;Living and Dying; Friends and Relations; Men and Women; Labour and Lordship;Getting and Giving; Kingship and Christianity; Rome and the Peoples of Europe.Collectively, they establish the complex cultural realities which distinguishedEurope in the period between the end of the central institutions of the westernRoman empire in the fifth century and the emergence of a Rome-centred papalmonarchy from the late eleventh century onwards. In the context of debates aboutthe social, religious and cultural meaning of 'Europe' in the early twenty-firstcentury, this books seeks the origins of European cultural pluralism anddiversity in the early Middle Ages.

Author Biography

Julia Smith is a specialist on gender, religion, and politics in early medieval Europe. She holds the Edwards Chair in Medieval History at the University of Glasgow, having taught in the USA from 1986 to 1995 and at the University of St Andrews from 1995 to 2005. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has recently held research fellowships at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xi
Abbreviations	xii
Note on Conventions	xiii
Introduction	1	(12)
FUNDAMENTALS
Speaking and Writing	13	(38)
The Tower of Babel	15	(13)
Languages of Authority	28	(12)
Local Literacies, Elite Literacy	40	(11)
Living and Dying	51	(32)
Habitats	52	(7)
Birth and Death	59	(13)
Responses to Calamity	72	(11)
AFFINITIES
Friends and Relations	83	(32)
Identity	88	(6)
Friends by Blood	94	(6)
Honour and Vengeance	100	(15)
Men and Women	115	(36)
Differences of Gender	116	(9)
Pairings of Conception	125	(10)
Women, Family, and Inheritance	135	(16)
RESOURCES
Labour and Lordship	151	(32)
Servitude and Freedom	153	(7)
Peasants and Lords	160	(13)
In Search of Status	173	(10)
Getting and Giving	183	(34)
Landscapes of Power, Landscapes of Wealth	186	(12)
Treasure, Gifts, and Patronage	198	(19)
IDEOLOGIES
Kingship and Christianity	217	(36)
The Spread of Christianity	220	(11)
Pagans and Christians	231	(8)
Good Kings, Bad Kings	239	(14)
Rome and the Peoples of Europe	253	(40)
Rome, AD 500	257	(11)
Paderborn, AD 799	268	(9)
Rome, AD 1027	277	(16)
Epilogue	293	(5)
Notes	298	(16)
Further Reading	314	(30)
Chronology	344	(9)
Index	353