IMC 2007: Sessions

Paper a: Amongst the many neglected sermonaries produced during the Carolingian period, the collection of sixteen sermons known as Pseudo-Eligius can lay claim to being one of the least studied, save for two 19th-century articles. The aim of this paper is to disprove the attribution to St Eligius (d. 660) by offering a systematic analysis of the sources used to confect the sermons and comment on the author's method of compilation as a manifestation of the Carolingian renaissance. I argue that it is only possible to date and localize the collection by thinking in terms of a more likely cultural milieu, both as regards the linguistic situation in the Carolingian Empire and the liturgical reforms effected by the Carolingian Church.
Paper b: The purpose of the 9th- or 10th-century Latin poem Waltharius has been questioned relatively recently. Dennis Kratz and others have argued that the poem is intended ironically, as a clerical condemnation of secular values. The paper aims to locate the behavioural norms of Waltharius within a Carolingian tradition of moralising on lay behaviour on topics such as kingship, lordship, avarice and sexual behaviour. It shows that Walter's behaviour, in particular, would be regarded as entirely acceptable for a 9th-century noble layman and that the poem can therefore not be regarded as a critique of warrior culture.
Paper c: Historians have frequently quarried Dudo of Saint-Quentin's chronicle of the early Norman dukes for specifically Norse elements. In this paper I intend to take the opposite tack, setting Dudo's work squarely within the growth of schools and intellectual life in northwestern Europe in the early 11th century. Special focus will be placed on a comparison of Dudo's depiction of the Norman dukes with the early models of ideal, 'courtly' manners, and attitudes that were becoming an increasingly powerful trend in the intellectual milieux of the day.