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IMC 2008: Sessions

Session 1510: Texts and Communities in Early Medieval Europe

Thursday 10 July 2008, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:St Andrews' Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Organiser:Simon MacLean, Department of History, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Simon MacLean, Department of History, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge
Paper 1510-aThe Audience of the Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul
(Language: English)
Alexander O'Hara, St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of St Andrews
Index terms: Hagiography, Monasticism, Politics and Diplomacy
Paper 1510-bHagiography and Monastic Identity: The Case of the Community of St Filibert
(Language: English)
Christian Harding, Department of Mediaeval History, University of St Andrews
Index terms: Hagiography, Monasticism
Paper 1510-cCommunity or Computus?: Carolingian Calendars and their Audiences
(Language: English)
James Palmer, School of History, University of Nottingham
Index terms: Hagiography, Monasticism, Political Thought
Abstract

This session asks how we can use major written sources as evidence for the construction of communities in the early middle ages. This is an approach used to some effect in recent historiography, and the session appropriates it to cast new light on some important political and monastic communities. In particular, the papers challenge conventional understandings of the contemporary audiences of three major texts (the Life of Columbanus, the hagiography of St Fillibert and the Carolingian 'imperial calendar') and ask whether the communities they purportedly addressed were really as coherent as historians have assumed.