IMC 2009: Sessions
Session 1506: Texts and Identities, XII: Carolingian Texts in their Contexts - Annals, Letters, Law
Thursday 16 July 2009, 09.00-10.30
| Organisers: | Maximilian Diesenberger, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien Gerda Heydemann, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Mary Garrison, Department of History, University of York |
| Paper 1506-a | The annales minores: A Source on the Reign of Pippin III? (Language: English) |
| Paper 1506-b | The Codex epistolaris carolinus: Some Observations (Language: English) |
| Paper 1506-c | The Revival of Learning in 8th-Century Bavaria (Language: English) |
| Abstract | The papers in this session seek to shed new light on aspects of Carolingian literary culture in the 8th century, by examining texts and the processes and contexts of their collection, compilation, transmission and exchange. Erik Goosman's paper will discuss the political and literary contexts of the so-called annales minori in the light of recent discussions about the origins, function and development of annalistic writing in the Carolingian period. The paper will address questions of the intertextual relationship between these annals, and set them in the context of the major historiographical sources of the 8th century. The second paper (Dorine van Espelo) takes a fresh look at the Carolingian collection of papal letters, the Codex epistolaris carolinus. On the basis of themes and terminology employed within the letters of the collection, it attempts to reconstruct strategies and policies of papal (self-)representation, thereby contributing to our understanding of the formation of a papal identity in the Carolingian period. A final paper looks at insular influence on the exchange of scholarship and learning in 8th-century Bavaria. Sven Meeders examines the internal dynamics and contexts of the Bavarian learned tradition as an 'infrastructure of scholarship': the ways through which the exchange of books, texts, and ideas is governed by institutional and personal scholarly contacts, regional and extra-regional interests in particular genres, and occasional as well as perennial prejudices. The particular focus will be on works of canon law that were composed and/or copied around the middle of the 8th century in Bavaria, such as the 'Collection in 250 Chapters' and the 'Collection in 400 Chapters', which testify to a very creative and critical approach to (insular) scholarship. The study of the character and conditions of the Bavarian revival of learning may in turn shed light on the events in the Carolingian realms, in particular on the shared as well as the contingent factors on the basis of these revivals. |