IMC 2014: Sessions

Romanness and Christianity were the two hallmarks on which the Carolingian idea of Empire was built. This session considers the uses of cultural resources and political traditions - both Roman and Christian - in the construction of imperial identity in the Carolingian period. Laury Sarti will analyse shifting Carolingian ideas of Romanness before and after the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor, in order to shed new light on the various actors' political strategies and the ideological implications of calling the Western emperor 'Roman'. Graeme Ward's paper likewise addresses the Romanness of the Carolingian empire, by analysing the reception of one of the key texts of Late Antique imperial historiography, Orosius's Historiae adversus paganos. It explores the cultural contexts in which Orosius's history was read, in order to assess the roles this text played in shaping Carolingian perceptions of the past. Marianne Pollheimer's paper further emphasizes the significance of Late Antique notions of a Christian empire in the Carolingian world. Her examination the manuscript transmission of the Instituta regularia divinae legis reveals the considerable interest of the Carolingian intellectual elite in this exegetical treatise written by the imperial quaestor Junillus Africanus during the reign of Justinian, a text in which religious and secular notions of law and governance converged. The reception of the Instituta, she argues, contributed not only to Carolingian biblical studies, but also to reflections about the imperial office and lawgiving.