IMC 2016: Sessions
Session 808: Eclipse of Knowledge: Dealing with Authoritative Texts in the High Middle Ages
Tuesday 5 July 2016, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | International Medieval Society (IMS), Paris / Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich |
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| Organiser: | Gerald Schwedler, Historisches Seminar, Universität Zürich |
| Moderator/Chair: | Irene van Renswoude, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences, Amsterdam |
| Paper 808-a | Chosing and Forgetting One's Past: High Medieval Readings of Early Medieval Texts (Language: English) Index terms: Canon Law, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Paper 808-b | Focusing as Practice in Letter Collections of the High Middle Ages (Language: English) Index terms: Charters and Diplomatics, Ecclesiastical History, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Rhetoric |
| Abstract | The aim of the panel is to analyse the literary and scholarly strategies in the high Middle Ages dealing with authoritative texts that were not only treated as treasures but as burden, be it for reasons of content or sheer amount of substance and complexity. Various methods ranged from reductive compilation, wilful omission, to ignorant negligence. The three papers deal with three different fields, historiography, theology and epistolography in order to demonstrate the dynamic selection processes. Our modern perspective on the early Middle Ages and past authorities depends much on the filter function of the high Middle Ages. |