Epic Lives and Monasticism in the Middle Ages, 800–1050
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 9/2/2013
EAN 9781107030503, ISBN10: 1107030501
Hardcover, 342 pages, 23.1 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
This is the first book to focus on Latin epic verse saints' lives in their medieval historical contexts. Anna Taylor examines how these works promoted bonds of friendship and expressed rivalries among writers, monasteries, saints, earthly patrons, teachers and students in Western Europe in the central Middle Ages. Using philological, codicological and microhistorical approaches, Professor Taylor reveals new insights that will reshape our understanding of monasticism, patronage and education. These texts give historians an unprecedented glimpse inside the early medieval classroom, provide a nuanced view of the complicated synthesis of the Christian and Classical heritages, and show the cultural importance and varied functions of poetic composition in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries.
Introduction
saints, teachers, princes, and students
1. Forging sanctity
Hilduin of Saint-Denis and the epic Passio Dionysii
2. Glossing the imaginary
epic vitae in the classroom
3. Classical nightmares
Christian poets and the pagan past
4. Bishops, monks, and mother bees
an epic vita at the millennium
5. Mothers and daughters, affiliation and conflict in the lives of Rictrude and Euseba
Conclusions
'black seeds on a white field'
Appendix 1. St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. sang. 265
Appendix 2. Douai Bibliotheque municipale ms 849.