Hagiography, Historiography, and Identity in Sixth-Century Gaul

Rethinking Gregory of Tours
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-041-18058-6
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 196 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Social Worlds of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Gregory of Tours, the sixth-century Merovingian bishop, composed extensive historiographical and hagiographical corpora during the twenty years of his episcopacy in Tours. These works serve as important sources for the cultural, social, political and religious history of Merovingian Gaul. This book focuses on Gregory’s hagiographical collections, especially the Glory of the Martyrs, Glory of the Confessors, and Life of the Fathers, which contain accounts of saints and their miracles from across the Mediterranean world. It analyses these accounts from literary and historical perspectives, examining them through the lens of relations between the Merovingians and their Mediterranean counterparts, and contextualizing them within the identity crisis that followed the disintegration of the Roman world. This approach leads to groundbreaking conclusions about Gregory’s hagiographies, which this study argues were designed as an ecclesiastical history (of the Merovingian Church) that enabled him to craft a specific Gallo-Christian identity for his audience.

Zielgruppe

Academic

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rotman, Tamar

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike Römische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Mittelalterliche, neuzeitliche Archäologie (Europa)
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Abbreviations, Acknowledgments, Introduction, 1. Gregory of Tours, 2. 'When the Saints Go Marching In': Eastern Saints in Merovingian Gaul, 3. The Miraculous History of Gregory of Tours Libri Miraculorum, 4. 'By Romans They Refer To…' (Romanos Enim Vocitant), Conclusion, Bibliography, Index

Über Autor(innen)

Tamar Rotman specializes in late antique and early medieval history. Her research focuses on the role of hagiography and the cults of saints in the identity discourse of the early Middle Ages, giving special attention to the transmission of knowledge and cultural practices in the Mediterranean sphere. She is a Fulbright and a Rothschild scholar and a visiting scholar at Columbia University.