Hagiography, Historiography, and Identity in Sixth-Century Gaul

Rethinking Gregory of Tours
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-94-6372-773-0
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 11, 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rotman, Tamar

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte Hagiographie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Vor- und Frühgeschichte, prähistorische Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgments \

Introduction

The Cults of Saints

Gregory of Tours and his Work
East and West

The Aims of this Study

1. Gregory of Tours

The Life of Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours and his Saints
Martin of Tours
Julian of Brioude
Vita Patrum
The Glory of the Confessors
The Glory of the Martyrs
Autohagiography
Conclusion

2. 'When the Saints Go Marching In': Eastern Saints in Merovingian Gaul
The Italian Evidence
The Eastern Evidence: Glory of the Martyrs
Polycarp
The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
Sergius
Cosmas and Damian
Phocas
Domitius

George

Isidore

Polyeuctus

The Eastern Evidence: Glory of the Confessors
Conclusion: The Dissemination of the Cults of Saints

3. The Miraculous History of Gregory of Tours
Libri Miraculorum Revisited
Gregory of Tours’s Literary Approach
Gregory of Tours’s Historiographical Perception
From Hagiography to Ecclesiasticcal History

A Brief History of 'Ecclesiastical History'

Historiographical and Literary Context

4. 'By Romans They Refer To…' (Romanos Enim Vocitant): History, Hagiography, and Identity
Whose History Is It Anyway?

Gallo-Christian Identity

Gaul vs. Spain

Gaul vs. the East

Hagiography and Identity

The Martyrologium Hieronymianum

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Rotman, Tamar
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.