The Long Morning of Medieval Europe

Recent advances in research show that the distinctive features of high medieval civilization began developing centuries earlier than previously thought. The era once dismissed as a "Dark Age" now turns out to have been the long morning of the medieval millennium: the centuries from AD 500 to 1000 witnessed the dawn of developments that were to shape Europe for centuries to come. In 2004, historians, art historians, archaeologists, and literary specialists from Europe and North America convened at Harvard University for an interdisciplinary conference exploring new directions in the study of that long morning of medieval Europe, the early Middle Ages.Invited to think about what seemed to each the most exciting new ways of investigating the early development of western European civilization, this impressive group of international scholars produced a wide-ranging discussion of innovative types of research that define tomorrow's field today. The contributors, many of whom rarely publish in English, test approaches extending from using ancient DNA to deducing cultural patterns signified by thousands of medieval manuscripts of saints' lives. They examine the archaeology of slave labor, economic systems, disease history, transformations of piety, the experience of power and property, exquisite literary sophistication, and the construction of the meaning of palace spaces or images of the divinity. The book illustrates in an approachable style the vitality of research into the early Middle Ages, and the signal contributions of that era to the future development of western civilization.The chapters cluster around new approaches to five key themes: the early medieval economy; early medieval holiness; representation and reality in early medieval literary art; practices of power in an early medieval empire; and the intellectuality of early medieval art and architecture. Michael McCormick's brief introductions open each part of the volume; synthetic essays by accomplished specialists conclude them. The editors summarize the whole in a synoptic introduction. All Latin terms and citations and other foreign-language quotations are translated, making this work accessible even to undergraduates. "The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies" presents innovative research across the wide spectrum of study of the early Middle Ages. It exemplifies the promising questions and methodologies at play in the field today, and the directions that beckon tomorrow.

ISBN 0754662543   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9780754662549 (What's this?)   Pages 364 Publisher Ashgate Publishing Group   Volumes 001 Imprint Ashgate Publishing Limited   Published in Aldershot Format Hardback   Height (mm) 234 Publication date 26 Jun 2008   Width (mm) 156 Library of Congress CB353   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate DEWEY 940.12

		List of Figures and Tables
		The Early Middle Ages: Europe's Long Morning by Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick		1
		Discovering the Early Medieval Economy by Michael McCormick		13
1		Rethinking the Structure of the Early Medieval Economy by Chris Wickham		19
2		Strong Rulers - Weak Economy? Rome, the Carolingians and the Archaeology of Slavery in the First Millennium A.D. by Joachim Henning		33
3		The Beginnings of Hilltop Villages in Early Medieval Tuscany by Riccardo Francovich		55
4		Molecular Middle Ages: Early Medieval Economic History in the Twenty-First Century by Michael McCormick		83
5		The Early Medieval Economy: Data, Production, Exchange and Demand by Angeliki E. Laion		99
		Sounding Early Medieval Holiness by Michael McCormick		107
6		Latin Hagiography before the Ninth Century: A Synoptic View by Guy Philippart and Michel Trigalet		111
7		Donationes pro anima: Gift and Countergift in the Early Medieval Liturgy by Arnold Angenendt		131
8		The Early Medieval Transformation of Piety by Thomas Head		155
		Representation and Reality in the Artistry of Early Medieval Literature by Michael McCormick		163
9		Observations on Early Medieval Weather in General, Bloody Rain in Particular by Paul Edward Dutton		167
10		The King Says No: On the Logic of Type-Scenes in Late Antique and Early Medieval Narrative by Joaquin Martinez Pizarro		181
11		Of Arms and the (Ger)man: Literary and Material Culture in the Waltharius by Jan M. Ziolkowski		193
12		Representations and Reality in Early Medieval Literature by Danuta Shanzer		209
		Practices of Power in an Early Medieval Empire by Michael McCormick		219
13		Charlemagne and Empire by Janet L. Nelson		223
		More...

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