Using the Carolingian past in a society of transformation
The North-eastern region of the Iberian Peninsula, which later became medieval Catalonia, and the adjacent French region, then called Septimania, formed an intermediary zone of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, social, political, and religious transition and brokerage between the Mediterranean and centr...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2019 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ddd.uab.cat:237472 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/237472 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no10_2019s72 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Carolingian Church reform Texts and transmission Manuscript studies Centres and peripheries Carolingian Empire Septimania Catalonia Border societies |
| Sumario: | The North-eastern region of the Iberian Peninsula, which later became medieval Catalonia, and the adjacent French region, then called Septimania, formed an intermediary zone of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, social, political, and religious transition and brokerage between the Mediterranean and central European worlds, interfacing with the Christian north and Muslim south. Consequently, the double region Septimania/Catalonia is an ideal subject for a comparative view of transformation processes in the Carolingian Empire. My paper - giving an interim report on ongoing research - analyses how this still-underestimated periphery of the Carolingian Empire transformed into a central region of Latin Christian Europe between the late ninth and the middle of the eleventh century, through exploring its imported and autochthonous manuscript production and its position as a border society. In doing so, I show that the societal and religious circumstances of this intermediary zone favoured the concerted selection, introdution and implementation of the core results of the Carolingian Church reform, as well as its well-balanced adaptation to a post-Roman, post-Visigothic and post-Carolingian society under reconstruction. My reflections allow us to assess the quality of 'Carolingian' culture as an imperial, i.e. overarching, eclectic and flexible concept of amalgamation of cultural and political semantics, from a peripheral rather than a central European perspective. |
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