Past Convictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians (The Middle Ages Series) - Hardcover

Booker, Courtney M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812241681 ISBN 13: 9780812241686

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009

Synopsis

How do people, in both the past and the present, think about moments of social and political crisis, and how do they respond to them? What are the interpretive codes by which troubling events are read and given meaning, and what part do these codes play in suggesting specific strategies for coping with the world? In Past Convictions Courtney Booker attempts to answer these questions by examining the controversial divestiture and public penance of Charlemagne's son, the Emperor Louis the Pious, in 833.

Historians have customarily viewed the event as marking the beginning of the end of the Carolingian dynasty. Exploring how both contemporaries and subsequent generations thought about Louis's forfeiture of the throne, Booker contends that certain vivid ninth-century narratives reveal a close but ephemeral connection between historiography and the generic conventions of comedy and tragedy. In tracing how writers of later centuries built upon these dramatic Carolingian accounts to tell a larger story of faith, betrayal, political expediency, and decline, he explicates the ways historiography shapes our vision of the past and what we think we know about it, and the ways its interpretive models may fall short.

About this title

About the Author:

Courtney M. Booker teaches history at the University of British Columbia.

Review:

"The book makes two impressive contributions to medieval history. First, Booker's careful analysis of a thousand-year-long historiographical tradition sounds a warning about the dangers of relying on reified traditions. Second, he cleverly recovers stifled voices from the ninth century, ones well worth remembering for their power in deposing an emperor. . . . An important read for anyone interested in historiography or Carolingian history."—Religious Studies Review

"Booker is not content to question prevailing interpretations of a single set of events. Instead, he revises at least two centuries' worth of ways of knowing about them. Past Convictions will have paradigmatic significance for scholars seeking to know how various interpretations assumed their adamantine forms."—Thomas F. X. Noble, University of Notre Dame

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0812241681
• ISBN 13: 9780812241686
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432