History, Frankish Identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity, 550–850 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, Series Number 101) - Hardcover

Reimitz, Helmut

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1107032334 ISBN 13: 9781107032330

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2015

Synopsis

This pioneering study explores early medieval Frankish identity as a window into the formation of a distinct Western conception of ethnicity. Focusing on the turbulent and varied history of Frankish identity in Merovingian and Carolingian historiography, it offers a new basis for comparing the history of collective and ethnic identity in the Christian West with other contexts, especially the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. The tremendous political success of the Frankish kingdoms provided the medieval West with fundamental political, religious and social structures, including a change from the Roman perspective on ethnicity as the quality of the 'Other' to the Carolingian perception that a variety of Christian peoples were chosen by God to reign over the former Roman provinces. Interpreting identity as an open-ended process, Helmut Reimitz explores the role of Frankish identity in the multiple efforts through which societies tried to find order in the rapidly changing post-Roman world.

About this title

Book Description

This pioneering study explores early medieval Frankish identity as a window into the formation of a distinct Western conception of ethnicity. It offers a new basis for comparing the history of collective and ethnic identity in the Christian West with other contexts, especially the Islamic and Byzantine worlds.

About the Author

Helmut Reimitz is Professor of History at Princeton University, New Jersey and studies the history of the Early Middle Ages in Europe, focusing on the social and political transformations of the Latin West from the end of the Roman Empire to the Carolingian Empire (c.4th-10th centuries). Before joining Princeton University in September 2008, he was head of the Early Medieval Department at the Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is a member of several international networks, such as the European Science Foundation Project on the 'Transformation of the Roman World', and 'Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages' (cooperation of the Universities of Cambridge, Sorbonne, Utrecht, Leeds and Vienna). He has published a number of volumes on the history of the early Middle Ages and its meaning for the history of Europe. His books include Cultures in Motion (with Dan Rodgers and Bhavani Raman, 2013), Vergangenheit und Vergegenwärtigung. Frühes Mittelalter und Europäische Erinnerungskultur (with Bernhard Zeller, 2009), Staat im frühen Mittelalter (with Stuart Airlie and Walter Pohl, 2006) and The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages (with Richard Corradini and Max Diesenberger, 2003).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1107032334
• ISBN 13: 9781107032330
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 528