Memory and gender in medieval Europe, 900-1200 / Elisabeth van Houts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Van Houts, Elisabeth M. C.

Contributor:

Constance L. Rosenthal Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Middle Ages--Sources.

Middle Ages.

Literature, Medieval.

Civilization, Medieval.

Middle Ages--Historiography.

History.

Europe--History--476-1492--Sources.

Europe.

Genre:

Sources.

Physical Description:

xii, 196 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, 1999.

Summary:

Remembering the past in the Middle Ages is a subject that is usually perceived as a study of chronicles and annals written by monks in monasteries. Following in the footsteps of early Christian historians such as Eusebius and St Augustine, the medieval chroniclers are thought of as men isolated in their monastic institutions, writing about the world around them. As the sole members of their society versed in literacy, they had a monopoly on the knowledge of the past as preserved in learned histories, which they themselves updated and continued. A self-perpetuating cycle of monks writing chronicles, which were read, updated and continued by the next generation, so the argument goes, remained the vehicle for a narrative tradition of historical writing for the rest of the Middle Ages.

Contents:

Part I Gender and the Authority of Oral Witnesses 17

2 Chronicles and Annals 19

3 Saints' Lives and Miracles 41

Part II Remembrance of the Past 63

4 Ancestors, Family Repuation and Female Traditions 65

5 Objects as Pegs for Memory 93

Part III One Event Remembered 121

6 The Memory of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 123

1 Aethelweard's letter to Abbess Matilda of Essen 151

2 Count Rainald of Burgundy's letter to Guy Geoffrey of Aquitaine 153

3 Beatrix's letter to her brother Bishop Udo of Hildesheim 154

4 Robert of Torigni's genealogies of Countess Gunnor's relatives 156

5 Lambert of Wattrelos's family history 159

6 Letter 33 from Gui of Bazoches to his nephew Rainald 161.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Constance L. Rosenthal Book Fund.

ISBN:

0802046983

0802082777

OCLC:

40179868