The Making of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000-1300)

by Lars Boje Mortensen (Editor)

Overview

Mythology is usually reserved for non-Christian religions. However, the adoption of Christianity in northern and east-central Europe between ca. 1000 and 1300 can be adequately described as a myth-making process: local saints were added to the Christian pantheon in all regions entering Latin Europe. The present collection explores the links between local sanctity and the making of national myths in medieval historical writing. By bringing together specialists in history and literature of the European periphery in question, The contributions convincingly argue that the writing of history and saints’ lives from this pioneering period are attempts at creating cultural foundation myths.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788763504072
Publisher:	Museum Tusculanum Press
Publication date:	04/15/2006
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lars Boje Mortensen is Professor of Ancient and Medieval Cultural History at the University of Southern Denmark and Prof II of Medieval Latin at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bergen.

Table of Contents

Introduction
      Lars Boje Mortensen

Constructing the Past. Religious Dimensions and Historical Consciousness in Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum
      Hans-Werner Goetz
Pilgrims, Missionaries and Martyrs: The Holy in Bede, Orkneyinga saga and Knýtlinga saga
      Carl Phelpstead
The Function of the Saints in Early Bohemian Historical Writing
      Marie Bláhová
The Beginnings of Local Hagiography in Iceland: The Lives of Bishops Þorlákr and Jón
      Ásdis Egilsdóttir
The Friend of the Meek. The Late Medieval Miracles of a Twelfth-century Icelandic Saint
      Ármann Jakobsson
God and Saints in Medieval Polish Historiography
      Norbert Kersken
In the Presence of the Dead. Saint Canute the Duke in Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum
      Karsten Friis-Jensen
Royal Saints in Hungarian Chronicles, Legends and Liturgy
      László Veszprémy
Sanctified Beginnings and Mythopoietic Moments. The First Wave of Writing on the Past in Norway, Denmark, and Hungary, c. 1000-1230
      Lars Boje Mortensen
Divine Election for Nations—a Difficult Rhetoric for Medieval Scholars?
      Mary Garrison
Constructing Religious Pasts: Summary reflections
      Håkan Rydving
Reflectons on Historiography and the Holy: Center and Periphery
      Patrick Geary

Acknowledgments
List of Maps and Illustrations
Index

Editorial Reviews

We are presented with an exiting collection of essays studying the process of cultural assimilation of the peripheral zones of Latin Christendom - Scandinavia and East Central Europe. ... On the whole this is a collection of valuable contributions that are not meant to close but to open further, research in a vast field recently considered to separate political, literary, and religious history."- Boris Todorov, Comitatus, Vol. 39, 2008. We are presented with an exiting collection of essays studying the process of cultural assimilation of the peripheral zones of Latin Christendom - Scandinavia and East Central Europe. ... On the whole this is a collection of valuable contributions that are not meant to close but to open further, research in a vast field recently considered to separate political, literary, and religious history.- Boris Todorov, Comitatus, Vol. 39, 2008.

From the Publisher