Rewriting Saints and Ancestors: Memory and Forgetting in France, 500-1200

380 Pages·2015·1.353 MB·English

by  Constance Brittain Bouchard

Rewriting Saints and Ancestors
THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES
Ruth Mazo Karras, Series Editor
Edward Peters, Founding Editor
Rewriting Saints
and Ancestors
Memory and Forgetting in France, 500–1200
Constance Brittain Bouchard
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia
Copyright © 2015 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of
review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced
in any form by any means without written permission from the
publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bouchard, Constance Brittain.
Rewriting saints and ancestors : memory and forgetting in France,
500-1200 / Constance Brittain Bouchard. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Middle Ages series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8122-4636-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1.Historiography—France—History—To 1500. 2. France—
History—To 987—Historiography. 3. France—History—Medieval
period, 987-1515—Historiography. 4. France—History—To 987—
Sources. 5. France—History—Medieval period, 987-1515—Sources.
6. Christian hagiography—History—To 1500. 7. Genealogical
literature—France—History—To 1500. 8. Middle Ages—
Historiography. 9. Memory—History.I.Title. II. Series: Middle
Ages series.
D13.5.F8B68 2014
944'.01072—dc23
2014007757
To my mother, Harriet Ann Beckwith Brittain

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Notes on Terminology xiii
Introduction 1
1. Cartularies: Remembering the Documentary Past 9
2. The Composition and Purpose of Cartularies 22
3. Twelfth-Century Narratives of the Past 38
4. Polyptyques: Twelfth-Century Monks Face the Ninth Century 53
5. An Age of Forgery 63
6. Remembering the Carolingians 87
7. Creation of a Carolingian Dynasty 106
viii Contents
8. Western Monasteries and the Carolingians 126
9. Eighth-Century Transitions: The Evidence from Burgundy 152
10. Great Noble Families in the Early Middle Ages 176
11. Early Frankish Monasticism 193
12. Remembering Martyrs and Relics in Sixth-Century Gaul 213
Conclusion 228
Appendix I. Monasteries in Burgundy and Southern Champagne 233
Appendix II. Churches in Auxerre 245
List of Abbreviations 251
Notes 253
Bibliography 327
Index 353
Acknowledgments 361