Overview

"Gregory of Tours, the sixth-century Merovingian bishop, composed extensive historiographical and hagiographical corpora during the twenty years of his episcopacy in Tours. These works serve as important sources for the cultural, social, political and religious history of Merovingian Gaul. This book focuses on Gregory’s hagiographical collections, especially the Glory of the Martyrs, Glory of the Confessors, and Life of the Fathers, which contain accounts of saints and their miracles from across the Mediterranean world. It analyses these accounts from literary and historical perspectives, examining them through the lens of relations between the Merovingians and their Mediterranean counterparts, and contextualizing them within the identity crisis that followed the disintegration of the Roman world. This approach leads to groundbreaking conclusions about Gregory’s hagiographies, which this study argues were designed as an ""ecclesiastical history"" (of the Merovingian Church) that enabled him to craft a specific Gallo-Christian identity for his audience."

Full Product Details

9789463727730

Table of Contents

Reviews

[...] this is a readable and rather enjoyable book which does indeed succeed in getting us to think about Gregory afresh. - Paul Fouracre, The Medieval Review, June 2022 [...] there is much to commend in Rotman's innovations and nuanced reassessments; they should help instruct how scholars may better approach the corpus of the bishop of Tours henceforth. - Allen E. Jones, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3

"""[...] this is a readable and rather enjoyable book which does indeed succeed in getting us to think about Gregory afresh."" - Paul Fouracre, The Medieval Review, June 2022 ""[...] there is much to commend in Rotman’s innovations and nuanced reassessments; they should help instruct how scholars may better approach the corpus of the bishop of Tours henceforth."" - Allen E. Jones, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 ''Hagiography, historiography, and Gregory of Tours are all subjects that have attracted a good deal of attention since 1960: the concept of identity has come to the fore rather more recently, above all since 2000. Tamar Rotman has something to add to the four areas of discussion.'' - Ian Wood, University of Leeds, Early Medieval Europe, 2023, Vol. 31, No. 2 ""Rotman’s study performs a vital service in demonstrating that Gregory’s second great literary project was no less deliberate and profound than the Historiae. For this reason, and for its many insights into the connections between Merovingian Francia and the wider Mediterranean, it is necessary reading for all scholars of Gregory and his milieu."" - Gregory Halfond, Speculum, vol 98, no 3, July 2023 ''Rotman’s book is both interesting and challenging. Its argument is innovative and carefully crafted, directing our attention to problematic and unexplained elements in Gregory’s oeuvre and signaling assumptions about genre and categorization that historians can unwittingly bring to the table.'' - Isabel Moreira, Studies in Late Antiquity, Winter 2023"

"""[...] this is a readable and rather enjoyable book which does indeed succeed in getting us to think about Gregory afresh."" - Paul Fouracre, The Medieval Review, June 2022 ""[...] there is much to commend in Rotman’s innovations and nuanced reassessments; they should help instruct how scholars may better approach the corpus of the bishop of Tours henceforth."" - Allen E. Jones, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 ''Hagiography, historiography, and Gregory of Tours are all subjects that have attracted a good deal of attention since 1960: the concept of identity has come to the fore rather more recently, above all since 2000. Tamar Rotman has something to add to the four areas of discussion.'' - Ian Wood, University of Leeds, Early Medieval Europe, 2023, Vol. 31, No. 2"

Author Information

Tamar Rotman specializes in late antique and early medieval history. Her research focuses on the role of hagiography and the cults of saints in the identity discourse of the early Middle Ages, giving special attention to the transmission of knowledge and cultural practices in the Mediterranean sphere. She is a Fulbright and a Rothschild scholar and a visiting scholar at Columbia University.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available