Title Saxon identities, AD 150-900 / Robert Flierman

Published London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 274 pages) Series Studies in early medieval history Studies in early medieval history. Contents 1. The Most Ferocious of Enemies : Saxons from a Roman Perspective -- 2. Rebels, Subjects, Neighbours : Saxons from a Frankish Perspective -- 3. Gens perfida or populus Christianus? : the Saxons and the Saxon Wars in Carolingian Historiography -- 4. From Defeat to Salvation : Remembering the Saxon Wars in Carolingian Saxony Summary "This study is the first up-to-date comprehensive analysis of the construction of continental Saxon identity in late antique and early medieval writing. It traces this process over the course of eight centuries, from its earliest roots in Roman ethnography to its reinvention in the monasteries of ninth-century Saxony. Building on recent scholarship, this study emphasises not just the constructed and open-ended nature of barbarian identity, but also the crucial role played by texts as instruments and resources of identity-formation. Though mentioned as early as AD 150, the Saxons left no written evidence of their own before c. 840. Thus, for the first seven centuries, we can only look at Saxon identity through the eyes of their Roman enemies, Merovingian neighbours and Carolingian conquerors. What we encounter when we attempt this, is not an objective description of a people, but an ongoing literary discourse on what outside authors imagined, wanted or feared the Saxons to be: dangerous pirates, noble savages, bestial pagans or faithful subjects. Significantly, these outside views deeply influenced how ninth-century Saxons eventually came to write about themselves following their conquest and conversion by the Frankish King Charlemagne, relying on Roman and Frankish texts to reinvent themselves as members of a noble and Christian people"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Saxons -- Historiography Saxons -- Ethnic identity -- Historiography Ethnicity -- Europe -- History -- To 1500 -- Historiography Latin literature -- History and criticism Literature, Medieval -- History and criticism. Medieval history. European history. HISTORY -- Medieval. HISTORY -- Europe -- Western. HISTORY -- Europe -- Great Britain. Ethnicity -- Historiography Historiography Latin literature Literature, Medieval SUBJECT Saxony (Germany) -- Historiography Europe -- History -- To 476. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85045688 Europe -- History -- 476-1492. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85045690 Subject Europe Germany -- Saxony Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book LC no. 2016058160 ISBN 9781350019461 1350019461 9781350019478 135001947X 9781350019485 1350019488

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