19–Jan 2021

Cullen J. Chandler

19–Jan 2021

Rutger Kramer (Visiting Professor at the Institute of History, Philosophical Faculty of the University of Hradec Králové / Radboud Institute for Culture & History )

Abstract: In the Carolingian era, monasteries were treated as isolated havens of tranquility. The texts associated with the monastic reforms propagated by the Carolingian court usually also represented them as such, in order to highlight the harmony and community they stood for. However, underneath the surface, debates and conflicts about the proper way of life would continuously take place—and sometimes these boiled over into the public sphere as well. Starting from a single instance of such a public contentio (between Benedict of Aniane and Adalhard of Corbie), this article analyses how and why this could happen, and especially also what could make author decide to record the existence of such conflicts for later generations: as a warning, but also as a way of teaching that the perfect (monastic) life is in constant need of updates.

19–Jan 2021

Thomas A. E. Greene, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor of History, University of North Georgia)

Abstract: Haimo, the master of the monastic school at Saint-Germain (Auxerre) never wrote a treatise on emotions. Understanding his thoughts about anger, therefore, requires reconstructing them from the various references scattered throughout his commentaries and homilies. In this essay I perform that reconstruction. Haimo focused not on whether anger was good or bad, or on whether or not one should avoid it. Indeed, Haimo assumed that people would by nature become angry. Instead, he focused on the duration of anger once felt. Haimo's concern was for emotion as experience, and for the transformation of one emotional experience into another.

17–Mar 2021

Kelly Gibson (Associate Professor of History, University of Dallas)

Abstract: Jonas of Orléans's attack on Claudius of Turin in De cultu imaginum utilizes specific emotion words that present Claudius as an outsider and enemy of the community of Christians and saints and associate him with past heretics, political enemies, and the devil and demons. Claudius’ fury, pride, excessive zeal, and lack of shame and fear led to his conflict with the rest of the Church. Jonas encouraged patience, humility, and love as ways to restore peace and order in the Church. He portrayed Claudius's heresy as an issue of wrong emotion, not simply wrong doctrine, and offered an image of orthodox worshipers united in detestation, fear, and grief in response to heresy and in love and joy in the presence of relics. Jonas reinforced the image of Claudius as outsider by contrasting this ideal emotional script with Claudius's emotions. Jonas's use of emotions illustrates how authority accompanied a specific set of emotions that were evoked in order to define membership and preserve and promote proper hierarchy within a community while excluding, discrediting, and silencing oppositional voices by labeling their emotions as unacceptable.

19–Jan 2021

Daniel Hernández San José (C.E.B.N.Ch. (University of Granada))

Abstract: The tale of "The Dream of Maxen Wledig" depicts the life of Magnus Maximus, a Roman emperor from Hispania whose memory and legacy were forgotten in medieval Christendom but kept strongly alive in Welsh history. A source of legitimacy and prestige for the Welsh kings, this tale is an idealized reformulation of the Roman past of Britain, built in the Middle Ages as a link between a lost "Golden Age" and the idea of the right of the Welsh people to recover the hegemony of Britannia. After reviewing its historical sources and fictional elements, this paper finishes with a brief comparative study between the themes of the "Loss of Britain" and the "Loss of Spain."