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This volume of essays in honour of Dame Jinty Nelson celebrates the way in which Jinty has used her profound understanding of Frankish history as a frame for reflecting upon the nature of early medieval culture and society in general. It includes a tabula gratulatoria of those very many others who wish to express their appreciation of Jinty's work and their warm personal gratitude to her. She has remained at King's throughout her entire career. Her early career was combined with young motherhood, a tough experience that has made her strongly supportive of colleagues trying to balance work and family. Although she continued to write about early medieval inauguration rituals, a new departure came with the 1977 paper 'On the limits of the Carolingian Renaissance'. The book discusses what factors determined and informed their particular take on the Frankish world, and how this compares to law-codes and charters. It considers the possibility that land was sometimes taken in early medieval Europe, whether by kings or local lords, for what they claimed was the common good. Whenever only meagre information was available, it was impossible to make sense of the past, that is, to take a prosaic approach to a sense of oblivion. The book explores both the roots of the historical interpretation and the stimuli for change, by considering the long historiographical tradition, attitudes to textual sources, and the changing political environment. The subjects of queens and queenship have figured prominently among Nelson's publications.
Honour of Dame Jinty Nelson (Manchester, 2008), pp. 101–25. 30 Ganz, ‘Theology’, pp. 777–8. 31 Gottschalk, Confessio brevior , ed. Lambot, pp. 52–4; Amolo, Epistola 2, ed. E. Dümmler, MGH Epp. 5, pp. 368–78; and Hincmar, Ad reclusos et simplices , ed. W. Gundlach, ‘Zwei Schriften des Erzbischofs Hinkmar von Reims’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte , 10 (1889), 258–310, at 261–2. 32 Gottschalk, Confessio brevior , ed. Lambot, p. 54. 33 Amolo, Epistola 2
at court to an ecclesiastical missus.54 Now some bishops – and Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium, no. 28, p. 1083: there are only four manuscripts, hanging from what looks a Reims thread. 51 M. Innes, ‘ “Immune from heresy”: defining the boundaries of Carolingian Christianity’, in P. Fouracre and D. Ganz (eds), Frankland. The Franks and the World of the Early Middle Ages – Essays in Honour of Dame Jinty Nelson (Manchester, 2008), 101–25; see also T. Noble, ‘Kings, clergy and dogma: the settlement of doctrinal disputes in the Carolingian world’, in S. Baxter, C
. Ganz (eds), Frankland. The Franks and the World of the Early Middle Ages – Essays in Honour of Dame Jinty Nelson (Manchester, 2008), 101–25. 55 This latter phenomenon is the focus of the chapter by Raaijmakers and Van Renswoude in this volume. 56 Concerning this observation, see generally W. Hartmann, ‘Konzilien und Geschichtsscheibung in karolingischer Zeit’, in A. Scharer and G. Scheibelreiter (eds), Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter (Vienna, 1994), 481–98. 57 ARF, s.a. 794: ‘Ibi tertio condempnata est heresis Feliciana, quam dampnationem per auctoritatem
Honour of Dame Jinty Nelson (Manchester, 2008), pp. 242–65. 32 On the manuscript, see G. Laehr, ‘Ein karolingischer Konzilsbrief und der Fürstenspiegel Hincmars von Reims’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde , 50 (1935), 106–34; H. H. Anton, Fürstenspiegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit (Bonn, 1968), pp. 221–31. My thanks to Phillip Wynn for discussions on this text and sending me copies of his forthcoming work. 33 Patzold, Episcopus , pp. 316–21; Nelson, Chapter 2, pp. 47–8; Gillis, Chapter 13, pp. 258–60. 34
and his empire’, in S. Brink and N. Price (eds), The Viking World (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 665–8. MacLean, S., ‘Cross-Channel marriage and royal succession in the age of Charles the Simple and Athelstan ( c. 916–936)’, Medieval Worlds 1 (2015), 26–44. MacLean, S., ‘Making a difference in tenth-century politics: King Athelstan’s sisters and Frankish queenship’, in P. Fouracre and D. Ganz (eds), Frankland. The Franks and the World of the Early Middle Ages. Essays in Honour of Dame Jinty Nelson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), pp. 167
The book opens with the abbey at its most powerful and magnificent and Hariulf uses the inventory drawn up in the early years of the ninth century to illustrate the community’s wealth in relics, liturgical vessels, books and lands. His narrative follows the sequence of abbots and he weaves into it the acts of donation by the Carolingian kings that enable the reader to see the development of the monastic estate. Richer’s miracles also appear, together with context-setting material on the Carolingian kings. The great Scandinavian raid of 881 undermined monastic life and for a while the abbey was in the care of secular clergy or canons. The fall of the Carolingian dynasty is subsumed within a narrative of the emperor Charles the Fat’s dream of his descent into hell and in the chapters which follow it is clear that the Carolingian empire has disintegrated. Territorial princes fight for influence and the abbey lies in lands contested by the counts of Flanders and the Norman dynasty recently established in Rouen. The abbey’s most precious relic, the body of Richer, is taken away by the count of Flanders and only recovered with the support of Hugh duke of the Franks, later the first of the Capetian kings. In the new political environment St Riquier falls into the territory of the counts of Ponthieu, while the abbots seek to maintain the abbey’s influence by acquiring new relics, in particular those of Bishop Vigor of Bayeux and the local hermit, Madelgisilius.