Forging Memory: False Documents and Historical Consciousness in the Middle Ages
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Levi Roach
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Exeter
Presider Name
Benjamin Pohl
Presider Affiliation
Univ. of Bristol
Paper Title 1
Pope Hadrian I's Letter to Archbishop Tilpin of Rheims and the Forging of Episcopal Authority
Presenter 1 Name
Edward Roberts
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Kent
Paper Title 2
Can't Get You Offa My Mind: Memory, Conquest, and the Vitae Offarum duorum
Presenter 2 Name
Matthew Aiello
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Pennsylvania
Paper Title 3
"Silent Wardens of the Long-Vanished Kingdom": Carolingian Rulers in Forged Ottonian Diplomas
Presenter 3 Name
Alice Hicklin
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Freie Univ. Berlin
Start Date
10-5-2019 1:30 PM
Session Location
Schneider 2345
Description
Over the last two decades, scholars have shown great interest in how group and institutional identities were constructed and contested within (and beyond) the Middle Ages. Much attention has been given to the role of narrative histories of peoples, regions and religious houses in this context. Only relatively recently, however, has the contribution of more ‘documentary’ sources come to be appreciated. In recent years, we have learned that cartularies and cartulary-chronicles are not merely repositories of texts, but powerful statements about local and institutional identity. These sessions seek to develop these lines of investigation further by examining the contribution of forgery to these processes. They aim to bridge the gap between the study of historical memory (which until recently has taken written narratives as its starting point) and documentary forgery (which tends to focus on the legal implications of such texts), offering new vantage points on old problems regarding uses of the past in the Middle Ages. Levi Roach
Forging Memory: False Documents and Historical Consciousness in the Middle Ages
Schneider 2345
Over the last two decades, scholars have shown great interest in how group and institutional identities were constructed and contested within (and beyond) the Middle Ages. Much attention has been given to the role of narrative histories of peoples, regions and religious houses in this context. Only relatively recently, however, has the contribution of more ‘documentary’ sources come to be appreciated. In recent years, we have learned that cartularies and cartulary-chronicles are not merely repositories of texts, but powerful statements about local and institutional identity. These sessions seek to develop these lines of investigation further by examining the contribution of forgery to these processes. They aim to bridge the gap between the study of historical memory (which until recently has taken written narratives as its starting point) and documentary forgery (which tends to focus on the legal implications of such texts), offering new vantage points on old problems regarding uses of the past in the Middle Ages. Levi Roach