| Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages Contributor(s): Brown, Warren (Editor), Costambeys, Marios (Editor), Innes, Matthew (Editor) |
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ISBN: 110702529X ISBN-13: 9781107025295 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $141.55 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: January 2013 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Language Arts & Disciplines | Literacy - History | Europe - General - History | Ancient - General |
| Dewey: 302.224 |
| LCCN: 2012017771 |
| Physical Information: 1.1" H x 6" W x 9.1" (1.59 lbs) 406 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Ancient (To 499 A.D.) |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Many more documents survive from the early Middle Ages than from the Roman Empire. Although ecclesiastical archives may account for the dramatic increase in the number of surviving documents, this new investigation reveals the scale and spread of documentary culture beyond the Church. The contributors explore the nature of the surviving documentation without preconceptions to show that we cannot infer changing documentary practices from patterns of survival. Throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages - from North Africa, Egypt, Italy, Francia and Spain to Anglo-Saxon England - people at all social levels, whether laity or clergy, landowners or tenants, farmers or royal functionaries, needed, used and kept documents. The story of documentary culture in the early medieval world emerges not as one of its capture by the Church, but rather of a response adopted by those who needed documents, as they reacted to a changing legal, social and institutional landscape. |
Contributor Bio(s): Brown, Warren: - Warren C. Brown is Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology.Costambeys, Marios: - Marios Costambeys is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Liverpool.Innes, Matthew: - Matthew Innes is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London. |