| Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul 2003 Edition Contributor(s): Effros, B. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0312227361 ISBN-13: 9780312227364 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan OUR PRICE: $123.49 Product Type: Hardcover Published: February 2003 Annotation: Feasting and fasting rituals were a central facet of social interaction in early medieval Gaul. With the adoption of Christianity in the third and fourth centuries in cosmopolitan centers and in the fifth and sixth centuries in rural communities, clerics faced the challenge of guiding recent converts with little understanding of Christianity beyond the rudimentary catechism necessary for baptism. While priests condemned blatantly pagan celebrations, they could not eliminate the powerful networks sustained by food and drink rituals. Accommodation of existing rites did not, however, represent pagan survivals. Using contemporary saints' lives, canonical legislation, penitentials, theological tracts, monastic Rules and cemeterial remains, Bonnie Effros presents five essays addressing the ways in which clerical authors portrayed rites involving food and drink in their attempts to define membership in religious communities, strengthen their relationships with the laity, highlight gender differences, bring about the healing of the sick and maintain ties to deceased ancestors. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Western Europe - General - Social Science | Popular Culture - History | Europe - Medieval |
| Dewey: 306.409 |
| LCCN: 2002025396 |
| Series: New Middle Ages |
| Physical Information: 0.66" H x 5.94" W x 8.72" (0.74 lbs) 174 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Medieval (500-1453) |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul exposes the manner in which feasting and fasting, in other words, ritualized actions not performed solely for the purpose of nourishment, were central to social interaction in Gaul both prior and subsequent to Christianization of the mixed population of Franks and Gallo-Romans. In exploring these issues using a multidisciplinary methodology, Effros suggests that scholars may assess historical manifestations of the use of food and drink to create and reinforce the social hierarchy. Effros addresses the tensions between monastic and lay communities and focuses on patronage through food and drink as a source of informal power, a subject too often overlooked in favour of institutional structures more familiar to twentieth-century historians. |