Nouvelle acquisition : The Oxford handbook of the merovingian world

EFFROS Bonnie (ed.), MOREIRA Isabel (dir.)
The Oxford handbook of the merovingian world
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2020, XVIII-1141 p.
Collection Oxford hanbooks
ISBN 978-19-023418-8

HMA 492

Résumé éditeur :

The Merovingian era is one of the best studied yet least well known periofs of European history. From the fifth to the eight centuries, in a region that now comprisesFrance, southern Belgium, Luxembourg, Rhineland Germany, and part of modern Switzerland, the population of Merovingian Gaul, a mix of Gallo-roman inhabitants and Germanic arrivals under the political control of the Merovingian dynasty, sought to preserve, use, and reimagine the political, cultural, and religious power of ancient Rome while simultaneously forging the beginnings of what would become medieval European culture.

The forty-six essays included in this volume highlight why the Merovingian era is at the heart of historical debates about what happened to Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. The essays demonstrate that the inhabitants of the Merovingian kingdoms in these centuries created a culturelle that was the product of earlier traditions, achieving a balance between the world they inherited and the imaginative solutions they bequeathed to Europe. The Handbook  highlights new perspectives and scientific approaches that shape our changing view of this extraordinary era by showing that Merovingian Gaul was situated at the crossroads of Europe, connecting the Mediterranean and the British Isles with the Byzantine Empire, and benefitting from the global reach of the late Roman Empire. It tells the story of the Merovingian world through archaeology, bio-archaeology, architecture, hagiographic, literature, historiography, history, legal texts, liturgy, visionary literature and eschatology, numismatics, and material culture. (4e de couv.)