Description
Book SynopsisNew essays shed light on the mysterious St Samson of Dol and his Vita. The First Life of St Samson of Dol (Vita Prima Samsonis) is a key text for the study of early Welsh, Cornish, Breton and indeed west Frankish history. In the twentieth century it was the subject of unresolved scholarly controversy that tended to limit its usefulness. However, more recent research has firmly re-established its significance as a historical source. This volume presents the results of new, multi-disciplinary, assessment of the textand its context. What emerges from the studies collected here is a context of greater plausibility for the First Life of St Samson of Dol as an early and essentially historical text, potentially at the centre of early British Christianity and its influence on the Continent. The landscape of that Christianity is gradually emerging from the shadows and it is a landscape in which the career of St Samson, the first Insular peregrinus, is shown to be of considerable importance. LYNETTE OLSON is an Honorary Associate of the Department of History, University of Sydney. Contributors: Caroline Brett, Karen Jankulak, Constant J. Mews, Lynette Olson, Joseph-Claude Poulin, Richard Sowerby, Ian N. Wood, Jonathan M. Wooding.
Trade Review[A] very interesting collection. * HEREDITAS NEXUS *
This volume advances scholarship on VIS and will prompt further study; anyone interested in the early medieval history of Brittany or the wider Insular milieu will find it valuable. -- Ali Bonner * Journal of British Studies *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: 'Getting Somewhere' with the First Life of St Samson of Dol - Lynette Olson A Family and its Saint in the Vita prima Samsonis - Richard Sowerby La circulation de l'information dans la Vie ancienne de s. Samson de Dol et la question de sa datation - Joseph-Claude Poulin The Hare and the Tortoise? Vita Prima Sancti Samsonis, Vita Paterni and Merovingian Hagiography - Caroline Brett Columbanus, the Britons and the Merovingian Church - Ian Nicholas Wood Apostolic Authority and Celtic Liturgies: from the Vita Samsonis to the Ratio de cursus - Constant J Mews The Representation of Early British Monasticism and Peregrinatio in Vita Prima S. Samsonis - Jonathan M Wooding Present and yet Absent: the Cult of St Samson of Dol in Wales - Karen Jankulak Bibliography
