Description
Book SynopsisCentral to current understandings of medieval history is the concept of political ritual, encompassing events from coronations to funerals, entries into cities, civic games, banquets, hunting, acts of submission or commendation, and more. This book argues that the concept shouldn't be so central after all.
Trade Review"This attempt to bring medievalists into fuller awareness of the social science theories they employ but often have never studied at length is most commendable."--Choice "An intelligent and curious work, informed throughout by wide learning, acute argumentation, and discerning, sometimes brilliant, readings of medieval texts."--Gabrielle M. Spiegel, American Historical Review
Table of ContentsPreface vii Abbreviations ix INTRODUCTION 1 PART I: Late Antique and Early Medieval Narratives 13 CHAPTER ONE: Writing Ottonian Hegemony: Good Rituals and Bad Rituals in Liudprand of Cremona 13 CHAPTER TWO: Ritual Consensus and Ritual Violence: Texts and Events in Ninth-Century Carolingian Political Culture 15 CHAPTER THREE: Rites of Saints and Rites of Kings: Consensus and Transgression in the Works of Gregory of Tours 88 CHAPTER FOUR: The Late Antique Matrix: Martyrdom and Ritual 123 PART II: From Theology to the Social Sciences ca. 1500-ca. 1970 159 CHAPTER FIVE: Rites, Rituals, and Order, ca. 1500-ca. 1800 164 CHAPTER SIX: Medieval History and the Social Sciences, ca. 1800-ca. 1970 203 CHAPTER SEVEN: Epilogue 248 Index 263 The Bibliography for this book can be found in its entirety on the Princeton University Press website www.pup.princeton.edu/biblios/buc.
