Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages: The Proceedings of the First Alcuin Conference (Studies in the Early Middle Ages)

Court culture has been the subject of increasing interest, reflecting the importance of the role of the court in the ruling of the state, not only as its political nerve center but also as its moral and cultural heart. The court acted as a magnet for the ambitious and disseminated courtly norms throughout society. Court culture was political culture articulated in ideological, religious and artistic forms. For the early Middle Ages, the scholarly and artistic achievements of Charlemagne's court have tended to overshadow other aspects of Carolingian court life, its role as a moral center for the kingdom, for example, while other early medieval European courts have been neglected by comparison. This volume sets the study of early medieval political culture upon a new footing by its wide-ranging and interdisciplinary examination of the place of the court in the kingdom and its role as a centre of intellectual and religious debate. It brings together sixteen studies by historians, literary scholars, art historians and an archaeologist, and includes the new exciting works of younger scholars as well as that of the internationally renown. The volume focuses upon France, England, Lombard and papal Italy, and Byzantium in the 8th and 9th centuries. CONTENTS: Introduction (Catherine Cubitt); "A place of discipline": Carolingian courts and aristocratic youth' (Janet Nelson); The paradoxes of patronage: courtliness and carping (Mary Garrison); Charlemagne's court library revisited (Donald Bullough); Mathematics at Charlemagne's court and its transmission (Paul Butzer & K. Butzer); Lawrence Nees, The illustrated manuscript of the Visio Baranti in St Petersburg (Russian National Library, cod. Oct. V. I. 5) (Lawrence Nees); Carolingian royal palaces: an architectural view (Uwe Lobbedy); Anglo-Saxon royal courts (James Campbell).