Roger J . H . Collins - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Books by Roger J . H . Collins
Chased by Bulldogs. A Historian's Tale, 2025
"This memoir of the author's early years details the advantages of a weirdly dysfunctional family... more "This memoir of the author's early years details the advantages of a weirdly dysfunctional family, a mysterious Irish ancestry, a violent and expensive prep-school (where he failed to blow up the headmaster with gunpowder), some good teaching - and some very bad - and life as a teenage carer. Other topics include the dangers of sport and upper-crust drinking dens in Brighton and Hove, along with a wide range of sometimes bizarre travels: from Sarajevo to East Berlin and Leningrad, and from Erzurum to Ouarzazate, not to mention encounters with pink gin and false teeth in Eastbourne. It concludes with an account of the author's four years of university at Oxford, lived in a style now unlikely to be encountered and including the episode that gives the book its title."
This book offers the first collective discussion, by archaeologists, historians and philologists,... more This book offers the first collective discussion, by archaeologists, historians and philologists, of a corpus of six charters (four of which recently discovered) that all came from or are linked to the archive of the monastery of Asán. The various contributions examine the monastery in its territorial context across the centuries, and its economic underpinning through the exploitation of its estates. Also included are explorations of monastic life in the eastern Pyrenees, which provides some of the earliest evidence for it in the peninsula, and consideration of its connections to early Gallic and Italian monasticism. Asán is also the source of the earliest evidence for the use of particular forms of documentary record or charter in the Iberian Peninsula in the post-Roman period. These texts offer unexpected and important information about the legal and administrative practices of the Visigothic monarchy in the late sixth century and of the monastery’s connections to it. Amongst these are its role in providing a succession of bishops for important dioceses in the provinces of Tarraconensis and Narbonensis, in a period normally seen as being marked by religious conflict between church and state. Amongst other bodies of evidence studied here are later texts relating to Asán, including the hagiographic dossiers of Victorianus, abbot of Asán, and of Gaudiosus, bishop of Tarrazona, with new critical editions of several of them being included in this book.
Early Medieval Spain, 400-1000
The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710-797
Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000
Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain
Oxford Archaeological Guide to Spain
Visigothic Spain, 409-711
Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy
Caliphs and Kings: Spain, 796-1031 (Wiley-Blackwell, published April 2012)
N&N Journal Volumes by Roger J . H . Collins
SUMMA Revista de Cultures Medievals, 2022
Half a century ago, the evidence for monastic life and practices in the Visigothic king- dom cons... more Half a century ago, the evidence for monastic life and practices in the Visigothic king- dom consisted entirely of literary sources of very unequal merit, both in the value of their contents and its interpretation, and in the quality of the editions of them. Over recent decades, the latter has improved, though the lack of a proper critical edition of most of the monastic rules of the period remains a great weakness. After a slightly hesitant start, caused by disagreements over chronology, archaeology has come to play a central role in uncovering and understanding the evidence for Visigothic mo- nasticism. Comparisons with discoveries made in several other geographical contexts, ranging from Egypt to the islands of the Hebrides, can enhance understanding of its scale and importance in the Iberian Peninsula in the post-Roman centuries. While much work remains to be done, it seems from what has now been achieved that His- panic monasticism was far more extensive and more varied in character than would have been believed fifty years ago. Textual editing and study now need to be accelerat- ed, to keep pace with expected further archaeological discoveries, to provide a better understanding of this important aspect of the history of the Visigothic kingdom.
Revista Diálogos Mediterránicos, 2021
Amongst the many achievements of Peter Brown may be included the ways in which he has taught us t... more Amongst the many achievements of Peter Brown may be included the ways in which he has taught us to understand and value the testimony of the Saints Lives and other hagiographic texts of Late Antiquity that often seemed baffling to scholars of earlier generations. On the other hand, sa small number of these hagiographic texts can appear so transparently historical in the nature and details of their content, as not to seem in need of such careful interpretation. In the western Mediterranean the Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium is an outstanding example of such a work, that has been used to throw light on a range of topics, from medicine to architecture, beyond the confines of the events in later sixth century Mérida that it describes, and largely without raising any questions as to the reliability of its narrative. However, when this can be compared with that provided by other, more clearly contemporary historiographical sources, its account usually proves to be erroneous or misleading. This article reopens questions long thought closed, or which have been ignored, as to the origins, nature and purpose of the work, so as to enable the strengths and weaknesses of its evidence be better understood.
A story of manuscripts found and now lost, and what they can tell us of the intellectual culture ... more A story of manuscripts found and now lost, and what they can tell us of the intellectual culture of the last decades of the Gothic kingdom in Spain.
Networks and Neighbours, 2015
Roger Collins, Review of Ian Wood, The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, Networks and Neig... more Roger Collins, Review of Ian Wood, The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, Networks and Neighbours 3.1 (2015), 48-50
Book Reviews by Roger J . H . Collins
Continuity and Change, 2018
Draft of a review of Robert Portass 'The Village World of Early Medieval Northern Spain'
Chased by Bulldogs. A Historian's Tale, 2025
"This memoir of the author's early years details the advantages of a weirdly dysfunctional family... more "This memoir of the author's early years details the advantages of a weirdly dysfunctional family, a mysterious Irish ancestry, a violent and expensive prep-school (where he failed to blow up the headmaster with gunpowder), some good teaching - and some very bad - and life as a teenage carer. Other topics include the dangers of sport and upper-crust drinking dens in Brighton and Hove, along with a wide range of sometimes bizarre travels: from Sarajevo to East Berlin and Leningrad, and from Erzurum to Ouarzazate, not to mention encounters with pink gin and false teeth in Eastbourne. It concludes with an account of the author's four years of university at Oxford, lived in a style now unlikely to be encountered and including the episode that gives the book its title."
This book offers the first collective discussion, by archaeologists, historians and philologists,... more This book offers the first collective discussion, by archaeologists, historians and philologists, of a corpus of six charters (four of which recently discovered) that all came from or are linked to the archive of the monastery of Asán. The various contributions examine the monastery in its territorial context across the centuries, and its economic underpinning through the exploitation of its estates. Also included are explorations of monastic life in the eastern Pyrenees, which provides some of the earliest evidence for it in the peninsula, and consideration of its connections to early Gallic and Italian monasticism. Asán is also the source of the earliest evidence for the use of particular forms of documentary record or charter in the Iberian Peninsula in the post-Roman period. These texts offer unexpected and important information about the legal and administrative practices of the Visigothic monarchy in the late sixth century and of the monastery’s connections to it. Amongst these are its role in providing a succession of bishops for important dioceses in the provinces of Tarraconensis and Narbonensis, in a period normally seen as being marked by religious conflict between church and state. Amongst other bodies of evidence studied here are later texts relating to Asán, including the hagiographic dossiers of Victorianus, abbot of Asán, and of Gaudiosus, bishop of Tarrazona, with new critical editions of several of them being included in this book.
Early Medieval Spain, 400-1000
The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710-797
Early Medieval Europe, 300-1000
Law, Culture and Regionalism in Early Medieval Spain
Oxford Archaeological Guide to Spain
Visigothic Spain, 409-711
Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy
Caliphs and Kings: Spain, 796-1031 (Wiley-Blackwell, published April 2012)
SUMMA Revista de Cultures Medievals, 2022
Half a century ago, the evidence for monastic life and practices in the Visigothic king- dom cons... more Half a century ago, the evidence for monastic life and practices in the Visigothic king- dom consisted entirely of literary sources of very unequal merit, both in the value of their contents and its interpretation, and in the quality of the editions of them. Over recent decades, the latter has improved, though the lack of a proper critical edition of most of the monastic rules of the period remains a great weakness. After a slightly hesitant start, caused by disagreements over chronology, archaeology has come to play a central role in uncovering and understanding the evidence for Visigothic mo- nasticism. Comparisons with discoveries made in several other geographical contexts, ranging from Egypt to the islands of the Hebrides, can enhance understanding of its scale and importance in the Iberian Peninsula in the post-Roman centuries. While much work remains to be done, it seems from what has now been achieved that His- panic monasticism was far more extensive and more varied in character than would have been believed fifty years ago. Textual editing and study now need to be accelerat- ed, to keep pace with expected further archaeological discoveries, to provide a better understanding of this important aspect of the history of the Visigothic kingdom.
Revista Diálogos Mediterránicos, 2021
Amongst the many achievements of Peter Brown may be included the ways in which he has taught us t... more Amongst the many achievements of Peter Brown may be included the ways in which he has taught us to understand and value the testimony of the Saints Lives and other hagiographic texts of Late Antiquity that often seemed baffling to scholars of earlier generations. On the other hand, sa small number of these hagiographic texts can appear so transparently historical in the nature and details of their content, as not to seem in need of such careful interpretation. In the western Mediterranean the Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium is an outstanding example of such a work, that has been used to throw light on a range of topics, from medicine to architecture, beyond the confines of the events in later sixth century Mérida that it describes, and largely without raising any questions as to the reliability of its narrative. However, when this can be compared with that provided by other, more clearly contemporary historiographical sources, its account usually proves to be erroneous or misleading. This article reopens questions long thought closed, or which have been ignored, as to the origins, nature and purpose of the work, so as to enable the strengths and weaknesses of its evidence be better understood.
A story of manuscripts found and now lost, and what they can tell us of the intellectual culture ... more A story of manuscripts found and now lost, and what they can tell us of the intellectual culture of the last decades of the Gothic kingdom in Spain.
Networks and Neighbours, 2015
Roger Collins, Review of Ian Wood, The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, Networks and Neig... more Roger Collins, Review of Ian Wood, The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, Networks and Neighbours 3.1 (2015), 48-50
Continuity and Change, 2018
Draft of a review of Robert Portass 'The Village World of Early Medieval Northern Spain'
American Historical Review, 2018
Draft of a review published in The American Historical Review, vol. 123 (October, 2018), pp. 1370... more Draft of a review published in The American Historical Review, vol. 123 (October, 2018), pp. 1370-1371
Nuevas Visiones del Reino de Asturias, 2020
Some revisionary thoughts on several aspects of the early history of the Kingdom of Asturias, pre... more Some revisionary thoughts on several aspects of the early history of the Kingdom of Asturias, presented to a conference in Oviedo and then published in its proceedings.
Los Rebanos De Gerion: Pastores Y Transchumanica En Iberia Antigua Y Medieval
Choice Reviews Online, 2012
Monks and missionaries
Early Medieval Europe 300–1000, 1991
The processes that led to the cultural realignments of the seventh and eighth centuries were by n... more The processes that led to the cultural realignments of the seventh and eighth centuries were by no means exclusively negative ones. One of the most striking features of the second half of this period in particular was the way in which the former physical and intellectual boundaries of the Roman world came to be superseded. The frontiers of the Empire had represented the limits of the civilised world as far as its inhabitants were concerned, and those who lived beyond them were of little or no interest, other than so far as they represented a periodic menace to peace and good order. There was no sense in which it was felt necessary to try to export the benefits of Roman civilisation to such ‘barbarians’.
Nouvelles chartes visigothiques du monastère pyrénéen d’Asán
This book offers the first collective discussion, by archaeologists, historians and philologists,... more This book offers the first collective discussion, by archaeologists, historians and philologists, of a corpus of six charters (four of which recently discovered) that all came from or are linked to the archive of the monastery of Asán. The various contributions examine the monastery in its territorial context across the centuries, and its economic underpinning through the exploitation of its estates. Also included are explorations of monastic life in the eastern Pyrenees, which provides some of the earliest evidence for it in the peninsula, and consideration of its connections to early Gallic and Italian monasticism. Asán is also the source of the earliest evidence for the use of particular forms of documentary record or charter in the Iberian Peninsula in the post-Roman period. These texts offer unexpected and important information about the legal and administrative practices of the Visigothic monarchy in the late sixth century and of the monastery’s connections to it. Amongst thes...
Continuity and Change, 2018
10. The 'Reviser' Revisited: Another Look at the Alternative Version of the Annales Regni Francorum
After Rome's Fall, 1998
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 1994
Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, "Vie chrétienne et culture dans l'Espagne du VIIe au Xe siècles" (Book Review)
Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 1994
Of all the major literary figures of Visigothic Spain, Valerius is probably, at first sight, the ... more Of all the major literary figures of Visigothic Spain, Valerius is probably, at first sight, the oddest, certainly the least well understood, and the most unjustly vilified. Unlike the other principal writers of the period he has made no mark in contemporary records other than in ...
The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes
The English Historical Review, 2001
The question of when the Basques were converted to Christianity has been long debated, with the a... more The question of when the Basques were converted to Christianity has been long debated, with the answers given ranging over a period extending from the fourth century at the earliest to the twelfth at the latest. Proponents of both the early and the late dates for the conversion have considerable strength in their arguments. In trying to resolve this problem it is necessary to take account of changes in ethnic self perception in the Upper Ebro Valley and Western Pyrenees, especially in the period of the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire and the formation of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. Changes in Basque attitudes towards their neighbours were largely the product of altered political and economic circumstance that were triggered off by the dissolution of the Roman state. One major consequence of this was the growth of division and mutual hostility between mountain-dwelling pastoralists and lowland agriculturalists in the Western Pyrenees. Both of these two ec...
The Last Crusade in the West: Castile and the Conquest of Granada
Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 2014
Charlemagne's Early Campaigns (768-777): A Diplomatic and Military Analysis, by Bernard S. Bachrach
The English Historical Review, 2015
¿Donde estaban los arrianos en el año 589?
Concilio Iii De Toledo Xiv Centenario 589 1989 1991 Isbn 84 404 9971 X Pags 211 222, 1991
Journal of Medieval History, Mar 31, 1996
La Europa de la alta Edad Media: 300-1000
... 810 conflicto franco con Godofredo 814-840 reinado de Luis el Piadoso 817 «Ordinatio Imperii»... more ... 810 conflicto franco con Godofredo 814-840 reinado de Luis el Piadoso 817 «Ordinatio Imperii» 829 compilación de la «Historia Britlonum» 835 ... 978-1016 reinado de Etelredo el Desprevenido 980 ataques vikingos contra el sur de Inglaterra 991 batalla de Maldon década del ...
Antiguedad Y Cristianismo Monografias Historicas Sobre La Antiguedad Tardia, 1990
The question of when the Basques were converted to Christianity has been long debated, with the a... more The question of when the Basques were converted to Christianity has been long debated, with the answers given ranging over a period extending from the fourth century at the earliest to the twelfth at the latest. Proponents of both the early and the late dates for the conversion have considerable strength in their arguments. In trying to resolve this problem it is necessary to take account of changes in ethnic self-perception in the Upper Ebro Valley and Western Pyrenees, especially in the period of the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire and the formation of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. Changes in Basque attitudes towards their neighbours were largely the product of altered political and economic circumstance that were triggered off by the dissolution of the Roman state. One major consequence of this was the growth of division and mutual hostility between mountain-dwelling pastoralists and lowland agriculturalists in the Western Pyrenees. Both of these two economic groups had, until the early fifth century, coexisted under the single ethnic label of Vascones, a name of considerable antiquity, but from then on a sharp sense of ethnic differentiation emerged between the two communities. Thus it is possible to reconcile evidence for the early conversion of one section of Basque population and for the late acceptance of Christianity on the part of another, once this radical disjunction in a previously unified sense of identity be appreciated. 38 Ed. LACARRA, J. M.; «Textos navarros del códice de Roda»,
Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia (Book)
English Historical Review, 2002
Sofia Meyer, Der heilige Vinzenz von Zaragoza: Studien zur Präsenz eines Märtyrers zwischen Spätantike und Hochmittelalter. (Gesichte; Beiträge zur Hagiographie 10.) Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2012. Paper. Pp. 383. €64. ISBN: 978-3-515-09068-1
Speculum, 2014
A draft of a contribution to the festschrift for Tom Brown
Draft of my contribution to 'Transforming the Early Medieval World: Studies in Honour of Ian N. W... more Draft of my contribution to 'Transforming the Early Medieval World: Studies in Honour of Ian N. Wood', ed. N. Kivilcim Yavuz and Richard Broome (Kismet Press, 2018)
Like its two predecessors in this trilogy of books on Crusade and Reconquista in medieval Spain t... more Like its two predecessors in this trilogy of books on Crusade and Reconquista in medieval Spain this is a work that could be described as the historiographical equivalent of a swan on a pond. Above the surface a stately form is proceeding on its way with no apparent effort; below the waterline there is strenuous and unremitting paddling taking place that makes possible the seemingly serene progress of the whole. The visible upper part here comes in the form of a seamless narrative that describes the various conflicts between the major Christian states of the Iberian Peninsula, Castile in particular but also Portugal, and the gradually diminishing Muslim enclave that was the Nasrid Emirate of Granada, from the death of Alfonso XI in 1350 to the fall of the city of Granada in 1492. A brief introduction lists the major literary-historical texts written in this period and which describe some of the events that took place, but the assessments of the value of their differing accounts, the resolution of contradictions between them, and the historian's personal judgments upon which the formation of the overall narrative rest are largely concealed, or kept firmly to the end notes of each chapter. Academic dispute and scholarly uncertainty are largely eschewed in the interests of pace and direction. In some cases problems and discrepancies are noted in passing, but without any attempt being made to solve them. For example, the figures for the improbable sizes of opposing military forces are quoted in the text, with no more than a warning that they should not be accepted literally. Nothing is allowed to interrupt the flow of the narrative, which proceeds majestically in its coverage of the sequence of events. There are great merits to such an approach to writing a work of this sort that has to cover nearly a century and a half
