Paul the Deacon Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Early Medieval History, History of Historiography, the Longobards, Paul the Deacon
- by Alberto Aldrovandi
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- Gender Studies, Correspondence Analysis, Langobards, Byzantine Italy

Paul’s Lombard History was a great success, and survives in well over a hundred medieval copies. Like other early medieval histories, it reected and negotiated the integration of the respective gentes into a larger social whole, a Christian world of Latin kingdoms; these texts contributed to giving Goths, Anglo-Saxons, and Lombards a significance that would long outlast their independent rule. These were histories of integration: ‘barbarian’ histo-ries that pointed to a more inclusive Christian political landscape. Like other authors, Paul carefully faded out the barbarian, pagan, and heretical past of the Lombards in the course of his narrative. But that does not mean that he obliterated their ethnic identity and its political significance. In his view, the Lombards as a gens were entitled to rule Italy, and their claim was legitimized by their Christian beliefs and veneration of saints. Social status, ethnic identity, and political sovereignty depended on each other, and had come to be ÿrmly embedded in a Christian universe. What makes the post-Roman histories of peoples and polities — and Paul’s Historia Langobardorum in particular — so interesting is not so much that they promoted a particular ethnic or political identity, but how they placed it in a much more complex set of concerns.

- by Walter Pohl
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- Historiography, Early Medieval History, Langobards, Paul the Deacon

In its dealings with women, the Lombard state was highly oppressive. As indicated by the Lombard laws, Rothari’s Edict and the Laws of King Grimwald, illustrate that much restriction was placed on the freedom of action possessed by women. This subordinate position was likely based on old attitudes about a woman’s inherent sinfulness, notably in sexual matters, as seen in surviving narrative sources which heavily criticised the sexual behaviour of Lombard queens. As indicated by medieval narrative sources, ‘woman’ was a marked gendered; medieval people considered ‘man’ as the human standard, and women as capable of extraordinary good, as seen with the Virgin Mary, and evil, as would have been explicated by Eve. That is, a woman could be recognized as either esteemed or maligned, and in some cases both seemed to apply. In Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards, we are given several portrayals of women, some myth and others historical accounts of Lombard queens. As one of the few primary sources for Lombard history, Paul’s portrayal of femininity upholds medieval gender ideology. The ubiquitous idea of a hierarchical gender binary, which saw ‘man’ as more perfectly human than ‘woman,’ constrained medieval ideas about sexual difference and the agency of women.

- by Simrat Pannu Jenabzadeh
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- Medieval Women, Feminism, Lombards, Paul the Deacon

Looking for the context of the vernacular translation of Amatus of Montecassino’s Historia Normannorum (the French MS 688 of the National Library of France). The considered manuscript (Southern Italy, mid-14th cent.) has been known mainly for its being a unique testimony of the Historia Normannorum, an important historiographical narration on the Norman conquest of Southern Italy, written at the end of the 11th century. The author emphasizes that the manuscript and miscellany themselves (containing translations of Isidore of Seville’s Chronica, Paul the Deacon’s Historia romana and Historia Langobardorum, and of the so-called Historia Sicula) are worth studying and that only such an integral approach may enable the evaluation of French translation as the testimony of a lost Latin original. The following questions are discussed: paleographical and codicological features of the manuscript, its illuminations, the time and milieu of production of both the manuscript and the translations, the models for the miscellany, the relationship between single translations and the manuscript tradition of respective Latin compositions and the place occupied by the considered manuscript in the transmission of the miscellany

This paper explores the tale – which is also a saga – of the escape of Lopichis, a Langobard, from the Avaro-Slavic captivity in the first half of the 7th century, described by Paul the Deacon in his «Historia Langobardorum» (book IV, chapter 37). Lopichis was the great-grandfather of Paul the Deacon. The analysis focuses on the episodes of the encounter with a wolf who tooks the leadership until Lopichis decided to shoot him with a bow; and the encounter with an old Slavic woman who saves the young man from the death. The tale written by Paul the Deacon is formed by two opposite sections: the first figures as a descensus ad inferos, the second as ascensio to the salvation.

- by armando bisanti
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- Medieval History, Medieval Latin Literature, Paul the Deacon
- by Elsa Filosa
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- Sexuality and chivalry/courtly love, Seneca, Boccaccio, Courtly Love

Di fronte ai numerosi problemi che pone la fragilità strutturale della regalità longobarda, evidente alla luce delle numerose usurpazioni e detronizzazioni nel corso della sua storia (569-774), appare centrale il tema della conferma dell’acquisizione del potere da parte di un nuovo sovrano, anche attraverso cerimonie e oggetti di specifico valore simbolico. In tal senso, vale la pena sottolineare come nell’evoluzione delle forme dei vari ‘linguaggi del potere’ adottati dalle espressioni della regalità, non sia mai mancato l’utilizzo di oggetti e rituali che confermassero a livello simbolico l’avvenuta assunzione e la transizione della sovranità.

The Historia Romana was the most popular work on Roman history in the Middle Ages. A highly interesting aspect of its transmission and reception are its many redactions which bear witness to the continuous development of the text in line with changing historical contexts. This study presents the very first classification of such rewritings, and produces new insights into historiographical discourse in the Middle Ages. Drawing on an analysis of the paraphrase contained in the manuscript Bamberg Hist. 3, which is edited here for the first time, the author offers numerous examples of textual transformations of language, style and ideology, all of which give us a clearer picture of textual fluidity in medieval historiography.

- by Marek T Kretschmer
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- Roman History, Medieval History, Medieval Historiography, Manuscript Studies

An Undergraduate thesis (2017) for the degree of Ancient and Modern History at the University of Oxford on Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum, and the perspectives on relations between Lombards, Franks and Avars within it. It explores the contextual events surrounding the interactions between the three people and seeks to understand how Paul's portrayal of each faction may lead to a better understanding of his agenda and aim when writing this work.

- by Valery Charachon
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- Early Middle Ages (History), Franks, Lombards, Paul the Deacon
- by Fabio Romanoni
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- Medieval History, Slavic Languages, Medieval Studies, Slavery

Paul the Deacon in his Liber de episcopis Mettensibus relates an origin myth about the Carolingian dynasty. This myth consisted of two elements that the Carolingians were descendants of the Trojans through Aeneas and that they were also descended from St. Arnulf of Metz. The historical sources available to Paul the Deacon (Fredegar Chronicles, Historia vel Gesta Francorum, Liber historiae Francorum, and Vita sancti Arnulfi) are surveyed in order to determine the derivation of Paul’s ideas. The conclusion is reached that the origin myth was a literary concoction of Paul the Deacon based on pre-existing traditions. Those traditions were literary, legendary, and local in nature.

- by corey Nason
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- Carolingian Studies, Paul the Deacon
- by Alberto Aldrovandi
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- Old Norse Literature, Medieval Scandinavia, Old Norse Language, Sagas
- by Alberto Aldrovandi
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- Old Norse Literature, Medieval Scandinavia, Old Norse Language, Sagas

Writing the Barbarian Past examines the presentation of the non-Roman, pre-Christian past in Latin and vernacular historical narratives composed between c.550 and c.1000: the Gothic histories of Jordanes and Isidore of Seville, the Fredegar chronicle, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, Waltharius, and Beowulf; it also examines the evidence for an oral vernacular tradition of historical narrative in this period.
In this book, Shami Ghosh analyses the relative significance granted to the Roman and non-Roman inheritances in narratives of the distant past, and what the use of this past reveals about the historical consciousness of early medieval elites, and demonstrates that for them, cultural identity was conceived of in less binary terms than in most modern scholarship.

- by Shami Ghosh
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- Medieval History, Anglo-Saxon Studies, Medieval Historiography, Historiography

An examination of the Lombard version of judicial duel, a Germanic institution that shaped the history of post-Roman West. Praxis and ideology are reconstructed by confronting Langobard sources with other Romano-barbaric kingdoms and the later Norse tradition. An attempt is made at tracking the early history of duel, from pagan and tribal times to Christianity, and further on as a feudal institution and a nobiliar privilege.

- by Benjamin Garstad
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- Alexander the Great, Langobards, Scylla, John Malalas Chronography

This book is an important and effective contribution to the literature on Carolingian Europe. It joins an expanding range of works that seek to understand the impact of the Carolingian Renaissance on the ground in late eighth-and early ninth-century Western Europe. Rather than a work composed of unsubstantiated assertions and airy generalisations, throughout this book Guiliano is careful to ground his conclusions in a thorough and careful-but also measured and deeply coherent-structured argument. In this way, not only does he succeed in providing an outline of the Homiliary but also engages with the thorny issues of practical use and impact.

Nella "tragedia" «Due lotrices», inserita da Giovanni di Garlandia all'interno della sua «Poetria Nova» a guisa di "specimen" di composizione tragica, ci si trova di fronte a un personaggio femminile assolutamente negativo, una lavandaia che, per gelosia e ripicca nei confronti di una sua collega, non esita a mettere in moto un meccanismo perverso che si concluderà con una vera e propria strage, nella quale perderanno la vita ben 60 persone. Il personaggio risente molto, così come Giovanni ce lo presenta, della ricchissima tradizione di poesia misogina medievale. Ma è significativo che, alle origini di questa figura di donna, vi siano da una lato un modello classico (Scilla), dall'altro un modello mediolatino (Romilda, protagonista di uno degli episodi più giustamente celebri della «Historia Langobardorum» di Paolo Diacono).

- by armando bisanti
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- Medieval Latin Literature, Paul the Deacon, John of Garland

This paper deals with the recently discovered Boccaccio’s autograph of Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, the manuscript London, British Library, Harley 5383. Along with its membra disiecta Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana, 627 and 2795(VI), it forms a handbook of ancient, roman and mediaeval history (besides the Historia Langobardorum, Paul Orose’s Historiae adversus paganos, Paul the Deacon’s Historia Romana, books XIII-XVI, Pasquale Romano’s brief epistle De origine civitatis Aretii) almost entirely copied by Boccaccio.
After recalling the circumstances of its finding, the paper points out that text of Historia Langobardorum contained in Harley 5383 and in its membrum disiectum Riccard. 2795(VI) is abridged, more than the 20% of its chapters missing or being epitomized; whether Boccaccio was also the author of this version of Paul the Deacon’s work or simply its scribe remains under discussion.

- by Laura Pani
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- Paul the Deacon, Giovanni Boccaccio

Recens. pubblicata in «Mediaeval Sophia» 4 (2008), pp. 276-279.

- by armando bisanti
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- Medieval Latin Literature, Gregory the Great, Paul the Deacon, Gregory of tours

Only through a protracted and challenging process at the end of the nineteenth-century was Paul the Deacon (Paulus Diaconus) correctly identiﬁed as the author of the abridged version of Festus’s De verborum signiﬁcatione that was in circulation in medieval times. However, a group of French scholars had already reached this conclusion during the Renaissance. Te purpose of this study is to reconstruct the cultural path followed by the antiquarians and philologists who were able to make this important discovery ante litteram: by examining the many Renaissance editions of Festus, the perception of Paul’s authorship emerges, revealing how scholars realised that the unidentiﬁed Paulus was in fact the Diaconus historian of the Goths and Lombards.

- by Damiano Acciarino
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- Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, Renaissance Humanism, Renaissance

Byzantine influence on the Regnum Langobardorum
according Paul the Deacon.

This is chapter 2.6. from my thesis Corda regum in manum Dei. Here I have analyzed the story of the parental group known as Letingi in the Lombard Kingdom, with attention to the asptect of the royal deposition, the matrilineal... more

- by Giovanni Rachello
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- Kingship (Medieval History), Lombards, Paul the Deacon, Early Medieval Italy

The aim of this article is to consider the depiction of violence and Islamic protagonists in Erchempert’s Historia Langobardorum Beneventanorum, a ninth-century southern Italian source which describes the prevailing political and socio-economic circumstances of the south of Italy. It will suggest that whilst violence cannot be excised as a facet of inter-communal relations in southern mainland Italy that one should, nonetheless, exercise some caution in accepting the assertions of western sources such as Erchempert’s Historia whose work has a particular context and discourse. The fundamental influence of Erchempert’s portrayal can, if weighted excessively, undermine a balanced view of southern Italy in the ninth-century and his comments on the Muslims need to be understood within the context of his narrative aims.

- by Christopher Heath
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- Medieval History, Violence, Italian (European History), Italian Studies

The Collectio Pauli, the sylloge of the Registrum Epistolarum of Gregory the Great compiled by Paul the Deacon on request of Adalard of Corbie, is at the core of this research. The Collectio is structured in thematic units designed to support the legitimacy of certain claims of the Carolingians. The autonomy of the Frankish Church to deliberate on the worship of images is among them through the recourse to the Roman papal authority embodied by Gregory. However, along with the originals of Gregory, an interpolated letter in which the pope is represented as fervent iconodule (Registrum, IX, 148) converges in the Collectio as well. The presence of this text will be able to strongly influence the ongoing debate among the Frankish theologians and the papacy.

- by Alberto Ricciardi
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- Medieval History, Papacy (Medieval Church History), False Memory, Charlemagne
- by Matthew T Corbitt
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- Christianity, Educational Leadership, Theology, History of Christianity

Edizione critica a cura di Chiara Santarossa.
Si presenta qui una nuova edizione critica del «Liber de episcopis Mettensibus» di Paolo
Diacono, basata su sette testimoni manoscritti vergati tra il IX e il XVII secolo. Fra le opere meno note dello studioso longobardo, il «Liber» fu compilato attorno al 784 su richiesta di Angilramno, vescovo di Metz e capo della cappella palatina; l’opera ripercorre la storia dei vescovi mettensi dalla fondazione fino alla morte di Crodegango († 766), predecessore del committente, e, sulla scorta del modello del «Liber Pontificalis» romano e del «De episcopis Turonicis» di Gregorio di Tours, innesta nella base elencativa del catalogo episcopale ampliamenti leggendari, agiografici e storici.
Per la struttura e la natura delle informazioni che reca, il «Liber» rappresenta uno degli snodi fondamentali per la costituzione del genere dei «gesta episcoporum», ma il
racconto che propone si allontana dalla mera commemorazione della storia episcopale:
nelle sue pagine la celebrazione dei vescovi si interseca indissolubilmente a quella di Carlo Magno e della sua stirpe, della quale Metz è la culla. Vero testo di propaganda della politica carolingia, il «Liber» – forse inconcluso – non ebbe tuttavia una larga diffusione; la sua fortuna e trasmissione furono invece fortemente condizionate dall’interpolazione di un testo agiografico dedicato a san Clemente, protovescovo di Metz, creato tra la fine del X e l’inizio dell’XI secolo come ampliamento del racconto che l’autore longobardo dedica al santo, interpolazione attestata nella maggior parte della tradizione manoscritta dell’opera paolina e che dal XII secolo circolò autonomamente con il titolo di «Vita sancti Clementis».
In calce al testo latino un apparato positivo raccoglie la varianti di tutti i testimoni manoscritti del «Liber». In appendice si pubblica l’edizione critica della «Vita prima sancti Clementis».

- by Lars Boje Mortensen
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- Roman Empire, Paul the Deacon
- by Christopher Heath
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- Franks, Lombards, Paul the Deacon

Abstract di Tesi di laurea magistrale in scienze storiche che intende proporre uno studio sul fenomeno della deposizioni nell'Italia longobarda e più in generale nell'Europa altomedievale, al quale si accompagna anche uno studio comparativo con alcuni casi franchi selezionati di deposizioni.
Master's Degree thesis in Historical Sciences.

- by Stanislav Mereminskiy
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- Medieval Chronicles, Lombard Italy, Paul the Deacon
- by Barbora Machajdíková
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- Metrics, Poetics, Venetic, Linguistic stylistics

This talk delivered at the ISCH Conference in Bucuresti in 2015 considers origins, identities and ethnicities which were all central concerns of Early Medieval writers. The interface between time, history and memory is demonstrated by Gregory of Tours, Bede and Paul the Deacon (amongst many others) and how they mediated the relationships between themselves and the pasts they depicted in their narrative works. Paul the Deacon, for instance, related how the Lombards acquired their name within the non-historical and mythic orbit of Book I of his Historia Langobardorum. Significantly, the episode is also discussed by ‘Fredegar’ and two subsequent and anonymous works of the VIIth- and VIIIth-centuries – the Origo Gentis Langobardorum and the Historia Langobardorum Codicis Gothani.
This talk analyses the features of the origins of the Lombards which are described in the above works – which on each occasion have interesting and important variances- by doing so, it will be shown that time, memory and purpose have shifted and amended the ‘absurd tale’ so that it becomes a key to understanding the changes and pre-occupations of those who wrote about the mythic past and their present. Thus, we will be able to track and understand the responses of each of the writers to the Pagan and Mythic origins of the Lombards and how these responses were affected by time and memory.

- by Christopher Heath
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- Early Medieval History, Medieval Italy, Italy, Ethnogenesis

Evidence from laws and histories is produced, pointing to the fact that the Langobards had a complex and vital system of making new Langoabards, either during the migration period and their occupation of Italy - a system based on the... more

- by Laura Pani
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- Philology, Medieval Studies, Medieval Latin Literature, Paleography

This paper, delivered at IMC 2015 in Leeds (and thus both work-in-progress and an item that has not been peer reviewed - indeed is some way distant from being ready for such scrutiny) will briefly consider the global contribution of Italian scholars and intellectuals generally and Paul the Deacon specifically with particular reference to his Gesta Episcopum Mettensium, to measure, so far as is possible the impact of their presence in Francia on the programme of reform and renewal marshalled by the Carolingian court often termed Carolingian correctio.

- by Christopher Heath
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- Italian Studies, Early Medieval History, Medieval Europe, Carolingian Studies