| Summary: | The role and representation of barbarians are among the historiographic questions most discussed today. The term "barbarian", referring to peoples foreign to the Greco-Roman civilized world and then, after the Christianization of the early medieval kingdoms, the pagan peoples, has a very pejorative meaning up to the present day. The legends of the saints, penetrated by a militant Christianity, have largely contributed to the bad reputation of the barbarians (Huns, Goths, Vandals, Vikings, Hungarians ...). They have dramatized the confrontation between the holy defender of the Christian community and the barbaric aggressor or the martyrdom of the holy missionary, inflicted by cruel pagans. The contributions of this volume explore the diversity of the image of the barbarians in the Lives of the Saints who lived between the fourth and the eleventh centuries, such as Séverin de Norique, Nicaise of Reims, Gemini of Modena, Adalbert of Prague, Olaf of Norway and others. They show how the ideal of holiness, with the glorification of the victims of the barbarians, is tied to the ideological and political context of the writing of the stories. Beyond analyzing the relationship between reality and fiction in medieval hagiographic texts, these studies also illuminate the attitude towards the Other, the Stranger.--Translation of page 4 of cover by RMBLF.be: https://rmblf.be/2017/05/25/publication-les-saints-face-aux-barbares-au-haut-moyen-age-realites-et-legendes-dir-edina-bozoky/
|
|---|
