In this innovative new study, Patrick Geary rejects traditional notions of European history to present the Merovingian period (ca. 400-750) as an integral part of Late Antiquity. Drawing on current scholarship in archaeology, cultural history, historical ethnography, and other fields, the author formulates an original interpretation not only of Merovingian history but of the Romano-barbarian world from which it arose. Mapping the complex interactions of a volatile era, he carefully traces the Romanization of barbarians and the barbarization of Romans that ultimately made these populations indistinguishable. Authoritative and elegantly written, Before France and Germany *presents an original and powerful synthesis of one of the most misunderstood periods of European history *draws on the latest archaeological, ethnographic, and historical findings, including grave finds, court documents, and kinship records *establishes the Merovingian world as an integral part of late antiquity *culls and interprets a wealth if specialist Continental scholarship in a concise, readable style This new study is an important contribution to our understanding of a crucial but often neglected period of Western history.

Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World

History

Geary, Patrick J.

Europe

Oxford University Press

In this innovative new study, Patrick Geary rejects traditional notions of European history to present the Merovingian period (ca. 400-750) as an integral part of Late Antiquity. Drawing on current scholarship in archaeology, cultural history, historical ethnography, and other fields, the author formulates an original interpretation not only of Merovingian history but of the Romano-barbarian world from which it arose. Mapping the complex interactions of a volatile era, he carefully traces the Romanization of barbarians and the barbarization of Romans that ultimately made these populations indistinguishable. Authoritative and elegantly written,Before France and Germany *presents an original and powerful synthesis of one of the most misunderstood periods of European history *draws on the latest archaeological, ethnographic, and historical findings, including grave finds, court documents, and kinship records *establishes the Merovingian world as an integral part of late antiquity *culls and interprets a wealth if specialist Continental scholarship in a concise, readable style This new study is an important contribution to our understanding of a crucial but often neglected period of Western history.

Reference

To obtain sacred relics, medieval monks plundered tombs, avaricious merchants raided churches, and relic-mongers scoured the Roman catacombs. In a revised edition of Furta Sacra, Patrick Geary considers the social and cultural context for these acts, asking how the relics were perceived and why the thefts met with the approval of medieval Christians.

Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages

Princeton University Press

In Phantoms of Remembrance, Patrick Geary makes important new inroads into the widely discussed topic of historical memory, vividly evoking the everyday lives of eleventh-century people and both their written and nonwritten ways of preserving the past. Women praying for their dead, monks creating and re-creating their archives, scribes choosing which royal families of the past to applaud and which to forget: it is from such sources that most of our knowledge of the medieval period comes. Throughout richly detailed descriptions of various acts of remembrance--including the naming of children and the recording of visions--the author unearths a wide range of approaches to preserving the past as it was or formulating the past that an individual or group prefers to imagine.

Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millenium

In Phantoms of Remembrance, Patrick Geary makes important new inroads into the widely discussed topic of historical memory, vividly evoking the everyday lives of eleventh-century people and both their written and nonwritten ways of preserving the past. Women praying for their dead, monks creating and re-creating their archives, scribes choosing which royal families of the past to applaud and which to forget: it is from such sources that most of our knowledge of the medieval period comes. Throughout richly detailed descriptions of various acts of remembrance--including the naming of children and the recording of visions--the author unearths a wide range of approaches to preserving the past as it was or formulating the past that an individual or group prefers to imagine.

Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium

Modern-day Europeans by the millions proudly trace back their national identities to the Celts, Franks, Gauls, Goths, Huns, or Serbs--or some combination of the various peoples who inhabited, traversed, or pillaged their continent more than a thousand years ago. According to Patrick Geary, this is historical nonsense. The idea that national character is fixed for all time in a simpler, distant past is groundless, he argues in this unflinching reconsideration of European nationhood. Few of the peoples that many Europeans honor as sharing their sense of ''nation'' had comparably homogeneous identities; even the Huns, he points out, were firmly united only under Attila's ten-year reign.
Geary dismantles the nationalist myths about how the nations of Europe were born. Through rigorous analysis set in lucid prose, he contrasts the myths with the actual history of Europe's transformation between the fourth and ninth centuries--the period of grand migrations that nationalists hold dear. The nationalist sentiments today increasingly taken for granted in Europe emerged, he argues, only in the nineteenth century. Ironically, this phenomenon was kept alive not just by responsive populations--but by complicit scholars.
Ultimately, Geary concludes, the actual formation of European peoples must be seen as an extended process that began in antiquity and continues in the present. The resulting image is a challenge to those who anchor contemporary antagonisms in ancient myths--to those who claim that immigration and tolerance toward minorities despoil ''nationhood.'' As Geary shows, such ideologues--whether Le Pens who champion ''the French people born with the baptism of Clovis in 496'' or Milosevics who cite early Serbian history to claim rebellious regions--know their myths but not their history.
The Myth of Nations will be intensely debated by all who understood that a history that does not change, that reduces the complexities of many centuries to a single, eternal moment, isn't history at all.

The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe.

The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe

In these four artfully crafted essays, Patrick Geary explores the way ancient and medieval authors wrote about women. Geary describes the often marginal role women played in origin legends from antiquity until the twelfth century.
 Not confining himself to one religious tradition or region, he probes the tensions between women in biblical, classical, and medieval myths (such as Eve, Mary, Amazons, princesses, and countesses), and actual women in ancient and medieval societies. Using these legends as a lens through which to study patriarchal societies, Geary chooses moments and texts that illustrate how ancient authors (all of whom were male) confronted the place of women in their society.
 Unlike other books on the subject, Women at the Beginning attempts to understand not only the place of women in these legends, but also the ideologies of the men who wrote about them. The book concludes that the authors of these stories were themselves struggling with ambivalence about women in their own worlds and that this struggle manifested itself in their writings.

Women at the Beginning: Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary

Ancient Civilizations

In these four artfully crafted essays, Patrick Geary explores the way ancient and medieval authors wrote about women. Geary describes the often marginal role women played in origin legends from antiquity until the twelfth century.  Not confining himself to one religious tradition or region, he probes the tensions between women in biblical, classical, and medieval myths (such as Eve, Mary, Amazons, princesses, and countesses), and actual women in ancient and medieval societies. Using these legends as a lens through which to study patriarchal societies, Geary chooses moments and texts that illustrate how ancient authors (all of whom were male) confronted the place of women in their society.  Unlike other books on the subject, Women at the Beginning attempts to understand not only the place of women in these legends, but also the ideologies of the men who wrote about them. The book concludes that the authors of these stories were themselves struggling with ambivalence about women in their own worlds and that this struggle manifested itself in their writings.

World

Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages

Cornell University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Geary, Patrick J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Geary, Patrick J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Geary, Patrick J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World

Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World

Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages

Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millenium

Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium

The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe.

The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe

Women at the Beginning: Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary

Women at the Beginning: Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary

Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages