Townspeople, Group Belonging, and Collective Agency in Post-Carolingian Historiography

Wassenaar J (2022)


Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes

Publication year: 2022

Publisher: Heidelberg University Publishing

Edited Volumes: The Past Through Narratology: New Approaches to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Series: Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung. Beihefte

City/Town: Heidelberg

Book Volume: 18

Pages Range: 123-142

URI: https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book/921/c13619?lang=en

DOI: 10.17885/heiup.921.c13619

Open Access Link: https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book/921/c13619?lang=en

Abstract

This article deals with depictions of townspeople in tenth- and early eleventh-century narratives. It argues that during the tenth century the narrative function of these groups in historiography changed fundamentally. In Carolingian and earlier tenth-century narratives, towns­people tend to play largely tangential and passive roles; from around the middle of the tenth century, authors be­gan to increasingly accord agency and a more central role to townspeople. Although these mentions of townspeople in post-Carolingian histories have traditionally been ap­proached as providing a window into processes of ‘em­bryonic’ urbanisation, this paper suggests that the shift in their narrative function must also be understood in the context of the changing nature of diocesan identity pol­itics created through the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire.

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How to cite

APA:

Wassenaar, J. (2022). Townspeople, Group Belonging, and Collective Agency in Post-Carolingian Historiography. In Mateusz Fafinski und Jakob Riemenschneider (Eds.), The Past Through Narratology: New Approaches to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. (pp. 123-142). Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing.

MLA:

Wassenaar, Jelle. "Townspeople, Group Belonging, and Collective Agency in Post-Carolingian Historiography." The Past Through Narratology: New Approaches to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Ed. Mateusz Fafinski und Jakob Riemenschneider, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2022. 123-142.

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