'Over the course of four thematic sections ('Learning Empire', 'The Biblical Past', 'Changing Senses of the Other from the Fourth to the Eleventh Century' and 'The Migration of Cultural Traditions in Early Medieval Europe'), the fifteen essays in this collection provide case studies of the ways in which early medieval authors drew upon the textual resources of the past to inform the present.' Scott G. Bruce, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

This volume analyses the importance of history, the textual resources of the past and the integration of Christian and imperial Rome into the cultural memory of early medieval Europe within the wider question of identity formation. The case studies in this book shed new light on the process of codification and modification of cultural heritage in the light of the transmission of texts and the extant manuscript evidence from the early Middle Ages. The authors demonstrate how particular texts and their early medieval manuscript representatives in Italy, Francia, Saxony and Bavaria not only reflect ethnic, social and cultural identities but themselves contributed to the creation of identities, gave meaning to social practice, and were often intended to inspire, guide, change, or prevent action, directly or indirectly. These texts are shown to be part of a cultural effort to shape the present by restructuring the past.

Introduction: cultural memory and the resources of the past Walter Pohl and Ian Wood
Part I. Learning Empire: 1. Creating cultural resources for Carolingian rule: historians of the Christian empire Walter Pohl
2. Cassiodorus's Historia tripartita before the earliest extant manuscripts Desirée Scholten
3. Politics and penance: transformations in the Carolingian perception of the conversion of Carloman (747) Erik Goosman
4. Lessons in leadership: Constantine and Theodosius in Frechulf of Lisieux's Histories Graeme Ward
Part II. The Biblical Past: 5. Carolingian political discourse and the biblical past: Hraban, Dhuoda, Radbert Mayke de Jong
6. Biblical past and canonical present: the case of the Collectio 400 capitulorum Sven Meeder
7. Divine law and imperial rule: the Carolingian reception of Junilius Africanus Marianne Pollheimer
8. Framing Ambrose in the resources of the past: the late antique and early medieval sources for a Carolingian portrait of Ambrose Giorgia Vicino
Part III. Changing Senses of the Other from the Fourth to the Eleventh Centuries: 9. Pagans, rebels and Merovingians: otherness in the early Carolingian world Richard Broome
10. Who are the Philistines? Bede's readings of Old Testament peoples Ian Wood
11. Gens perfida or populus Christianus? Saxon (in)fidelity in Frankish historical writing Robert Flierman
12. Fragmented identities: otherness and authority in Adam of Bremen's History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen Timothy Barnwell
Part IV. The Migration of Cultural Traditions in Early Medieval Europe: 13. Transformations of the Roman past and Roman identity in the early Middle Ages Rosamond McKitterick
14. The eighth-century papacy as cultural broker Clemens Gantner
15. Transformations of Late Antiquity: the writing and re-writing of church history at the monastery of Lorsch, c.800 Helmut Reimitz
Conclusion Mayke de Jong and Rosamond McKitterick
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], European history [HBJD]