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Writing Normandy brings together eighteen articles by historian Felice Lifshitz, some of which are published here for the first time. The articles examine the various ways in which local and regional narratives about the past were created and revised in Normandy during the central Middle Ages. These narratives are analyzed through a combination of both cultural studies and manuscript studies in order to assess how they functioned, who they benefitted, and the various contexts in which they were transmitted. The essays pay particular attention to the narratives built around venerated saints and secular rulers, and in doing so bring together narratives that have traditionally been discussed separately by scholars. The book will appeal to scholars and students of cultural history and medieval history, as well as those interested in manuscript studies. (CS1095)

This collection brings together twelve essays published between 1988 and 2014, two of which are here translated into English from (respectively) their original French or German. All the essays use gender as the main category of analysis, whether of late ancient or early medieval texts or of modern medievalist films. The historical studies of medieval Europe emphasize the use of manuscript-level evidence, that is, actual sources from the period in question; arguably, this approach provides a more accurate understanding of the period than does work done on the basis of printed and edited sources. Furthermore, many of the manuscript-based essays specifically exploit liturgical or liturgy-adjacent materials; this is an area of research and a type of manuscript that has rarely been approached through a gendered lens. Meanwhile, the cinematic medievalism essays focus on the processes of remediation and adaptation, searching specifically for points at which filmmaking teams diverged from their sources as evidence for the main goals of the films (while also attending to production contexts and to reception). The juxtaposition in a single collection of scholarship on medieval manuscripts and modern movies illustrates how period specialists can contribute to conversations in the field of (historical) film studies. The book will be of interest to historians of women, gender, Christian liturgy, medieval Europe, medievalism, and historical film. (CS 1110).

Religious Women in Early Carolingian Francia, a groundbreaking study of the intellectual and monastic culture of the Main Valley during the eighth century, looks closely at a group of manuscripts associated with some of the best-known personalities of the European Middle Ages, including Boniface of Mainz and his “beloved,”abbess Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim. This is the first study of these “Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany” to delve into the details of their lives by studying the manuscripts that were produced in their scriptoria and used in their communities. The author explores how one group of religious women helped to shape the culture of medieval Europe through the texts they wrote and copied, as well as through their editorial interventions. Using compelling manuscript evidence, she argues that the content of the women’s books was overwhelmingly gender-egalitarian and frequently feminist (i.e., resistant to patriarchal ideas). This intriguing book provides unprecedented glimpses into the “feminist consciousness” of the women’s and mixed-sex communities that flourished in the early Middle Ages.

The Name of the Saint addresses these martyrological and calendrical materials in a manner accessible to non-liturgists. It is a study of the spiritual, social, and liturgical practices of reciting, inscribing, collecting, and bearing saints’ names from the seventh through the ninth centuries. These practices, called in manuscript sources the sanctorum nominum festivitas, were extremely rare among Christians during the early middle ages, when most people preferred to access the realm of sacred power through other routes, such as the relics, images, and life stories of saints. Felice Lifshitz’s study, based on careful analysis of manuscript martyrologies, sacramentaries, and calendars, reveals that those individuals who did embrace name-centered piety (such as Willibrord-Clement of Echternach and Witiza-Benedict of Aniane) had in common both close connections with the Carolingian family and a familiarity with the Martyrology of Jerome. Lifshitz's discussion of these neglected materials reveals the existence of alternative and under-appreciated routes of access to the sacred. It also situates the rise of these alternative practices in a particular political context and elucidates the history of the widely misunderstood Martyrology of Jerome. Medievalists will welcome this new way of thinking about early medieval spirituality and the place of saints and sanctity within that spirituality.

Like the popes in Rome, the Prince-Bishops of Salzburg ruled over substantial territories as secular princes. Salt, Sword, and Crozier highlights their dual authority—the princely sword and the bishop's staff or crozier—and the basis of their economic power in their control of natural resources such as salt. The exhibition showcases books from the Salzburg prince-bishop's seminary library that were printed from the fifteenth through the early-nineteenth century, supplemented by coins minted under the authority of successive archbishops beginning in the twelfth century and ending in 1786.