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)
Part 1: "Hagiography" and Historical Representation
1. Beyond Positivism and Genre: "Hagiographical" Texts as Historical Narrative
2. Still Useless After All These Years: The Concept of "Hagiography" in the Twenty-First Century
Part 2: Historiographic Discourse and Saintly Relics: The Archbishops and Rouen
3. The "Privilege of Saint Romanus:" Provincial Independence and Hagiographical Legends at Rouen
4. The Acta Archiepiscoporum Rotomagensium: A Monastery or Cathedral Product?
5. Eight Men In: Rouennais Traditions of Archiepiscopal Sanctity
6. St. Romanus of Rouen: Frankish Missionary in Viking Normandy
7. The Politics of Historiography: The Memory of Bishops in Eleventh-Century Rouen
8. The Cults of the Holy Bishops of Rouen from 396 to 996: the Role of Oral Traditions and Popular Actions
Part 3: Historiographic Discourse and Saintly Relics: Beyond Rouen
9. The "Exodus of Holy Bodies" Reconsidered: The Translation of the Relics of St. Gildard of Rouen to Soissons
10. The Migration of Neustrian Relics in the Viking Age: The Myth of Voluntary Exodus, the Reality of Coercion and Theft
11. Apostolicity Theses in Gaul: The Histories of Gregory and the "Hagiography" of Bayeux
Part 4: Dudo of St. Quentin and the Gesta Normannorum
12. Dudo's Historical Narrative and the Norman Succession of 996
13. Viking Normandy: Dudo of St. Quentin’s Gesta Normannorum
14. Dudo of St. Quentin
15. Carolingian Normandy: An Essay on Continuity, Using Neglected Sources
16. Translating Feudal Vocabulary: Dudo of St. Quentin
Part 5: Women and Gender
17. The Encomium Emmae Reginae: A Political Pamphlet of the Eleventh Century?
18. Sifting for Fictions: Women in Dudo of St. Quentin’s Androcentric Gesta Normannorum
Biography
Felice Lifshitz is Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, and of Religious Studies, at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her publications include Gender in Historical Film and Television (2018), co-edited with Carol Donelon and Siobhan Craig, and Religious Women in Early Carolingian Francia: A Study of Manuscript Transmission and Monastic Culture (2014).
