This dissertation examines inventiones, that is narratives of relic discoveries, written in southern Italy between the tenth and twelfth centuries. During this period, communities dealt with sweeping changes brought on by political upheaval, invasion, and ecclesiastical reforms. Several inventiones written concomitantly to these events have received little scholarly attention. This dissertation has two goals: to enhance our understanding of the genre in general and to explore further the local circumstances that prompted their composition and copying. The following four case studies pertain to Christian communities in Naples, Benevento, and Larino, and the abbey of San Vincenzo al Volturno respectively. This dissertation argues that, because of their "inventive" nature, these sources were powerful means of writing and rewriting history and, more often than not, the exercise of historical memory fueled their production. In particular, this dissertation contends that in eleventh-and twelfth-century southern Italy, as communities underwent the transition from Lombard to Norman authorities, the memory of the Lombard lords of the past was utilized in inventiones as a powerful tool to rewrite the identity of a community as it negotiated the changing political and ecclesiastical landscape. Furthermore, this dissertation argues that because of the devotional nature of inventiones, typically composed for use in the liturgy and thus potentially exposed to a large public, the history encoded within these sources was made all the more powerful. Inventiones reveal how the liturgy, ritual, and devotion were mobilized by medieval communities and display an inherent reciprocity between historical and devotional writing and thought. In order to unlock these features as well as the local conflicts and agendas that prompted the production of inventiones, both a close study of the original manuscripts of extant inventiones as well as attention to contemporary liturgical, diplomatic, and material sources are major components of each case study.

A collection of case-studies on Ritual and Performance spanning four continents, this book offers an insightful travel guide through a thick forest of approaches and methods in a field that has increasingly weighed on the research agenda in the Humanities and the Social Sciences.

Documenting the Past in Medieval Puglia, 1130-1266 explores the production of historical memory in the region of Puglia after it was subsumed within the new Kingdom of Sicily in 1130. It assesses the significance of the apparent disappearance of more traditional forms of Pugliese historical writing after 1130, and explores the existence of other historical discourses (beyond those solely preserved in the few 'royal-centred' high-status chronicles) which were embedded in surviving local documentation. The volume incorporates an extensive examination of charters and correspondence, an evidence-type yet to be fully utilised for this purpose in the study of medieval Puglia. Closely analysing the corpus of extant Pugliese charters and correspondence for the period of Norman-Staufen rule (1130-1266) in the kingdom reveals the existence of embedded 'histories'. One of the book's key aims is to examine the role of both Pugliese individuals and communities, and 'central agents' (monarchy, papacy), in producing local historical memory, especially across phases of political upheaval and socio-cultural transformation. The charter evidence demonstrates the preservation and creation of multiple, intersecting public and private historical narratives and remembrances, developed to protect the past, present, and future. These 'histories' were the product of repeated encounters between local communities and centralised superstructures. We can, therefore, identify the vibrant production of local historical narratives and memories claimed by monastic, episcopal, professional, urban, and familial communities. As such this book contributes to a broader understanding of 'use' of the past and of the nuanced inter-relationship between 'Centre' and 'Periphery' in medieval polities.

Combining literary theory and historiography, Monika Otter explores the relationship between history and fiction in the Latin literature of twelfth-century England. The beginnings of fiction have commonly been associated with vernacular romance, but Otter demonstrates that writers of Latin historical narratives also employed the self-referential techniques characteristic of fiction. Beginning with inventiones, a genre dealing with the discovery of saints' relics, Otter reveals how exploring the fundamental problems of writing history and the nature of truth itself leads monastic or clerical Latin writers to a budding awareness of fictionality. According to Otter, accounts of conquests, treasure hunts, descents into underground worlds, and efforts (usually unsuccessful) to retrieve subterranean objects serve as self-referential metaphors for the problems of accessing and retrieving the past; they are thus designed to shake the reader's faith in historical representation and highlight the textuality of the historical account. Otter traces this self-conscious use of fictional elements within historical narrative through the works of William of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gerald of Wales, Walter Map, and William of Newburgh. Originally published in 1996. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

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