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Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium
An in-depth exploration of documentary forgery at the turn of the first millennium
Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium takes a fresh look at documentary forgery and historical memory in the Middle Ages. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, religious houses across Europe began falsifying texts to improve local documentary records on an unprecedented scale. As Levi Roach illustrates, the resulting wave of forgery signaled major shifts in society and political culture, shifts which would lay the foundations for the European ancien régime.
Spanning documentary traditions across France, England, Germany and northern Italy, Roach examines five sets of falsified texts to demonstrate how forged records produced in this period gave voice to new collective identities within and beyond the Church. Above all, he indicates how this fad for falsification points to new attitudes toward past and present―a developing fascination with the signs of antiquity. These conclusions revise traditional master narratives about the development of antiquarianism in the modern era, showing that medieval forgers were every bit as sophisticated as their Renaissance successors. Medieval forgers were simply interested in different subjects―the history of the Church and their local realms, rather than the literary world of classical antiquity.
A comparative history of falsified records at a crucial turning point in the Middle Ages, Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium offers valuable insights into how institutions and individuals rewrote and reimagined the past.
Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium takes a fresh look at documentary forgery and historical memory in the Middle Ages. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, religious houses across Europe began falsifying texts to improve local documentary records on an unprecedented scale. As Levi Roach illustrates, the resulting wave of forgery signaled major shifts in society and political culture, shifts which would lay the foundations for the European ancien régime.
Spanning documentary traditions across France, England, Germany and northern Italy, Roach examines five sets of falsified texts to demonstrate how forged records produced in this period gave voice to new collective identities within and beyond the Church. Above all, he indicates how this fad for falsification points to new attitudes toward past and present―a developing fascination with the signs of antiquity. These conclusions revise traditional master narratives about the development of antiquarianism in the modern era, showing that medieval forgers were every bit as sophisticated as their Renaissance successors. Medieval forgers were simply interested in different subjects―the history of the Church and their local realms, rather than the literary world of classical antiquity.
A comparative history of falsified records at a crucial turning point in the Middle Ages, Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium offers valuable insights into how institutions and individuals rewrote and reimagined the past.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
360 pages, Hardcover
Published February 9, 2021
2 people are currently reading
61 people want to read
About the author
Levi Roach
9 books55 followersLevi Roach is Associate Professor of medieval history at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Kingship and Consent in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Whitfield Prize 2014 proxime accessit) and Æthelred the Unready (Longman-History Today Prize 2017, Labarge Prize 2017). His next book, Forgery and Memory at the End of the First Millennium, will be published by Princeton University Press in February 2021.
He is presently writing a popular history of the Normans for John Murray (UK) and Pegasus (US). He lives with his wife, daughter and cat in Tiverton, Devon.
He is presently writing a popular history of the Normans for John Murray (UK) and Pegasus (US). He lives with his wife, daughter and cat in Tiverton, Devon.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 6, 2021
Forgery and Memory at the end of the first Millennium by Levi Roach, 2021, 272 pages (325 pages all in)
This is a book that you will learn a lot from, even if your interest in some of the regions picked are greater than others.
Chapters include:
Introduction:
Forgery in the Chancery? Bishop Anno at Worms
Forging Episcopal Identity: Pilgrim at Passau
Forging Liberty: Abingdon and Aethelraed
Forging Exemption: Fleury from Abbo to William
True Lies: Leo of Vercelli and the struggle for Piedmont
Conclusions
All of these make excellent standalone papers, but together you get a greater idea of the whole, especially of the increasing importance of a sense of institutional history and the power of the written word.
Each chapter gives you the context behind it, examines the relevant diplomas and then concludes in a satisfying way. Although some of the examination is, by its nature, technical, it's easy enough to follow and fascinating in itself
It's always appreciated when the scholarship in a work is matched by readability. Anyone who can describe a doubtful Egyptian privilege as looking pukka gets a big thumbs up from me. It's lovely when a serious book also has a fun side to the text.
Roach has got a real feel for the world around the first millennium and you will discover a lot of stuff that's not really covered in other books. It's also great to see a book that considers Anglo-Saxon England as part and parcel of Western Europe, as all too often it is erroneously viewed as not really being part of that.
When it comes to looking at suspect diplomas, a lot hinges on clues such as the construction of the charter standing out from contemporary practice, yet mirroring that of a later period, with bonus points if that period was one of strife where the privileges of said charter would have proven useful. So whilst spotting a rum charter is almost as much an art as a science, there is plenty to work with.
Whilst some diplomas had obvious giveaways with unhistorical features, such as witnesses who died years before the charter was issued, a lot of the forgeries were sophisticated enough to pass muster for a thousand or so years and that really does emphasise the power that the written word came to command.
This is a good book that is very useful.
This is a book that you will learn a lot from, even if your interest in some of the regions picked are greater than others.
Chapters include:
Introduction:
Forgery in the Chancery? Bishop Anno at Worms
Forging Episcopal Identity: Pilgrim at Passau
Forging Liberty: Abingdon and Aethelraed
Forging Exemption: Fleury from Abbo to William
True Lies: Leo of Vercelli and the struggle for Piedmont
Conclusions
All of these make excellent standalone papers, but together you get a greater idea of the whole, especially of the increasing importance of a sense of institutional history and the power of the written word.
Each chapter gives you the context behind it, examines the relevant diplomas and then concludes in a satisfying way. Although some of the examination is, by its nature, technical, it's easy enough to follow and fascinating in itself
It's always appreciated when the scholarship in a work is matched by readability. Anyone who can describe a doubtful Egyptian privilege as looking pukka gets a big thumbs up from me. It's lovely when a serious book also has a fun side to the text.
Roach has got a real feel for the world around the first millennium and you will discover a lot of stuff that's not really covered in other books. It's also great to see a book that considers Anglo-Saxon England as part and parcel of Western Europe, as all too often it is erroneously viewed as not really being part of that.
When it comes to looking at suspect diplomas, a lot hinges on clues such as the construction of the charter standing out from contemporary practice, yet mirroring that of a later period, with bonus points if that period was one of strife where the privileges of said charter would have proven useful. So whilst spotting a rum charter is almost as much an art as a science, there is plenty to work with.
Whilst some diplomas had obvious giveaways with unhistorical features, such as witnesses who died years before the charter was issued, a lot of the forgeries were sophisticated enough to pass muster for a thousand or so years and that really does emphasise the power that the written word came to command.
This is a good book that is very useful.
March 31, 2022
I think this is a must read for anyone interested in medieval literary forgery.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews