James T Palmer on the Early Middle Ages and Other Things
Last week Prof Bonnie Effros visited St Andrews to give a talk on ‘Camille de la Croix’s Case for 72 Previously Unknown Martyrs of Poitiers’. It provided an insightful and important case study about how the medieval past has been contested in response to later politics and beliefs. Sadly, she noted afterwards, early medieval historians… Continue reading Merovingian Pasts and the 19th Century
The last couple of years have seen an unsurprising resurgence in attacks on any ‘politically correct’ view of the early Middle Ages which affords Islam a positive role. Emmet Scott’s Mohammad and Charlemagne Revisited (2012) has proved rather popular in conservative circles, because it has restated the Pirenne Thesis in a way which makes Islam… Continue reading Polemics and Poitiers
