Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:19:37.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Otherness of Non-Christians in the Early Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

James T. Palmer*
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews

Extract

Non-Christian ‘others’ were crucial to the definition of early medieval Christendom. Many groups certainly found it important to generate a sense of belonging through shared practice, history and ideals. But the history of Christianity was a story of conflict, which from the very beginning saw a community of believers struggling against Jews and ‘pagan’ Romans. At the end, too, Christ warned there would be ‘false prophets’ and tribulations, and John of Patmos saw the ravages of Gog and Magog against the faithful. When many early medieval Christians looked at ‘religious others’, they saw not so much ‘members of religions’, as they did people defined by typologies and narratives designed to express the nature and trajectory of Christendom itself. This has been a recurring theme in scholarship which has sought to understand Christian views of pagans, Muslims and Jews in the period, but the effect and purpose of such rhetoric is not always fully appreciated.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hans-Werner Goetz, , Die Wahrnehmunng anderer Religionen and christlich-abendländ- isches Selbstverständnis im frühen Mittelalter (5.-12.Jahrhundert) (Berlin, 2012), 1011.Google Scholar

2 For further analysis of the importance of apocalypse for early medieval ‘otherness’, see Palmer, James T., ‘Apocalypse Outsiders and their Uses in the Early Medieval West’, in Felicitas Schnieder, Rebekka Voss and Wolfram Brandes, eds, Völker der Endzeit: Apokalyptische Vorstellungen and politische Szenarien (Berlin, forthcoming 2015).Google Scholar

3 Haimo, In Apocalypsin 2.6 (PL 117, 1028).

4 Hoyland, Robert, Seeing Islam as others saw it: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (New York, 1997)Google Scholar; Tolan, John, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York, 2002).Google Scholar On pagans, see Ian Wood, ‘The Pagans and the Other:Varying Presentations in the Early Middle Ages’, Networks and Neighbours 1 (2013), 1–22. On Jews, see Drews, Wolfram, The Unknown Neighbour: The jew in the Thought of Isidore of Seville (Leiden, 2006).Google Scholar

5 MacMullen, Ramsay, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven, CT, 1997).Google Scholar

6 Fletcher, Richard, The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity, 371–1386 AD (London, 1997).Google Scholar

7 For a history drawn almost exclusively from the Latin sources, see Collins, Roger, The Arab Conquest of Spain: 710797 (Oxford, 1989).Google Scholar Clarke, Nicola, The Muslim Conquest of Iberia: Medieval Arabic Narratives (London, 2012), offers a stimulating appraisal of the Arabic sources.Google Scholar

8 Pohl, Walter and Heydemann, Gerda, eds, Strategies of Identification: Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe (Turnhout, 2013);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Pohl, Walter and Reimitz, Helmut, eds, Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800 (Leiden, 1998).Google Scholar Different positions are argued for in Gillett, Andrew, ed., On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2002).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 The paradigm shift is best represented by Brown, Peter, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200-1000, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2003).Google Scholar Old classics include Albert Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Dentschlands, 5 vols (Leipzig, 1898–1913); Erich Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttum von den Anfgängen bis zur Höhe der Weltherrschaft, 2 vols (Tübingen, 1930–3); and, for the context of the present essay, Wallace-Hadrill, J. Michael, The Fmnkish Church (Oxford, 1983).Google Scholar

10 Smith, Julia, Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History, 500-1000 (Oxford, 2005);Google Scholar Wickham, Chris, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800 (Oxford, 2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 McKitterick, Rosamond, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 For an account of the period sensitive to local variations, in addition to Brown, Rise of Western Christendom, see Wickham, Chris, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400–1000 (London, 2009).Google Scholar

13 Davidson, Hilda Ellis, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (London, 1964);Google Scholar john D. Niles, ‘Pagan Survivals and Popular Belief, in Herren, Michael and Lapidge, Michael, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature (Cambridge, 1991), 126–41; Google Scholar North, Richard, Heathen Cods in Old English Literature (Cambridge, 1997).Google Scholar For more caution, see Sanmark, Alexandra, Power and Conversion: A Comparative Study of Chris-tianization in Scandinavia (Uppsala, 2004), 143–79.Google Scholar

14 Palmer, James T.,‘Defining Paganism in the Carolingian World’, EME 15 (2007), 402–25.Google Scholar Goetz, , Wahrnehmung, 144–63, defends the level of knowledge about pagan practices.Google Scholar

15 Instructive is Ian Wood, ‘Pagan Religion and Superstition East of the Rhine from the Fifth to the Ninth Century’, in Ausenda, Giorgio, ed., After Empire: Towards an Ethnology of Europe's Barbarians (Woodbridge, 1995), 253–68;Google Scholar see also Goetz, , Wahrnehmung, 144–63.Google Scholar

16 Especially Salvian, De gubernatione Dei 4.16 (MGH AA 1/1, 51–2).Google Scholar

17 Clarke, , Muslim Conquest, 16.Google Scholar

18 Hoyland, , Seeing Islam, 55–61Google Scholar (on the Doctrina Jacobi), 195 (on bar Penkaye); Howard-Johnston, James, Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century (Oxford, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Reinink, Gerrit,‘Pseudo-Methodius: A Concept of History in Response to the Rise of Islam’, in Cameron, Averil and Conrad, Lawrence I., eds, The Byzantine and Early Islamic East: Problems in the Literary Source Material (Princeton, NJ, 1992), 149–87Google Scholar, especially 157–9; Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. An Alexandrian World Chronicle, ed. and transl. Garstad, Benjamin, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 14 (Cambridge, MA, 2012), 2139.Google Scholar

20 Alexander, Paul, ‘Byzantium and the Migration of Literary Works and Motifs: The Legend of the Last Roman Emperor’, Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 2 (1971), 4768;Google Scholar Alexander, Paul, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, ed. Dorothy Abrahamse(Berkeley, CA, 1985).Google Scholar

21 Fredegar, , Chronica 4.66 (MGH SRM 2, 154).Google Scholar

22 Boniface, Epistola 73 (MGH Epp. Sel. 1, 151);Tolan, Saracens, 77-8.Google Scholar

23 Palmer, James T., Anglo-Saxons in a Frankish World, 690-900 (Turnhout, 2009), 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Coupland, Simon,‘The Rod of God's Wrath or the People of God's Wrath? The Carolingian Theology of the Viking Invasions’, JEH 42 (1991), 535–54.Google Scholar

25 Council of Meaux (846), c. 73 (MGH Cone. 3, 119-20); Council of Pitres (869), c. 15 (MGH Conc. 4, 360).

26 Council of Meaux (846), pref. (MGH Conc. 3, 82); Council of Quirzy (857; ibid. 385); Council of Quirzy (858), c. 15 (ibid. 423); Council ofTroyes (860/1), pref. (MGH Conc. 4, 44); Council of Pitres (869), c. 15 (ibid. 360).

27 Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 846 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 5, 34); Annales Fuldenses, s.a. 846 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 7, 36).

28 Council of Francia (846), c. 7 (MGH Conc. 3, I36):'quia pro peccatis nostris et offensionibus aecclesia beati Petri hoc anno a paganis vastata est a direpta'.

29 Council of Francia, c. 8 (ibid. 137).

30 Bachrach, Bernard, Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe (Ann Arbor, MI, 1977);Google Scholar Michael Toch, ‘The Jews in Europe, 500–1050’, in Fouracre, Paul, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History, 1: c.500 - c.700 (Cambridge, 2005),CrossRefGoogle Scholar 547-70; Bat-Sheva Albert,‘Christians and Jews’, in Noble, Thomas F. X. and Smith, Julia M. H., eds, CHC, 3: Early Medieval Christianities, c.600 - c.1100 (Cambridge, 2008), 157–77.Google Scholar

31 But again the ‘paganization’ of religious others could be an issue: Wolfram Drews, ‘Jews as Pagans? Polemical Definitions of Identity in Visigothic Spain’, EME II (2002), 189–207.

32 Baumgarten, Elisheva, ‘Daily Commodities and Religious Identity in the Medi eval Jewish Communities of Northern Europe’, in Doran, John, Methuen, Charlotte and Walsham, Alexandra, eds, Religion and the Household, SCH 50 (Woodbridge, 2014), 97121.Google Scholar

33 Clare Stancliffe, Bede, Wilfrid, and the Irish, Jarrow Lecture 2003 (Jarrow, 2003).

34 Brennan, Brian,‘The Conversion of the Jews of Clermont in AD 576’, Journal of Theological Studies 36 (1985), 321–37;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rachel Stocking,‘Early Medieval Christian Identity and Anti-Judaism: The Case of the Visigothic Kingdom’, Religion Compass 2 (2008), 642–58; Wood, Jamie, The Politics of Identity in Visigothic Spain: Religion and Power in the Histories of Isidore of Seville (Leiden, 2012), 195–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Albert, , ‘Christians and Jews’, 175–6.Google Scholar On the incident, see Reiss, Frank, ‘From Aachen to al-Andalus: The Journey of Deacon Bodo’, EME 13 (2005), 131–57.Google Scholar

36 On the situation in Lyon, see Heil, Johannes, ‘Agobard, Amolo, das Kirchengut und die Juden von Lyon’, Francia 25 (1998), 39–76.Google Scholar

37 Annales Bertiniani, s.a. 848 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 5, 66-7).

38 Continuator of Fredegar, Chronica 7 (MGH SRM 2, 172–3).

39 Fredegar, Chronica 87 (ibid. 164–5).

40 van Egmond, Wolfert, ‘Radbod van de Friezen, een aristocrat in de periferie’, Millennium: Tijdschrift voor middeleeuwse studies 16 (2005), 24–44.Google Scholar

41 Willibald, , Vita Bonifatii 4 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 57, 1617).Google Scholar

42 For more detail and context on the campaigns of Charles Martel discussed, see Paul Fouracre, The Age of Charles Martel (Harlow, 2000), 86–99; Fischer, Andreas, Karl Martell. Der Beginn karolingischer Herrschaft(Stuttgart, 2012), 110–36.Google Scholar

43 Continuator of Fredegar, Chronica 13 (MGH SRM 2, 175).

44 Cugnier, G., Histoire du monastere de Luxeuil a travers ses abbes 590–1790, 3 vols (Langres, 2003), 1: 238–9.Google Scholar

45 The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar with its Continuations, ed. and Michael, transl. J. Wallace-Hadrill, , Nelson's Medieval Texts (London, 1960),Google Scholar 91; see also Fischer, Karl Martell, 131.

46 Continuator of Fredegar, Chronica 19–20 (MGH SRM 2, 177–8).

47 Support for a political reading of infidelis can be gained from looking at the will of Abbo, edited and analysed in Geary, Patrick, Aristocracy in Provence:The Rhone Basin at the Dawn of the Carolingian Age (Stuttgart, 1985), 3879.Google Scholar

48 Tolan, John, ‘“A Wild Man, whose Hand will be against All”: Saracens and Ishmaelites in Latin Ethnographical Traditions, from Jerome to Bede’, in Pohl, Walter, Gantner, Clemens and Payne, Richard, eds, Visions of Community in the Post-Roman World (Farnham, 2012), 513–30.Google Scholar

49 Cf. Fischer, Karl Martell, 131–2.

50 Annales regni Francornm, s.aa. 801, 802 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 6, 116–17); Einhard, Vita Karoli 16 (MGH SRG i.u.s. 25, 19), on friendship.

51 See also Wood,‘Pagans and the Other’, 18.

52 Daniel, , Epistola 23 (MGH Epp. Sel. 1, 40).Google Scholar

53 The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister 33, ed. and transl. Herren, Michael, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin 8 (Turnhout, 2011), 34–5.Google Scholar

54 Keane, Webb, Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter (Berkeley, CA, 2007).Google Scholar

55 Ehlers, Caspar, Die Integration Sachsens in das fränkische Reich (751–1024) (Gottingen, 2007);Google Scholar Palmer, Anglo-Saxons, 166-8.

56 Hauck, Karl, ‘Paderborn: Das Zentrum von Karls Sachsen-Mission 777’, in Add and Kirche. Cerd Tellenbach zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Fleckenstein, Josef and Schmid, Karl (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1968), 92–140;Google Scholar McKitterick, Rosamond, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008), 165–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Zacharias, Pope, Epistola 51 (MGH Epp. Sel. 1, 87).Google Scholar

58 On Viking Age towns, see Sindbaek, Soren, ‘Networks and Nodal Points: The Emergence ofTowns in Early Viking Age Scandinavia’, Antiquity 81 (2007), 119–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 Palmer, Anglo-Saxons, 46–59.

60 Lebecq, Stéphane, Marchands et navigateurs frisons du haul Moyen Âge, 2 vols (Lille, 1983);Google Scholar Loveluck, Christopher, Northwest Europe in the Early Middle Ages, c.AD 600-1150 (Cambridge, 2013), ch. 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Fletcher, , Conversion of Europe, 373-4.Google Scholar

62 On a similar modern process, see Robbins, Joel, ‘Is the “Trans-” in “Transnational” the “Trans-” in “Transcendent“? On Alterity and the Sacred in the Age of Globalization’, in Csordas, Thomas, ed., Transnational Transcendence (Berkeley, CA, 2009), 5572.Google Scholar

63 On the exegetical contexts of the Vita Willibaldi, see Palmer, Anglo-Saxons, ch. 7; R. Aist.The Christian Topography of Early Islamic Jerusalem: The Evidence of Willibald of Eichstätt (700-787 CE) (Turnhout, 2009). On the events and context of 1009, see Lilie, Ralph-Johannes, ed., Konfliktbewältigung vor 1000 Jahren: Die Zerstörung der Grabes-kirche in Jerusalem im jahre 1009 (Berlin, 2011).Google Scholar

64 Vita Willibaldi 4 (MGH S 15/1, 94).

65 Ibid. 95.

66 Basel Roll 3, ed. McCormick, Michael, in idem, Charlemagne's Survey of the Holy Land: Wealth, Personnel, and the Building of a Mediterranean Church between Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA, 2011), 216.Google Scholar

67 Tolan, , Saracens, 77.Google Scholar

68 Reinink, , ‘Pseudo-Methodius’, 180–1.Google Scholar

69 For a fuller discussion, see Palmer, James T., The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2014), ch. 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70 Chronicle 0f 754 45 (CSM 1: 33); Clarke, Muslim Conquest, 17-18.

71 Chronica prophetica 2.2 ( Bonnaz, Yves, ed., Chroniques Asturiennes (fin IXe siècle)[Paris, 1987], 3).Google Scholar

72 Clarke, Muslim Conquest, 20–1. For interest in taxation, see Chronicle of 754 52, 60,75 (CSM 1: 36, 39, 51); Treaty ofTudmir, transl. Olivia Remie Constable, in eadem, ed., Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources, 2nd edn (Philadelphia, PA, 2012), 45-6. See also Collins, The Arab Conquest of Spain, 39-50.

73 Collins, Roger, Visigothic Spain, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2004), 186–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74 For a recent long-term view, see Hitchcock, Richard, Mozarabs in Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Identities and Influences(Aldershot, 2008).Google Scholar

75 See, in this volume, Ariana Patey, ‘Asserting Difference in Plurality: The Case of the Martyrs of Cordoba’, 53–66.

76 Wolf, Kenneth Baxter, Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain (Cambridge, 1988).Google Scholar

77 Alvar, Paul, Indiculus luminosus (CSM 1: 270315); Vita Eulogii (ibid. 330–43).Google Scholar

78 Tolan, , Saracens, 90–1.Google Scholar

79 Wasilewski, Janna, ‘The “Life of Muhammad” in Eulogius of Cordoba: Some Evidence for the Transmission of Greek Polemic to the Latin West’, EME 16 (2008), 333–53.Google Scholar

80 On conversions of Jews, see n. 34 above.

81 Paschasius, , Expositio in Matheo II (CChr.CM 56B, 1164).Google Scholar

82 Palmer, James T., ‘Martyrdom and the Rise of Missionary Hagiography in the Merovingian World’, in Nancy Edwards, Roy Flechner and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Converting the Isles, Cultural Encouters in Late Antiquity and the Midde Ages (Turnhout, forthcoming).Google Scholar

83 Passio Dionysii, Rustici et Eleutherii (MGH AA 4/2, 101–5).

84 For a survey, see Ian Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe 400–1050 (Harlow, 2001).

85 Ibid. 250-4.

86 Audoin, , Vita Eligii 1.34 (MGH SRM 4, 691).Google Scholar

87 Wood,‘The Pagans and the Other’.