Arbeitstitel: Patterning the Past: Gregory of Tours, Paul the Deacon, and the Instructive Nature of Their Early Medieval Histories
This project proposes to analyse the use of a literary technique called Biblical Patterning within two important Histories from the Early Middle Ages: Gregory of Tours Decem libri Historiarum (Ten Books of Histories [LH]) and Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum (History of the Lombards [HL]). Biblical Patterning is a new methodology that this project proposes and is an extension of another literary technique (textual patterning) that has proven its worth in other fields of scholarship, namely Biblical Studies. Biblical Patterning involves the mimicking of narratives found in the Christian Scriptures at both a macro- and micro-structural level. A macro-narrative pattern is when the overall narrative arc or structure follows that of a story found in the Christian Scriptures. A micro-narrative pattern is when the author uses linguistic patterns, word formations, sentence or phrase repetition, or motifs that cause the audience to think back to the previous story. In so doing, the new narrative is imbedded with temporal and moral significance, through which the author can teach their audience or comment their own judgements. Similarities and differences to the original story found in the Scriptures (whether through omission of information, tempo of the narrative of events, or specific characteristics of the protagonists) not only demonstrate the agency of the author but also provide room for the author to emphasise certain aspects he desires the audience to discover.
This methodology will provide new insight into these two fundamental texts, in which Europe’s present foundations are laid. These sources have previously been analysed primarily for information on contemporary politics and ideas of kingship, and this methodology will allow us to read these texts in a new and different way. It will reveal how subtly these authors used their knowledge and manipulated information to negotiate key political issues of their time in their historiography. This project will primarily focus on three key concepts that were of great importance in these authors’ contemporary society, namely their conceptions of time, virtue formation, and identity construction.
