TY - BOOK ID - 49742673 TI - From Sithiu to Saint-Bertin : hagiographic exegesis and collective memory in the early medieval cults of Omer and Bertin PY - 2019 VL - 219 SN - 9780888442192 088844219X 9781771104067 PB - Toronto: Pontifical institute of mediaeval studies, DB - UniCat KW - Christian saints KW - Monks KW - Monasticism and religious orders KW - Collective memory KW - Saints chrétiens KW - Moines KW - Monachisme et ordres religieux KW - Mémoire collective KW - Historiography. KW - Cult KW - History KW - Culte KW - Historiographie. KW - Histoire KW - Saint-Bertin (Monastery : Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais, France) KW - Saint-Bertin (Monastère : Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais, France) KW - 600-1500 KW - Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais, France) KW - France KW - Church history KW - Histoire religieuse KW - 27 <44 SAINT-OMER> KW - 27 <44 SAINT-OMER> Histoire de l'Eglise--Frankrijk--SAINT-OMER KW - 27 <44 SAINT-OMER> Kerkgeschiedenis--Frankrijk--SAINT-OMER KW - Histoire de l'Eglise--Frankrijk--SAINT-OMER KW - Kerkgeschiedenis--Frankrijk--SAINT-OMER KW - Historiographie médiévale. KW - Bertin KW - Mémoire collective KW - Abbaye Saint-Bertin KW - Mémoire collective. KW - Historiography KW - Christian spirituality KW - Christian religious orders KW - Saint-Omer KW - Bertinus ab. Sithivensis KW - Saint-Bertin KW - Audomarus ep. Tarvannensis KW - Historiographie médiévale. KW - Mémoire collective. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:49742673 AB - Medieval historians who have explored the abbey of Sithiu (modern Saint-Omer) have often done so to explain the competition between the canons of Saint-Omer and the monks of Saint-Bertin, a rivalry deriving from their shared origins in the abbey of Sithiu. However, David Defries's book centers on the cooperative relationship that developed between the saints Omer and Bertin in the monks' collective memory. Throughout the early Middle Ages, the cults of the abbey's two patron saints shaped the life of the community at Sithiu, and the first four centuries of its development reveal how a group of monks negotiated their place in the larger Christian West, adapting Columbanian and Benedictine identities to fit the relationship they discerned between Omer and Bertin.The evolution of Sithiu's collective memory demonstrates that the methods used in most studies of early medieval collective memory produce a distorted image of the partnership. Historians overwhelmingly assume that collective memory has a narrative structure and that the texts meant to shape its evolution are "historiographic" in form. In contrast, David Defries treats Sithiu's historiography as a type of scriptural exegesis that emphasizes the allegorical levels, especially typology and tropology, of the Christian scriptural hermeneutic. Paradigm, not narration, structured early medieval Christian allegory and thus early medieval collective memory at the abbey.This argument has broad implications for the study of early medieval collective memory. The intellectual culture of Sithiu was typical of the early medieval West, and all the texts considered date between c. 740 and c. 1148, situating them in a period when writers trained in monasteries like Sithiu produced the vast majority of western European literature. From Sithiu to Saint-Bertin may thus be seen as a preliminary case study for the value of paradigmatic approaches to early medieval memory. ER -