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Commemorating Power looks at how the past was evoked for political purposes under a new Saxon dynasty, the Ottonians, who came to dominate post-Carolingian Europe after 888 as the rulers of a new empire in Germany and Italy, focusing on two convents of monastic women who played a significant role in Ottonian politics.
List of contents
- Introduction: Commemorating power in early medieval Saxony
- 1: Saxon female monasticism c. 852-1024
- 2: The origins of Gandersheim
- 3: Rewriting the origins of Gandersheim
- 4: The origins of Quedlinburg
- 5: Rewriting the origins of Quedlinburg
- Conclusion: Ottonian convents as memorial institutions
About the author
Sarah Greer is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow based at the University of Oxford, working on how early medieval dynasties in Western Europe were remembered at their burial sites in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
She completed her undergraduate and Master's degrees at the University of Auckland in New Zealand before moving to the United Kingdom to study for her PhD at the University of St Andrews.
Summary
Commemorating Power looks at how the past was evoked for political purposes under a new Saxon dynasty, the Ottonians, who came to dominate post-Carolingian Europe after 888 as the rulers of a new empire in Germany and Italy, focusing on two convents of monastic women who played a significant role in Ottonian politics.
Additional text
The book has well-constructed arguments and is a pleasure to read. Dr Greer includes a welcome variety of manuscripts, primary sources, and mostly English and German secondary sources. The book will be of most use to professionals and eager students of the 'face' of power, the Ottonian dynasty and the workings of early medieval monasteries. It will be a reference book for courses in early medieval studies of Europe, especially of early Germany, and for courses about memory and general historiography.
