Folcwin of Rankweil: the world of a Carolingian local official

This article examines charters from the St Gall archive which are valuable for the light they throw on the secular society of the settlement of Rankweil in Rhaetia and the surrounding area. The centrepiece is the rare collection of early ninth-century grants and sales made to the centenarius Folcwin and the article uses these and other related documents to examine the workings of Carolingian local society, the activities of local officials, and the patterns of landholding and transfer amongst secular individuals of relatively modest standing.     

约翰逊和厄尔的人类社会演进学说

在塞维斯与弗里德的人类社会演进理论发表之后 ,国际学术界进一步做了大量的田野调查与文化比较研究工作 ,其中引人注目的有约翰逊和厄尔的学说。本文介绍了他们人类社会演进理论的基本内容 ,着重分析了他们酋邦的定义 ,指出了其中在权力结构描述方面的不足 ,并使用中国材料予以了证明。本文结论是 ,他们的学说虽然并未对前人的理论有什么根本性的突破 ,但还是做出了一些重要的修订 ,这对于人类社会演进理论的深化研究 ,尤其是当前中国文明与国家起源的研究 ,具有着不可忽视的参考意义。     

Under the aegis of the saints. Hagiography and power in early Carolingian northern Italy

In the transition from the Lombard to the Carolingian period, hagiography came to play a fundamental role in the strategies of legitimation and representation of the episcopal churches of the regnum Langobardorum. This article gives an overview of the features, choices, tastes and models of sanctity characteristic of Italian hagiography, against the background of local contexts and political competition. It demonstrates that in the territories under Frankish rule, hagiography represented a chief instrument in the hands of the ecclesiastical elites to shape and use the past in light of the concerns of the present.     

The very personal history of Nithard: family and honour in the Carolingian world

Nithard's Histories of the civil wars fought between Louis the Pious's sons reveal much about mid‐ninth‐century nobility, political values, and the author's changing social position. This article considers how Nithard's immediate familial history affected the text's composition. We argue that his incorporation of authorial voice and detail, crafting of the royal lineage, and emphasis on fraternitas suggest that Nithard employed the text to fight for legitimacy and honour, both familial and individual. We propose that the Histories should be read as a social commemoration of Nithard's familial memories, thus complicating the assumption that family histories were the purview of women.     

The generation game: Universality or difference in interpretations of feminisms

Waelti‐Walters, J. and Hause, S.C., Feminisms of the Belle Epoque: A Historical and Literary Anthology (University of Nebrasaka Press, 1994), 338pp., £40 hbk, £15.99 pbk, ISBN 0 8032 9748 3

Moses, G. and Rabine, L.W., Feminism, Socialism, and French Romanticism (Indiana University Press, 1993), 372pp., £35 hbk., £15.99 pbk., ISBN 0 253 20818 1     

The image of authority in Carolingian coinage: the image of a ruler and Roman imperial tradition

This article examines the influence of Roman imperial symbols of authority on Carolingian coinage. During the brief period of a specific &1squo;renewal' in Carolingian coinage in the 810s, there was an evident turn to the Roman tradition of demonstrating authority. As a result, the image of a peace-making emperor on Roman coins during the late third to early fourth century was employed on Carolingian coins for the purpose of legitimizing the new imperial authority of the Carolingians. This image, however, was not long-lived and gradually disappeared in the 820s to 830s.     

Governance,locality and legal culture: the rise and fall of the Carolingian advocates of Saint-Martin of Tours

This article examines the office of advocate at the abbey of Saint-Martin of Tours. It studies what was regionally distinctive about its emergence there in the late ninth century and suggests a reason for the office’s demise in the early tenth century. In doing so, it draws out the important discursive shifts which were part and parcel of both the setting-up and the fading-away of Carolingian ‘reform’, suggesting that the changes seen in the advocatial office were ones of mentality first and of administrative change only secondarily.