Hrotsvitha – After Empire

I’ll be in Rome for Christmas: Ottonian memories of the past at Christmas

December 19, 2017Sarah GreerResearch BlogAnnals, Charlemagne, Christmas, Hrotsvitha, Ottonian Empire, Ottonians, Pope, Salians

Where do you spend Christmas? For medieval rulers, this was a very important question, and one that had many possible answers. In the tenth century, the itinerant Ottonian rulers spent Christmas at many different places across the empire, often at major cities like Frankfurt, Pavia, Rome, Cologne and Ravenna. Celebrating Christmas was one of the…

Using the past in Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim’s ‘Primordia’

The Primordia de coenobiis Gandesheimensis of Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, likely composed in the 970s, is often used by historians as an excellent example of female commemoration – that is, how early medieval women, especially in tenth-century Saxony, preserved the memory of their family’s history. In this case, the commemoration came from a convent of canonesses founded…

After Empire

Using and Not Using the Past in the Crisis of the Carolingian World, c. 900-1050

Tag: Hrotsvitha

I’ll be in Rome for Christmas: Ottonian memories of the past at Christmas

Using the past in Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim’s ‘Primordia’