Sermo doctorum: Compilers, Preachers, and Their Audiences in the Early Medieval West

Despite their large number and their potential significance for our understanding of the genesis of Christian thought and practice, early medieval sermons have been conspicuously neglected by modern scholarship. Taking their lead from recent studies that transformed our understanding of the post-Roman world, the various contributors to this collection of essays explore a wide range of topics related to the composition, transmission, and dissemination of sermons and homiliaries in the early medieval West. Some papers focus on individual sermons in an attempt to identify their authors and aims; others examine the manuscript evidence for the compilation and transmission of composite homiliaries; and a few question our concept of early medieval sermons as a peculiar genre that merits special attention. By bringing early medieval sermons into the centre of discussion this volume, which is the first book dedicated to early medieval sermons and homiliaries, makes an important contribution to our understanding of the religious culture of the early medieval West. This multi-lingual collection of papers examines a plethora of texts which, in the past, were pushed to the margins of historical research, and offers a fresh look at these works in their own cultural, religious, and social context.