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The Irish at the Carolingian Court and the Europeanization of Europe

The Irish at the Carolingian Court and the Europeanization of Europe

Talk by Alexander O’Hara

Given at the Keough-Naughton Institute, University of Notre Dame, on February 16, 2022

Abstract: During the eighth and ninth centuries, Irish clergymen and theologians such as Virgil of Salzburg, Dicuil, Sedulius Scottus, and John Scottus Eriugena were drawn to the courts of the Carolingian kings and emperors. They served as advisors, teachers, and theologians for their royal and episcopal patrons in Frankia. As had been the case with the Merovingian court of the seventh century, the Carolingian court to an even greater extent brought together a cosmopolitan multi-ethnic array of courtiers, clergymen, and scholars that served as a middle ground for an emerging European consciousness.

A new European dialectic emerged from this cultural mixing, one grounded in a biblical hermeneutics of the Franks as the new Israel. Coming from the margins of Europe, the Irish embraced a more inclusive strategy than their English counterparts that put them within this new European framework. This lecture explores how these Irish immigrants wrote about their place within Europe and their identity as Irishmen.

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Alexander O’Hara is a medieval historian interested in the cultural perception of Ireland. He is currently a Fulbright Fellow and Visiting Scholar in the Department of Celtic Languages & Literatures at Harvard University. Click here to view his website.

Top Image: John the Evangelist in St. Gall Gospel Book / Wikimedia Commons

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