The Prague Sacramentary: Culture, Religion, and Politics in Late Eighth-Century Bavaria

This volume offers a multi-angled investigation of the Prague Sacramentary, an enigmatic manuscript which provides a unique window into the world of early medieval Bavaria at a time of cultural flowering and political upheaval.

The Prague Sacramentary is a liturgical manuscript which can be very precisely located in a specific social and historical context. It was written in the turbulent period when Charlemagne crossed Bavaria to fight the Avars and when his son Pippin rebelled against him, seeking support among the Bavarian nobility.

The manuscript can be linked to specific groups of Bavarian elites that had to come to terms with this explosive political situation. It also elucidates the ways in which Christian culture was expressed and experienced in Bavaria at the end of the eighth century.

Although Bavaria may be regarded as a periphery from a Frankish perspective, it was certainly no cultural backwater. Because of its geographical position at the crossroads of Italian, Bavarian, and Frankish culture, Bavaria produced unique and intriguing texts and artefacts.

One such object is analysed here by a team of experts, shedding renewed light on the earthly and heavenly concerns of an early medieval community in a specific region. It includes a discussion of the topics of the formal invocation of saints, vernacular understandings of Latin texts, marriage, politics, and concerns for ritual purity as well as the well-being of the conflict-ridden Carolingian family. The volume is edited by Maximilian Diesenberger (University of Vienna), Els Rose and Rob Meens (both Utrecht University).

• Title: The Prague Sacramentary: Culture, Religion, and Politics in Late Eighth-Century Bavaria
• Authors: Maximilian Diesenberger, Els Rose, Rob Meens (eds.)
• Publisher: Brepols, 2016
• ISBN: 978-2-503-54920-0