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Editors Introduction
Ancient and medieval histories have more in common with each other than either of
them does with modern history. Ancient and medieval historians face similar
difficulties in dealing with very few extant texts, and trying to fill in the gaps between
the scraps of information they get from their sources. The more recent history is, the
fewer are such gaps, and researchers are able to work on a choice of sources, instead
of grasping all the extant texts together, to extract as much information on a subject as
possible. We, the members of the Medieval & Ancient Research Seminar group,
noticed this relationship two years ago, when we started a series of joint ancient and
medieval seminars. We were looking for opportunities to widen our understanding of
the historian’s tools through observing others at work. The final outcome of this
search was the conference from which these proceedings are presented.
The conference Et credidit populus. The role and function of beliefs in early societies
took place at Queen’s University of Belfast in September 2008 and was supported by
the Arts & Humanities Research Council and the School of History & Anthropology
at QUB. It hosted speakers from the UK, Ireland, Poland, Austria and Italy. The range
of the subjects discussed at the conference covered the period from prehistory to the
late middle ages, all of them relating to various aspects of human religiosity. For
beliefs were crucial elements in ancient and medieval societies: everything, from
small aspects of people’s daily lives to central ruling powers, were connected to,
influenced by and depended on a certain system of beliefs. A comprehensive survey
of some of these issues is offered in this selection of conference papers. Jean Price
(Headland Archaeology Ltd., Cork) presents an interpretation of the most recent
excavations of Irish Cistercian monasteries, reconstructing daily activities of medieval
monks. Using both archaeological and written sources, Price gives a complete
overview of the functioning of an exemplary Cistercian monastery, using the
Dunbrody Abbey in County Wexford as her example, and focusing especially on its
activity in literacy and manuscript production. The description of this typical daily
occupation of medieval monks leads to a long discussion about the means by which
medieval literacy, architecture and daily organisation functioned in very similar ways
all over Europe. Similar observations on the widespread medieval patterns of religious
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behaviours are evident in the paper by Christian Harding (Institute of Medieval
Studies, University of St Andrews), who offers an account on the ceremonies of
translations of the saints’ relics. Harding’s main argument is based on the ninthcentury records of the translations of a Merovingian saint, Filibert. The political
aspect of these ceremonies is also subjected to a detailed discussion: medieval
translations were very often caused by political issues. The discussion about political
aspects of relics, its translations and ceremonial presentations evolve to a wider
perspective through the papers by Ilaria Fornasini (Department of English Studies,
University of Verona) and Judyta Szacillo (School of History & Anthropology,
Queen’s University of Belfast). Fornasini presents a detailed discussion on the
evolution of the legend of St Edmund of East Anglia, both in literary and
iconographic sources, illustrating the correlations between elements of the legend and
the political occurrences. Szacillo’s presentation of her research results deals with the
same regularity: she studies the textual changes in the Lives of St Ruadán and
associates them with the shifting of power in medieval Munster. The issue of a saintly
authority and its relation to political needs and events is also touched by Kimberley
Steele in her paper on the female saints of Ely. Steele demonstrates how the
descriptions of different aspects of the saints’ characters were emphasised according
to the political needs of the institutions they were associated with.
Religious appearances are discussed on a more general level than everyday life or
politically related issues. Grzegorz Pac offers a cross-textual synthesis of the use of
the image of biblical Judith in relation to the ideology of queenship in medieval
Europe. A feature of the discussion after Pac’s conference paper and his research on
general ideas of the spiritual sources of authority in the middle ages was a
recapitulation of the conclusions appearing during the whole conference: that belief
and its organised form – religion – were in the roots of all sorts of authorities in early
societies. Stefano Maso’s paper concerning Cicero’s thoughts on the social function
of religion proves that that understanding was already common in ancient times: the
organised system of beliefs was the source of social order, laws and authorities which
constituted that order.
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The proceedings of the conference ‘Et credidit populus. The role and function of
beliefs in early societies’ printed here are a selection of the papers given on
September 19th 2008 at Queen’s University Belfast. The organisers would especially
like to acknowledge the help and support of David Hayton, the Head of the School of
History & Anthropology at QUB, and Marie-Therese Flanagan, the Director of
Research in the Ancient & Medieval Research Cluster, QUB.
Judyta Szacillo
Belfast, 14 January 2009
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