David Defries
I study the transmission and adaptation of collective memories in both local and global contexts, especially through the Christian cult of the saints in the medieval West. I also specialize in early medieval Flanders, monasticism and medieval Christianity. Currently, Brigitte Meijns (KU Leuven), Wim De Clercq (U Gent) and I are co-editing a volume of collected essays on the evidence for global networks in early medieval Flanders to be published with Amsterdam University Press.
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The evolution of Sithiu’s collective memory demon strates that the methods used in most studies of early medieval collective memory produce a distorted image of the partnership. Historians overwhelmingly assume that collective memory has a narrative structure and that the texts meant to shape its evolution are “historiographic” in form. In contrast, David Defries treats Sithiu’s historiography as a type of scriptural exegesis that emphasizes the allegorical levels, especially typology and tropology, of the Christian scriptural hermeneutic. Paradigm, not narration, structured early medieval Christian allegory and thus early medieval collective memory at the abbey.
This argument has broad implications for the study of early medieval collective memory. The intellectual culture of Sithiu was typical of the early medieval West, and all the texts considered date between c. 740 and c. 1148, situating them in a period when writers trained in monasteries like Sithiu produced the vast majority of western European literature. From Sithiu to Saint-Bertin may thus be seen as a preliminary case study for the value of paradigmatic approaches to early medieval memory.