From Sithiu to Saint-Bertin. Hagiographic Exegesis and Collective Memory in the Early Medieval Cults of Omer and Bertin

This book is a comprehensive, in-depth study of the early history of the monastery of Saint-Bertin (c. 650-1000). David Defries analyses the narrative texts concerning the history of Saints Omer, Bertin, and Winnoc. He argues not only for new dates for several of the vitae, but also for hitherto unnoticed intertextual relationships between these texts and many others, such as the Regula Magistri, the Regula Benedicti, and Gregory's Regula Pastoralis.
Defries's new interpretations of principal sources provide important new insights, especially into the background and the consequences of the reform undertaken by Abbot Fridegis in the 820s and the relationship between the canonical and the monastic communities at Saint-Bertin and Saint-Omer from that point onwards. Methodologically, the book is a remarkable plea to interpret early medieval narrative sources in a new way : Defries argues persuasively that in using hagiography and historiography as historical sources we must take early medieval hermeneutics and exegesis into account.
Steffen Patzold, University of Tübingen.