TY - BOOK AU - Buc,Philippe TI - The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory SN - 9781400832491 U1 - 390.0940902 PY - 2021///] CY - Princeton, NJ : PB - Princeton University Press, KW - HISTORY / Medieval KW - bisacsh KW - Annals of Fulda KW - Bavaria KW - Bonald, Louis de KW - Byzantine model KW - Canossa KW - Charlemagne KW - Chinese Rites controversy KW - David (typology) KW - Egypt KW - Enlightenment KW - Gluckman, Max KW - absolutism KW - acclamations KW - adventus KW - amicitia KW - antiquarianism KW - asylum KW - autocracy KW - baptism KW - bishops, powers of KW - blindness KW - caritas KW - change KW - charity KW - cingulum militare KW - circus games KW - civil society KW - cognition KW - community and hierarchy KW - consensus KW - crisis KW - curses KW - danger KW - democracy KW - despotism and ceremonial KW - distinction KW - divination KW - drug or opium KW - dualism KW - ecclesia KW - enthronement KW - ethological models KW - exegesis KW - feast of fools KW - fetishism KW - genuflections KW - gladiator KW - handshake KW - hegemony KW - hermeneutics KW - humiliation rituals KW - hypocrisy N1 - Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; PREFACE --; ABBREVIATIONS --; INTRODUCTION --; PART I Late Antique and Early Medieval Narratives --; Chapter One WRITING OTTOMAN HEGEMONY: GOOD RITUALS AND BAD RITUALS IN LIUDPRAND OF CREMONA --; Chapter Two RITUAL CONSENSUS AND RITUAL VIOLENCE: TEXTS AND EVENTS IN NINTH-CENTURY CAROLINGIAN POLITICAL CULTURE --; Chapter Three RITES OF SAINTS AND RITES OF KINGS: CONSENSUS AND TRANSGRESSION IN THE WORKS OF GREGORY OF TOURS --; Chapter Four THE LATE ANTIQUE MATRIX: MARTYRDOM AND RITUAL --; PART II From Theology to the Social Sciences, ca. 1500-ca. 1970 --; Introduction --; Chapter Five RITES, RITUALS, AND ORDER, CA. 1500-CA. 1800 --; Chapter Six MEDIEVAL HISTORY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, CA. 1800-CA. 1970 --; Chapter Seven EPILOGUE --; Index; restricted access N2 - Central to current understandings of medieval history is the concept of political ritual, encompassing events from coronations to funerals, entries into cities, civic games, banquets, hunting, acts of submission or commendation, and more. ''Ritual?'' asks Philippe Buc. In The Dangers of Ritual he boldly argues that the concept shouldn't be so central after all. Modern-day scholars, gently seduced by twentieth-century theories of ritual, often misinterpret medieval documents that ostensibly describe such events, in part because they fail to appreciate the intentions behind them.The book begins with four case studies whose arrangement--backward from texts on tenth-century kingship to fourth-century representations of Christian martyrdom--allows for the line of development to be peeled back layer by layer. It then turns to an analysis of the formation of the intellectual traditions that contemporary historians have employed to interpret medieval documents. Tracing the emergence of the concept of ritual from the Reformation to the mid-twentieth century, Buc highlights the continuities yet also the profound transformations between the early medieval understandings and our own, social-scientific models.Medieval historians will find this book an indispensable resource for its insights into methodological issues crucial to their discipline. As Buc demonstrates, only rigorous attention to the contexts within which authors worked can allow us to reconstruct from medieval documents how ''rituals'' might have functioned. Ultimately, he argues, too swift an application of contemporary models to highly complex textual artifacts blinds us to the specificities of early medieval European political culture UR - https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400832491?locatt=mode:legacy UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781400832491 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9781400832491/original ER -