Author Description

In many countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, the period after 1000 saw the emergence of new Christian kingdoms. This process was soon reflected in works of historiography that traced the foundation and development of the new polities. Many of these texts had a lasting impact on the formation of political, ethnic, and religious identities of these states and peoples. This volume deals with some of these earliest histories narrating the past of the new polities that had emerged after 1000 in Northern, East Central, and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Adriatic regions. They have often been understood as 'national histories', but a closer look brings out the differences in their aims and construction. One question addressed here is to what extent these historians built on models of identification developed in earlier historiography. The volume provides an overview of several fundamental texts in which identities in the new Christian kingdoms were negotiated, and of recent research on these texts.