Amsgar, Rimbert and the Forged Foundations 
of Hamburg-Bremen Autobiography
by
Eric C KNIBBS

Updated 7th April, 2023


Eric is the author of Ansgar, Rimbert and the Forged Foundations of Hamburg-Bremen (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), which argues that most of the early documentation for the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen, a fixture of German historical scholarship that has long been viewed as fundamental for the history of Christianity in Scandinavia, is either forged or falsified. In fact the archdiocese emerged much later than scholarship has assumed, and our understanding of Frankish expansion and missionary history during the reign of Louis the Pious (814–840) has been accordingly distorted.

Amalar of Metz s "On the Liturgy" (the "Liber officialis," or "De ecclesiastico officio") was one of the most widely read and circulated texts of the Carolingian era. The fruit of lifelong reflection and study in the wake of liturgical reform in the early ninth century, Amalar s commentary inaugurated the Western medieval tradition of allegorical liturgical exegesis and has bequeathed a wealth of information about the contents and conduct of the early medieval Mass and Office. In 158 chapters divided into four books, "On""the Liturgy" addresses the entire phenomenon of Christian worship, from liturgical prayers to clerical vestments to the bodily gestures of the celebrants.

Eric is joint editor of this essay collection which studies the Apocalypse and the end of the world, as these themes occupied the minds of biblical scholars, theologians, and ordinary people in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Early Modernity. It opens with an innovative series of studies on “Gendering the Apocalypse,” devoted to the texts and contexts of the apocalyptic through the lens of gender. A second section of essays studies the more traditional problem of “Apocalyptic Theory and Exegesis,” with a focus on authors such as Augustine of Hippo and Joachim of Fiore. A final series of essays extends the thematic scope to “The Eschaton in Political, Liturgical, and Literary Contexts.”  cultural production.

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