Abstract of Paper Presented at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, May 2015) 2015 Congress Events Announced<\/a> and 2015 Congress Events Accomplished<\/a><\/p>\n [Published on 23 April 2015<\/em>]<\/p>\n \u2018Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.\u2019 \u00a0Ludwig Wittgenstein\u2019s dictum emphasized the claim that there are certain events that cannot be represented in language. \u00a0Certainly, he was neither the first nor the last to emphasize the impossibility of words representing particular meanings. \u00a0However, his apodictic dualism, to speak or to be silent, ignores the many possible shades of rhetorical elements oscillating between the spoken and the unspoken.<\/p>\n For a long time now, modern researchers in the field of Early Medieval History have occupied themselves with piecing together History from historiographical narratives, while making a number of assumptions and conjectures about matters that were not mentioned expressis verbis<\/em>. \u00a0Gaps have been conceived as unfortunate errors that had to be filled by means of modern reasoning. \u00a0The \u201clinguistic turn\u201d shifted the emphasis to language and narrative constructions, and put the focus on authors, their aims and their methods. Obviously, medieval historians left out material variously by accident, on purpose, through ignorance, or by explicitly intentional omissions (\u201cI will not go any further to tell . . .\u201d). \u00a0However, gaps and silences have not yet been dealt with as primary field of interest, although it is generally agreed that silences can be most revealing.<\/p>\n The paper will therefore approach methodologically the issue of marked and unmarked silences. \u00a0On the basis of two prominent works of historiography, the Decem libri Historiarum<\/em> by Gregory of Tours, composed during the times of the Merovingian kings, and the anonymous Annales regni Francorum<\/em>, written during the times of Charlemagne, I will present evidence for reflective usage of silence. \u00a0Especially when dealing with kings and their successes and defeats, both of these historical works do not only use rhetorical devices such as praeteritio<\/em>, omissio<\/em> or exaltatio<\/em> derived from ancient Ciceronian tradition. \u00a0From the omission in carefully constructed passages of particular words, names, or events, one can gauge the importance of remaining silent about certain usurpers and rebellions. \u00a0At the same time, other stories concerning antiroyalist insurrection were expatiated, in an effort to cover up less favourable elements. \u00a0Silence, as will be shown, is a matter not only of being quiet but also of obscuring and concealing by means of many words.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gerald Schwedler (Historisches Seminar, Universit\u00e4t Z\u00fcrich) \u201cSpeech is Silver; Silence is Golden\u201d: Usurpers\u2019 Deeds and Historians\u2019 Verdicts in Merovingian and Carolingian Chronicles Abstract of Paper Presented at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, May 2015) Session on \u201cThe ‘Good’, the ‘Bad’, and the ‘Ugly’ Ruler: Ideal Kingship in the Middle Ages\u201d Co-sponsored by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1023,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4095"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4582,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4095\/revisions\/4582"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSession on \u201cThe ‘Good’, the ‘Bad’, and the ‘Ugly’ Ruler: Ideal Kingship in the Middle Ages\u201d<\/strong>
\nCo-sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<\/strong> and
\nthe Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies<\/strong> at the University of Florida
\nOrganized by Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<\/em>) and Florin Curta (University of Florida<\/em>)<\/p>\n