Lezing Alex Woolf over Oud-Ierse koninkrijken en gemeenschappen
Drift 21, 0.05 - Utrecht,
In de lezingenreeks van het Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies (UCMS) geeft dr. Alex Woolf (University of St. Andrews) op 20 januari een lezing getiteld 'Kingdoms and Communies. Early Irish túatha revisited.' Woolf bespreekt hierin de Oud-Ierse institutie van de túath, een sociale en territoriale eenheid die de basis vormde voor lokale identiteiten en acties.
In 1973 Frances John Byrne famously wrote of Ireland that “there were probably no less than 150 kings in the country at any given date between the fifth and the twelfth centuries”, and this view has been upheld by most scholars working in the field since that date. This calculation is based on the assumption that the institution of the túath (pl. túatha), a social and territorial unit that formed the basis for local identities and actions, was in essence a ‘petty kingdom’. In this paper Woolf will discuss the evidence linking kingship to the túatha and aim to challenge this assumption.
Dr Alex Woolf is a senior lecturer at the University of St Andrews since 2001. In 2010 he was awarded a PhD by portfolio from the University of St Andrews for his work on Politics and Identity in Early Medieval Scotland. He has wrihen on a wide range of topics relating to the early medieval Insular World and Scandinavia and is particularly interested in issues of state formation and ethnic shift.
Literature
To stimulate debate the following literature is recommended (but not obligatory):
- D.A. Binchy (ed.), Críth Gablach (Dublin, 1941); trans. E. Mac Neill, ‘Ancient Irish Law: the Law of Status or Franchise’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 36 (1921-24 [1923]), Section C, 265-316.
- F.J. Byrne, ‘Tribes and Tribalism in Early Ireland’, Ériu 22 (1971), 128-166.