The Politics of Interpretation: The Bible and the Formation of Legal Authority in the Early Middle Ages

Early medieval political thought was profoundly influenced by scripture. This included law and legal culture: the Bible provided early medieval elites with the concepts and vocabularies to write about social relations and their regulation. Scriptural citations could be directly adopted as law, or cited to explain, legitimize or criticize norms. This recourse to biblical authority was not straightforward: The application of biblical models to current social problems created tensions and the need for interpretation and translation, resulting in debates about the salience and authority of biblical law. This volume brings together papers by specialists in early medieval law as well as biblical exegesis, addressing the impact of biblical thought on early medieval legal cultures from early medieval Ireland to Spain and Carolingian Francia.