When Ego Was Imago

Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, Professor of History, New York University, has published extensively on medieval seals as conceptual tools, markers of identity, and social agents, including Form as Order in Medieval France (Aldershot, 1993), and “Medieval Identity” (American Historical Review, 2000)

"...This important new book gives the lie to any such dichotomy between erudition and theoretical acumen. Brigitte Bedos-Rezak brings her unrivalled knowledge of specialists’ fields— diplomatics and charters in general and, above all, sigillography, the study of seal dies and their imprints—to the questions of representation in identity formation in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Rigorously following transformations in sealing practices and the simultaneous spread of the metaphor of sealing takes the book into extremely wide terrain that includes the multiple relations among discourses of royal authority, eucharistic theology, and personal and corporate accountability...Non-medievalists tend not to read the work of medievalists. This is to be especially deplored in the case of this book, [as is its price], for it is a model of post-postmodern historiography, that is, a return to the empirical historical subject and object while cognizant of the mediate role of language. By examining a significant historical example of the mediate role of the sign, Bedos-Rezak shows us what cultural history after the linguistic turn can be." – Robert M. Stein, Purchase College, in: Speculum 87/2 (April 2012)"...As a book, When Ego was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages is complex and intense, and yet exudes a manifest enthusiasm that lends it a charismatic appeal. It does credit to the series to which it belongs, providing a truly original vision of medieval thought that will, I suspect, remain with me for many years to come." – James Smith, The University of Western Australia, in: LIMINA, 15 July 2011"...What interests me about this book is how it opens up a gap or lacuna between indexicality and iconicity, a gap of importance for medievalists and contemporary students of semiosis. Michel Foucault pointed toward such gaps and their possibilities in his classical study, The Order of Things ..." – Kathleen Biddick, Temple University,/i>, in: The Medieval Review, 2011

• List of Plates ... xiList of Abbreviations ... xxvAcknowledgments ... xxviiIntroduction ... 1PART I: SOURCES AND METHODSChapter One Beyond the Text: Medieval Documentary Practices ... 9Medieval Charters, Then and Now ... 9Documentary, Production and Conservation ... 13Diplomatic Discourse and the Performance of Charters ... 17Acculturation to Documentary Practices ... 22The Authentication of Charters: Persons, Signs, Seals ... 26The Scope of Medieval Charter Referentiality ... 31Chapter Two Toward an Archaeology of the Medieval Charter ... 37The Archival Profile of Saint-Fursy of Péronne ... 40The Production and Reproduction of Charters at Notre-Dame of Homblières ... 44The Dispersed Charters of the Counts of Ponthieu ... 46Authority, Authenticity, and the Intertextuality of Diplomatic Discourse ... 49Narrative Form and Material Format: A Mutual Engagement ... 50Chapter Three Sign Theory, Medieval and Modern ... 55The Role of Theory in Sigillography ... 55Evaluating Sign Theories ... 60A Mutually Challenging Encounter: Semiotic Anthropology and the Middle Ages ... 65PART II: IMAGOChapter Four The King’s Sign ... 75A Merovingian Icon: The Royal Seal ... 76Carolingian Rulers: The Power of Royal and Imperial Seals ... 78Post-Carolingian Kingship: Sealing in Transition ... 84Capetian Kings: The End of a Prerogative and the Re-Invention of the Royal Seal ... 90 Chapter Five Eucharistic Theology and Episcopal Signature ... 95Episcopal Modes of Communication ... 96The Debate over Real Presence and the Appearance of Episcopal Seals ... 102Chapter Six Medieval Identity: Subject, Object, Agency ... 109A Network of Schools and Chanceries ... 113The Augustinian Paradox and its Role in Scholarly Controversy ... 121Personhood and Individuality ... 129The Ego of Diplomatic Discourse ... 132Persona in Sign and Metaphor ... 140Ego to Imago ... 150From Identity to Stereotype ... 152Chapter Seven Images of Identity and the Identity of Images ... 161Images and the Senses: From Gregory the Great to Guillaume Durand ... 161The Currency of Imago: Augustine, ByzantineAnti-Iconoclasm, and Twelfth-Century Scholarship ... 171Mirror ... 180Imprint ... 186Replica ... 202PART III: EGOChapter Eight Difformitas: Invective, Individuality, Identity ... 209The Invectiva of Arnulf of Lisieux ... 210Strategies of Character Assassination ... 216The Rhetoric of Vilification ... 220‘Difformitas’ as Individuality ... 225Chapter Nine The Semiotics of Personality in the Middle Ages ... 231Identity and Individuality ... 233Individuality and Personhood ... 235Urban Identity and the Ideal City ... 238The Saint and the City ... 243Urban Identity and the Historical City ... 247The Individuality of Human Collectives ... 249Conclusion ... 253Bibliography ... 257Index ... 287Plates ... (after 296)