Böcker av Lynette Olson

This study considers the Celtic, pre-Norman, Cornish monasteries through written sources, place-names and material remains. The emphasis is on identifying the sites and tracing their survival to later periods. The author also considers the progress of monasticism and its role in Church and society.

New essays shed light on the mysterious St Samson of Dol and his Vita.The First Life of St Samson of Dol (Vita Prima Samsonis) is a key text for the study of early Welsh, Cornish, Breton and indeed west Frankish history. In the twentieth century it was the subject of unresolved scholarly controversy that tended to limit its usefulness. However, more recent research has firmly re-established its significance as a historical source. This volume presents the results of new, multi-disciplinary, assessment of the textand its context. What emerges from the studies collected here is a context of greater plausibility for the First Life of St Samson of Dol as an early and essentially historical text, potentially at the centre of early British Christianity and its influence on the Continent. The landscape of that Christianity is gradually emerging from the shadows and it is a landscape in which the career of St Samson, the first Insular peregrinus, is shown to be of considerable importance. LYNETTE OLSON is an Honorary Associate of the Department of History, University of Sydney. Contributors: Caroline Brett, Karen Jankulak, Constant J. Mews, Lynette Olson, Joseph-Claude Poulin, Richard Sowerby, Ian N. Wood, Jonathan M. Wooding.

Lynette Olson offers an exploration of the fascinating original formation of Europe from the fall of Rome to the First Crusade. Written in an easy-to-follow century-by-century format and richly illustrated, with due attention given to the female population and the secular side of life, this book will engage both students and scholars.