Defining and shaping the moral self in the ninth century : evidence from baptismal tracts and the reception of Augustine's De Trinitate

Abstract

This dissertation explores concepts of the self in the ninth century, specifically in the
 Carolingian Empire. This work begins with a review of scholarship on the medieval
 self. Much scholarship on this concept has tended to focus on the twelfth century. As I
 hope to demonstrate, however, ninth-century writers were just as interested in their own
 constructions of the self. Ninth-century treatments of the self were unique and thus
 offer us a great deal of insight into the mentalities of the time. I also examine the ninthcentury
 vocabulary of the self, focusing on the language inherited from patristic and
 early medieval writers, especially Gregory the Great, and the way in which this
 vocabulary was adapted by Carolingian writers.
 Throughout the body of the dissertation, I focus on two main bodies of texts: ninthcentury
 uses of Augustine's De Trinitate and the ninth-century baptismal expositions
 recently edited by Susan Keefe. Both sets of texts illustrate the ways in which the
 moral self was both defined and shaped in the ninth century. The treatments of De
 Trinitate were mainly concerned with the monastic self, while the baptismal
 expositions allow us a glimpse of the way in which churchmen perceived the lay self.
 I conclude by briefly looking ahead to the middle of the ninth century and the
 controversies surrounding Gottschalk. The question of the moral self was at the centre
 of these debates, and this thus demonstrates the importance of the concept of the self to
 the ninth century. I have included as an appendix my translation of sections of the
 bapti sma! expositions