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Lin, Sihong: Rereading Absence: Silent Narratives in the ‘Life of Eligius of Noyon’, in Fafinski, Mateusz and Riemenschneider, Jakob (Eds.): The Past Through Narratology: New Approaches to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2022 (Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung. Beihefte, Volume 18), p. 27–39. https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.921.c13612

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https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.921
ISBN 978-3-96822-108-3 (PDF)
ISBN 978-3-96822-107-6 (Hardcover)

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05/12/2022

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Sihong Lin

Rereading Absence

Silent Narratives in the ‘Life of Eligius of Noyon’

Abstract The ‘Life of Eligius of Noyon’ contains a unique digression on the monothelete controversy engulfing the Roman Empire in the seventh century. While it is often read as evidence of the author and the saint’s support for Pope Martin’s anti-monothelete initiatives, an examination of the excursus also reveals clues that this particular narra­tive was artfully crafted to argue for this ‘orthodox’ posi­tion, not necessarily that it reflected the reality of Frankish attitudes around the year 650. By re-examining narrative omissions within this digression and viewing the absence of information not as indications of ignorance, but as the result of deliberate authorial intent, this contribution sug­gests that the hagiographer explicitly wove together the actions of Eligius and Martin, at least partially, in order to excuse Frankish inaction during this doctrinal dispute.