Elizabeth Dachowski . First among Abbots: The Career of Abbo of Fleury . Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press . 2008 . Pp. xii, 299. $69.95.
Geoffrey Koziol
Given the spottiness and difficulty of our sources, it is hard to write a true biography even best-documented early medieval figures, which why so many would-be biographers end up writing “life times” studies around figure. This has been Elizabeth Dachowski's tactic in her study Abbo, abbot Fleury (d. 1004). Certainly Abbo merits such treatment, given how central his life was times. He one most important leaders monastic reform, an defender papal prerogatives, apologist for new Capetian power. inserted himself into thick contentious events day, including councils Saint-Basle (which deposed Archbishop Arnulf Reims) Saint-Denis ended full-scale riot). also scholar who wrote letters poetry, treatises on astronomy computus (one latter re-dating birth Christ show that millennium had already passed without incident), fascinating piece hagiography (the Passio Eadmundi), while compiling collection canons. More than anyone, he built major intellectual center.
The American Historical Review