Janet L. Nelson

Dame Janet Laughland Nelson often also Jinty Nelson DBE (born March 28, 1942 ; nee Janet Muir ) is a British historian .

Janet L. Nelson grew up in Blackpool and studied history at Newnham College , Cambridge. In 1965 she married. In 1967 the Ph.D. at Walter Ullmann with the work “Rituals of Royal Inauguaration in Early Medieval Europe. From dux populi to athleta christi ”. She then accompanied her husband to China for social anthropological field research . After returning to Great Britain, she initially worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office . In 1970 she became a lecturer in history at King's College London . She stayed there until 2008. In 1987 she became a reader and in 1993 a professor of medieval history. Nelson supervised 32 doctoral theses. At King's College London she was Director of the Center for Late Antiques.

Nelson's research focus is the Carolingian period . The focus is on royalty, political ideas and rituals. She has presented numerous publications on early medieval Europe. Her studies Society, theodicy and the origins of heresy (1971) and Royal saints and early medieval kingship (1973) made her known to a wider professional community. Nelson edited the Manchester Medieval Sources translation series from 1991 to 2009. In 1991 she presented an annotated translation of the Annals of St. Bertin . Nelson published numerous studies on the West Franconian ruler Charles the Bald and his time. In 1992 the biography was a synthesis of her long-term research work. It is the first comprehensive biography of Charlemagne at all. Nelson revised the prevailing view of Charles as a weak ruler in a period of decline ("a reputation as an unsuccessful participant in a process of decline and disintegration", p. VII.). Her goal is to "understand Charles in his own times: what he did, what world he moved in, what sort of man he was" (p. 4). For Nelson, Karl was a capable ruler who, under the most difficult external circumstances, managed to secure the support of the nobility and the church and thereby consolidate royal power. Nelson assigned him an important role in the development of what would later become France. Nelson submitted several essays on individual aspects of Charlemagne's time for more than two decades . In 2019 she published a comprehensive biography on Karl.

Together with Henrietta Leyser , she is the editor of The Oxford History of Medieval Europe . Nelson directs the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England together with Simon Keynes and Stephen Baxter . In 1986, 17 essays were bundled in the anthology Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe .

Nelson has received numerous scientific honors and memberships for her research. In 1996 she became a Fellow of the British Academy , where she was Vice President from 1999 to 2001. In 2000 she became a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America . She became a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1982 and was the first woman to hold the presidency from 2001 to 2005. She was also President of the Ecclesiastical History Society . Nelson received honorary doctorates from the Universities of UEA (2004), St Andrews (2007), Queen's Belfast (2009), York (2010), Nottingham and Liverpool (2010). In 2006 she was given the rare honor of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire .

Fonts

• Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe. Hambledon, London 1986, ISBN 0-907628-59-1 .
• Charles the Bald. Longman, London 1992, ISBN 0-582-05585-7 .
• The Frankish World. Hambledon, London 1996, ISBN 1-85285-105-8 .
• Rulers and Ruling Families in Earlier Medieval Europe. Ashgate, Aldershot 1999, ISBN 0-86078-802-4 .
• Courts, elites, and gendered power in the early Middle Ages. Charlemagne and others. Ashgate, Aldershot 2007, ISBN 978-0-7546-5933-4 .
• King and Emperor. A New Life of Charlemagne. Allen Lane, London 2019, ISBN 978-0-713-99243-4 .

literature

• Paul Fouracre , David Ganz : Frankland. The Franks and the world of the early middle ages. Essays in honor of Dame Jinty Nelson. Manchester University Press, Manchester 2008, ISBN 0-7190-7669-2 .

Web links

• Publications by Janet L. Nelson in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii
• Page of Nelson at King's College London
• Making history: Interview with Dame Janet Nelson

Remarks

1. ↑ Janet Nelson: Charles the Bald. London 1992.
2. ↑ See the reviews of Irmgard Fees in: Historische Zeitschrift Vol. 258 (1994), p. 468f. and Martina Stratmann in German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages 49, 1993, pp. 711f. ( Digitized version )
3. ↑ See the review by Karl Ubl in: Francia-Recensio 2020/2 ( online )
4. ↑ See the reviews of Joachim Ehlers in: Francia 16/1 (1989), pp. 247–249 ( digitized version ); Rudolf Schieffer in: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages 43 (1987), p. 593 ( digitized version )