History, Scripture and Authority in the Carolingian Empire offers a detailed analysis of the work of the ninth-century historian Frechulf of Lisieux. It uses the creation of Frechulf's monumental Histories to explore how the past was read and interpreted in the Carolingian world. In c. 830, Frechulf, bishop of the northwestern Frankish see of Lisieux, completed his Histories, a vast account of the world from its creation through to the seventh century. Despite the richness of the source, it has long been overlooked by modern scholars. Two factors account for this neglect: Frechulf's narrative stops over two centuries short of his time of writing, and was largely a compilation of earlier, late antique histories and chronicles. In examining Frechulf's historiographical compendium, this book challenges a dominant paradigm within medieval studies of understanding history-writing primarily as an extension of politics and power. By focusing instead on the transmission and reception of patristic knowledge, the compilation of authoritative texts, and the relationship between the study of history and scriptural exegesis, it reveals Frechulf's work to be an unexpectedly rich artefact of Carolingian intellectual culture.

This book offers a ground-breaking critique of the concept of 'tradition' as it has been applied in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander context. The authors offer a refreshing new style of analysis. In writing that is rich in detail, strong in analysis and informed by their research experience, they argue for a deeper appreciation of the creativity inherent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social life, and the way that knowledge is constructed and deployed in complex intercultural contexts in contemporary Australia.Each chapter draws on detailed local inter-cultural information which include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land and sea ownership and management, native title processes, service delivery arrangements for health and outstation management, and representations in art, song and broadcasting. In each arena there are multiple engagements with broad global processes. The advent of Native Title legislation has led Indigenous communities across the country being required to demonstrate their 'traditional' connections to country.For many, their experiences of these processes are increasingly at odds with the complex inter-cultural realities of their lives. They feel the constraining effect of outmoded frameworks of 'tradition' in legislation and policy where social and cultural innovation are characterised as inauthentic. The book draws together key scholars in Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander social research. The authors provide productive ways of characterising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social life and develop a multi-disciplinary theoretical critique to the concept of tradition.