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BOOK REVIEWS 511 Greek). See Boletín de la Sociedad Arqueológica Luliana, 31 (1953-1960), 512. J. N. HlLLGARTH Pontifical Institute ofMediaeval Studies, Toronto Die Inzestgesetzgebung der merowingisch-fränkischen Konzilien (511626 /27). By Paul Mikat. [Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Görres-Gesellschaft, Neue Folge, Band 74.] (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 1994. Pp. 149- DM 36,-.) Expanding on his earlier work on incest legislation in the Merovingian age, Paul Mikat focuses attention in this study on what he characterizes as the highpoint ofthat legislative effort, Canon 22 (21) ofthe Council ofTours in 567. The work begins with a highly condensed introduction tracing the evolution of a Christian position on degrees of kinship permissible in valid marriage unions down to the fifth century. Mikat then proceeds to a detailed analysis of Canon 22 (2 1) structured in a way that allows him to bring into consideration not only the canons treating incest enacted in all Burgundian-Frankish councils between 511 and 626/27 but other kinds of texts, especially those treating specific cases where ecclesiastical authorities sought to deal with incestuous marriages. After describing the unsettled political and religious situation in which the Council ofTours took place, Mikat argues on the basis of a close look at the introduction to Canon 22 (21) that the major intention of the bishops at Tours was to provide their world with a precise statement of the fundamental teachings of the Church on incest as established in the past. The need for such a reiteration arose from a widely prevalent tendency among important elements of a society in the process of conversion to disregard or flout the Church's regulations on consanguineous marriages that conflicted with entrenched Germanic political, social, and economic practices and mind-sets affecting marriage. To leave no further excuse for claims of ignorantia iuris or for neglect of pastoral duties on the part of the clergy, the bishops at Tours thus incorporated into their enactment a series of texts that provided the essential definitions of incestuous relations: passages from the Old Testament (Lev. 18:5-18, 18:20; Deut. 27:15-20, 22-24); two texts derived from the Codex Theodosianus; canons from three Burgundian-Frankish councils (Orleans I [51 1], c. 18, Epaon, [517], c. 30, and Clermont [535], c. 12); and a New Testament passage (I Cor. 4:21-5:5 and 11:1). Mikat subjects each of these texts to rigorous scrutiny in search of its precise meaning, its historical precedents, and its relationship to existing marriage practices as revealed in specific cases involving efforts to dissolve incestuous marriages and to punish the guilty parties. Against the background provided by the sanctioning of the key texts on incestuous marriage, Mikat then completes his study with a brief treatment of the legislation relative to incest enacted by six Merovingian councils held between 577 and 626/27, 512 BOOK REVIEWS legislation that ,witnessed an increasing tendency to put the authority of the state behind the Church's position but at the same time reflected continued tension between the Church's legislation and existing custom. Mikat's study provides a sound picture solidly rooted in the sources and in modern scholarship of what the substance of the Church's law on incestuous relationships had become by the beginning of the seventh century and a persuasive assessment ofthe forces which gave shape to that body oflaw. His work will be especially useful to scholars interested in the evolution of canon law treating marriage practices. But it also has much to say about the creative utilization of tradition to reshape basic aspects of society during that alleged "dark age" marking the transition from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages in western Europe. Richard E. Sullivan Michigan State University (Emeritus) Armagh and the Royal Centres in Early Medieval Ireland:Monuments, Cosmology , and the Past. By N. B. Aitchison. (Rochester, New York: Boydell & Brewer for Cruithne Press. 1994. Pp. x, 356. $71.00.) In Armagh and the Royal Centres, N. B. Aitchison manages to blend an archaeologist 's understanding ofmaterial remains with a historian's critical use of the textual evidence for early medieval Ireland, and to come up with a synthesis...

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