When We Were Monsters: Ethnogenesis in Medieval Ireland 800-1366

[English page]

NOVEMBER 21, 2017 BY NATALIE ANDERSON

When We Were Monsters: Ethnogenesis in Medieval Ireland 800-1366

By Dawn A. Seymour Klos

http://www.medievalists.net/2017/11/monsters-ethnogenesis-medieval-...

MA Thesis, University of Southern Mississippi, 2017

Trim Castle (Anglo-Norman), County Meath, Ireland

Abstract: Ethnogenesis, or the process of identity construction occurred in medieval Ireland as a reaction to laws passed by the first centralized government on the island. This thesis tracks ethnogenesis through documents relating to change in language, custom, and law.

This argument provides insight into how a new political identity was rendered necessary by the Anglo-Irish. Victor Turner’s model of Communitas structures the argument as each stage of liminality represents a turning point in the process of ethnogenesis.

1169 marked a watershed moment as it began the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. English nobles brought with them ideas of centralized power. In an effort to control his magnates living abroad, Henry II, King of England, instituted an aggressive government. Unlike the earlier Viking age, English government began the systemic criminalization of the Irish political identity by banning the Irish language, intermarriage, and other customary practices. This period exemplifies Anthony Wallace’s “revitalization movement” as the English Crown destroyed the existing political system.

Communitas and the revitalization movement provide the “how” to an argument of ethnogenesis in medieval Ireland. This thesis blends anthropology and history in order to examine the process of political identity construction holistically.

Click here to read this thesis from the University of Southern Mississippi