TY - JOUR

T1 - Reflections on the medieval and early modern insular identities

AU - Федоров, Сергей Егорович

AU - Левин, Феликс Евгеньевич

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Saint Petersburg State University. All rights reserved. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2020/12

Y1 - 2020/12

N2 - The article reflects on the monograph by Sparky Booker Cultural exchange and identity in late medieval Ireland: The English and the Irish of the four obedient shires (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018) which offers a revised perspective on the issue of assimilation and acculturation in late medieval Ireland on the basis of the material of the four obedient shires: Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare. The scholar presents a complex and multi-faceted image of interethnic interplay in the region distinguishing between cultural and legal dimensions. She demonstrates that cultural practices were not the main resource of identity in the late medieval Ireland in which political allegiance and descent were prioritized. She highlights two aspects: the discursive level and the level of everyday interaction. Despite the obvious merits of the book, the material presented there requires more theoretical consideration of the issue of medieval identities. The authors of the article argue that the situation of interethnic interplay in the four obedient shires described by Booker could have been suitable for the emergence of consensual identity. Having coined this term, the authors define it as the type of identity which originates in the situation of interethnic interplay; entails intercultural switching; and has supragentile character, i.e., not insisting on common descent. The discourse of consensual identity did not emerge in the four shires during the period under consideration because of the absence of common subjecthood of the English and the Irish as well as prevalence of gentilism but its full potential was realized during the Early Stuarts.

AB - The article reflects on the monograph by Sparky Booker Cultural exchange and identity in late medieval Ireland: The English and the Irish of the four obedient shires (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018) which offers a revised perspective on the issue of assimilation and acculturation in late medieval Ireland on the basis of the material of the four obedient shires: Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare. The scholar presents a complex and multi-faceted image of interethnic interplay in the region distinguishing between cultural and legal dimensions. She demonstrates that cultural practices were not the main resource of identity in the late medieval Ireland in which political allegiance and descent were prioritized. She highlights two aspects: the discursive level and the level of everyday interaction. Despite the obvious merits of the book, the material presented there requires more theoretical consideration of the issue of medieval identities. The authors of the article argue that the situation of interethnic interplay in the four obedient shires described by Booker could have been suitable for the emergence of consensual identity. Having coined this term, the authors define it as the type of identity which originates in the situation of interethnic interplay; entails intercultural switching; and has supragentile character, i.e., not insisting on common descent. The discourse of consensual identity did not emerge in the four shires during the period under consideration because of the absence of common subjecthood of the English and the Irish as well as prevalence of gentilism but its full potential was realized during the Early Stuarts.

KW - Acculturation

KW - Assimilation

KW - Consensual identity

KW - Ethnicity

KW - Four obedient shires

KW - Ireland

KW - Medieval identity

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102189371&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.21638/11701/spbu02.2020.420

DO - 10.21638/11701/spbu02.2020.420

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85102189371

VL - 65

SP - 1336

EP - 1351

JO - ВЕСТНИК САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА. ИСТОРИЯ

JF - ВЕСТНИК САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА. ИСТОРИЯ

SN - 1812-9323

IS - 4

Y2 - 6 February 2020 through 7 February 2020

ER -