Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians

Thomas F. X. Noble is Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of several books, including The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680-825, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

• IntroductionChapter One: Art, Icons, and Their Critics and Defenders Before the Age of IconoclasmChapter Two: Byzantine Iconoclasm in the Eighth CenturyChapter Three: Art and Art Talk in the West in the First Age of IconoclasmChapter Four: The Franks and Nicaea: Opus Caroli RegisChapter Five: Tradition, Order, and Worship in the Age of CharlemagneChapter Six: The Age of Second IconoclasmChapter Seven: Art and Argument in the Age of Louis the PiousConclusionNotesBibliographyIndexAcknowledgments

"[An] immensely scholarly and interesting book on the Carolingian response to the drama of iconoclasm in Byzantium." (TLS) "A magisterial reexamination of a period in which long-lived ideas about the power and limitations of Christian images were first articulated in the medieval West. . . . The book skillfully explores Carolingian discourses about images in relation to Byzantine and papal positions in the eighth and ninth centuries." (Journal of Church History) "Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians presents a rich detailed history of the written debate over religious imagery in the early Middle Ages, with a particular focus on the West, while deemphasizing the violence, destruction, and change so often included by historians in discussions of iconoclasm." (Journal of Religion) "This learned, incisive and readable book has made an important contribution to the study of early medieval art, and more particularly of a whole religious culture." (Early Medieval Europe) "A deeply impressive, powerfully argued, and extraordinarily interesting book. Noble establishes the centrality of the Carolingian period and its writers to the development of ideas about sacred art. He offers a new interpretation of the understanding of images in both the western and eastern empires in the early Middle Ages." (Rosamond McKitterick, University of Cambridge) "Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians is remarkably scholarly, surveying secondary literature in both Byzantine East and Latin West, and in many different disciplines, including theology and art history as well as history. It is a splendid book. It will be a standard reference for many years to come." (Lawrence Nees, University of Delaware)