Early Irish Law as Historiography

Welcome to a guest lecture by Fangzhe Qiu, associate professor in the School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore at University College Dublin.

Join us to hear Fangzhe Qiu talk about how early medieval Irish law texts were intended and written as historiography. An awareness of the historicity of law permeates throughout different layers of law texts.

Early Irish law texts are an important contributor to the construction of a national identity, and participate in the intertextual networks together with other genres. The legal meanings are often demonstrated by means of historical narratives, creative etymology and legendary precedents set firmly in the cultural memory which are the hallmarks of early Irish historiography. He will also point out some recurrent themes in the legal prologues in the Irish, Welsh and Germanic traditions which may suggest the spreading of royal and legal ideologies in medieval Western Europe.

The event will be in English and held digitally; please register to be sent the Zoom link the day before the lecture through the following link: https://forms.gle/gZxy7wjc7SztahkU9