Roy Flechner

Roy Flechner is lecturer on early medieval history at University College Dublin. He cames to academe after a previous career as a journalist in Jerusalem. He holds a BA from the Hebrew University and a Masters degree and Doctorate from the University of Oxford. Before arriving at UCD he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Lincoln College Oxford, a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer at the History Faculty in Cambridge.

The project

Title: Mapping Legal Manuscripts with Biblical References

"The Bible informed every intellectual endeavour in the early Middle Ages: from the understanding of the dynamics of history, to the workings of the natural world, to the legitimation and formulation of law. Laws, like the Bible, are open to interpretation. Interpretative methods vary, but in the early Middle Ages the primary method was biblical exegesis. The exegetical method was applicable equally to the Bible and to law, as I sought to demonstrate in a number of publications. The principal sources that I study are early medieval collections of canon law, the most comprehensive of which, the Irish Collectio Hibernensis, I have edited and translated. The Hibernensis acknowledges the Bible as the primary source for Christian legislation as do subsequent collections that it influenced. The Bible is then mediated by exegesis that infers rules from prose narrative, overcomes contradictions in the biblical text, and rehabilitates portions of Old Testament law for use by Christians. Having recently completed a monograph on the origins of Christian law in Britain and Ireland (Making Laws for a Christian Society), in which the Bible and exegesis play a big role, I am currently developing a project for investigating their influence on early medieval legislation more generally."

Selective Bibliography

• Flechner, R., and J. Fontaine (2021), 'The admission of former slaves into churches and monasteries: reaching behind the sources', Early Medieval Europe 29: 586-611
• Flechner, R. (2021): Making Laws for a Christian Society: the Hibernensis and the Beginnings of Church Law in Ireland and Britain. Studies in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland (New York: Routledge)
• Flechner, R. (2020), 'The Chronicle of Pseudo-Origen: Simulating a World Chronicle in Seventh-Century Ireland', Peritia 31: 89-106
• Flechner, R. (2019): Saint Patrick Retold: The Legend and History of Ireland’s Patron Saint (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
• Flechner, R. (2019): The Hibernensis; 2 vols. Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law 17--17a (Washington, D.C.: CUA Press) 640pp.