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History Workshop Journal 2008 66(1):1-17; doi:10.1093/hwj/dbn044
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of History Workshop Journal, all rights reserved.

Organic Intellectuals in the Dark Ages?

Janet L. Nelson

jintynelson{at}tiscali.co.uk


  Abstract

This paper, which originated as the Raphael Samuel Memorial Lecture for 2005, casts Samuel as an organic intellectual, not conforming too closely to what's usually considered the Gramscian prototype of ‘spokesman for the dominant class’ – Samuel was never that, but, rather, a free spirit – but meeting Gramsci's criteria of ‘connecting the bottom and the top’ and ‘continually feeling the demands of cultural contact with the "simple"’. The paper then takes its cue from Gramsci's intimations of such organic intellectuals in certain figures of the medieval Church. Here, four earlier medieval figures are offered as similarly representative: Gregory I (+ 604), Alcuin (+ 804), Dhuoda (+ ?843), and Burchard (+ 1025). Gregory's notion of condescensio, ‘going down to be with’, is extended by analogy to the later three. Each in turn is reconsidered as an intellectual who sought and made connections with a wider public, not just clerical but lay, in ways that aimed at social good.


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