Posteri, progenies, semen: visions of future generations in the works of early medieval authors (a case study of the works of Gregory of Tours, Bede the Venerable and Paul the Deacon)

Abstract

The paper examines the visions of the three most renowned early medieval European writers — Gregory of Tours, Bede the Venerable and Paul the Deacon — on their descendants and future generations. The paper is focused on terminological aspect of their designation in order to identify the features of the connotations of various Latin terms used by our authors. Our aim is to recreate their ideas about people who would live after them, to find out whether they thought their descendants would be any different from the writers' contemporaries.