2022 JMIS Best Article Prize Winner: Maria Joana Gomes and Francesco Renzi, “Miro, King of the Suevi (d. 583), and ecclesiastical identities in northwestern Hispania (eleventh-twelfth centuries)”
The article, in considering how the concepts of identity and memory were articulated in medieval Iberia, admirably researches two completely different time periods. It is based on the portrayal King Miro of the Sueves (r. 570 - 583) made in the Historia Compostellana and the Cronicón Iriense. The authors carefully and precisely study how the figure of this sovereign served the interests of the diocese of Santiago de Compostela, which sought to establish its hierarchy within Hispania by appealing to the preeminence of the Suevi as representatives of the first Christian enclave in the Peninsula. Their excellent work of interpretation on the two sources is particularly noteworthy. These are not only framed in their contexts of production but also in their spheres of transmission, underlining the objectives pursued by the creators of such narratives when claiming the image of Miro. Likewise, the argumentative sequence developed in the article is very relevant. It begins with the first references to Miro in the local production of the central Middle Ages, passing through a consideration of the Historia Compostellana and Cronicón Iriense, and reaching the specific interpretation of the subject (with the expansion and incorporation of alternative sources and problems, such as the Parrochiale Suevorum, or the conflicts derived from the Hispanic ecclesiastical reform of the eleventh century). This is a very well-researched article, with a neatly articulated structure and a solid and updated critical apparatus that provides an original look at the vast subject of the recovery of historical characters by the medieval narrative tradition.
JMIS Best Article Prize 2022 Committee: Ariel Guiance, John Tolan, Iona McCleery (chair)