Importance
The letters give insight into the workings of Frankish diplomacy, and life at the Austrasian court. The letters include insights into the literacy of the kings' inner circle and the way diplomacy was conducted, together with snippets of information not supplied by other sources of the period. The letters are particularly useful in illuminating the complex diplomatic relations between Austrasia and the Byzantine Empire during much of the 6th century.
Caution must be exercised however, not to draw too much from the letters. The collection is at heart a compilation of disparate letters and their replies are often not included. Without a prior understanding of the greater context surrounding the letters, their content may be mis-interpreted. Also as some of the letters cannot be reliably dated, there is debate surrounding the interpretation of certain letters, particularly letter number twenty.
Read more about this topic: Austrasian Letters
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
“More than ten million women march to work every morning side by side with the men. Steadily the importance of women is gaining not only in the routine tasks of industry but in executive responsibility. I include also the woman who stays at home as the guardian of the welfare of the family. She is a partner in the job and wages. Women constitute a part of our industrial achievement.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“Coming together again after a long day apart can be an experience where joy, relief, anger, and fatigue are all present in different degrees both for the parent and for the child. Because of their importance in marking the resumption of direct contact, reunions deserve as much attention and care as separations to enhance the relationship between parent and child.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)
“One’s condition on marijuana is always existential. One can feel the importance of each moment and how it is changing one. One feels one’s being, one becomes aware of the enormous apparatus of nothingness—the hum of a hi-fi set, the emptiness of a pointless interruption, one becomes aware of the war between each of us, how the nothingness in each of us seeks to attack the being of others, how our being in turn is attacked by the nothingness in others.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)