@inbook {449071,
	title = {Breaking and Making Tradition: {\AE}thelstan, {\textquoteright}Abd al-Rahman III and their Panegyrists},
	booktitle = {Every Inch a King: Comparative Studies in Kings and Kingship in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds},
	year = {2013},
	pages = {245-267},
	publisher = {Brill},
	organization = {Brill},
	address = {Leiden},
	abstract = {This article examines two panegyrics (praise poems) written for contemporaneous tenth-century rulers, {\AE}thelstan (Athelstan, Aethelstan) of Anglo-Saxon England and {\textquoteleft}Abd al-Rahman III ({\textquoteleft}Abd ar-Rahman, Abderraman), first amir then caliph of Umayyad Spain. The paper treats an anonymous praise poem for {\AE}thelstan, "Carta dirige gressus," which portrays the Anglo-Saxon king as a Carolingian-style emperor of all Britain, and the historical urjuza of Ibn {\textquoteleft}Abd Rabbihi (Ibn {\textquoteleft}Abd Rabbih, Ibn {\textquoteleft}Abdrabbih), which recounts {\textquoteleft}Abd al-Rahman III{\textquoteright}s military and political successes. The article argues that praise poetry is important in legitimating ideological novelties, but that clever panegyrists often created a space for themselves in the ideological webs they wove for their innovating rulers. Thus Ibn {\textquoteleft}Abd Rabbihi especially linked the glory of caliphal power to a caliph{\textquoteright}s generosity toward praise poets like himself.},
	url = {http://www.brill.com/every-inch-king}
}
