Post-Roman transitions
Subtitle: Christian and Barbarian identities in the early medieval West
By: edited by Walter Pohl, Gerda Heydemann
Series: Cultural encounters in late antiquity and the Middle Ages -- v. 14; Cultural encounters in late antiquity and the Middle Ages -- v. 14.
Publisher: Brepols
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Turnhout
Language: eng; ger; ita
Number of pages: 580
ISBN-13: 9782503543277; 9782503544205
Copyright date: 2013
Subjects: Political culture; Social aspects; Identification (Religion); Germanic Invasions of Rome (3rd-6th centuries) fast (OCoLC)fst01353189; Christianity; Social conditions; Archaeology and history; Identity (Psychology); Ethnicity; History
Other titles: Christian and Barbarian identitiesin the early medieval West
Description: Classical civilization (and hence contemporary Western culture) had deep roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures, but these influences have been systematically overlooked. This series of monographs and collections of articles addresses the social, religious, and cultural interactions between East and West. This volume looks at changing identities during the transition from the Roman Empire to a political world defined by different kingdoms and peoples in western Europe. It addresses 'ethnicity' in the context of alternative modes of identification, mainly Christianity and Romanness. To widen the horizon of current debates, it shows that the ancient dichotomy between barbarians and Romans is hardly helpful in understanding the complex transitions to a post-imperial age in the West. In a broad sweep of regional examples, from Spain and North Africa to Dalmatia and the British Isles, the book follows the unfolding of Christian and barbarian identities: How were both the Roman and the barbarian past used for the formation and legitimation of new identities? The 'scripts of Romanness' changed in the early Middle Ages, and so did the significance of othering pagans, heretics, or barbarians. The contributions trace the tenacity and the ambiguity of traditional narratives and signs of distinction: manuscripts and material remains, costume and epigraphy, historiography and hagiography were used in creative ways to shape civic, local, or religious communities. Many of the contributions show the fundamental importance of Christian 'strategies of identification' for-creating a stronger political role for ethnicity in the post-Roman kingdoms. As such, they follow-a line of argument that has also been explored in the book's companion volume in this series, Strategies of Identification: Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe (CELAMA 13).
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.

Also available in an electronic version.

In English, with one contribution each in German and Italian.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West: Introduction / Walter Pohl; title: Section 1 Scripts for Identity; title: - Resources of the Past; title: Who is Allowed to Pray for the King? Saint-Maurice d'Agaune and the Creation of a Burgundian Identity / Albrecht Diem; title: Patria, peregrinatio, and paenitentia: Identities of Alienation in the Seventh Century / Alexander O'Hara; title: Religiones and gentes in Isidore of Seville's Chronica maiora / Jamie Wood; title: Adventus, Warfare, and the Britons in the Development of West Saxon Identity / John-Henry Clay; title: Arrivano i barbari a cavallo! Foundation Myths and Origines gentium in the Adriatic Arc / Francesco Borri; title: Tuscans as gens? Shaping Local Identities and Communities in Early Medieval Tuscany / Marco Stoffella; title: Section 2 Romanness and Otherness; title: - Signs of Distinction and their Ambiguities; title: Who Were the Romans? Shifting Scripts of Romanness in Early Medieval Italy / Maya Maskarinec.; title: Contents note continued: The Fading Power of Images: Romans, Barbarians, and the Uses of a Dichotomy in Early Medieval Archaeology / Philipp Von Rummel; title: Remembering the Warriors: Weapon Burials and Tombstones between Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Northern Italy / Irene Barbiera; title: Who is the Barbarian? Considerations on the Vandal Royal Title / Roland Steinacher; title: Die Wahrnehmung der nichtfrankischen Volker in der merowingerzeitlichen Historiographie / Gerald Krutzler.