On Barbarian Identity
Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages
Edited by Andrew Gillett
The authors of this publication explore new ways to understand barbarians in the early Middle Ages, and to analyse the images of the period constructed by modern scholarship.
Ethnicity has been central to medieval studies since the Goths, Franks, Alamanni and other barbarian settlers of the Roman empire were first seen as part of Germanic antiquity. Today, two paradigms dominate interpretation of barbarian Europe. In history, theories of how tribes formed (‘ethnogenesis’) assert the continuity of Germanic identities from prehistory through the Middle Ages, and see cultural rather than biological factors as the means of preserving these identities. In archaeology, the ‘culture history’ approach has long claimed to be able to trace movements of peoples not attested in the historical record, by identifying ethnically-specific material goods. The papers in this volume challenge the concepts and methodologies of these two models. The authors explore new ways to understand barbarians in the early Middle Ages, and to analyse the images of the period constructed by modern scholarship. Two responses, one by a leading exponent of the ‘ethnogenesis’ approach, the other by a leading critic, continue this important debate.
- Edited by Andrew Gillett
Other Titles in this Series
Poetics of Wonder
Testimonies of the New Christian Miracles in the Late Antique Latin World
Volume 31
The Beginning of Scandinavian Settlement in England
The Viking 'Great Army' and Early Settlers, c. 865-900
Volume 29
The Crisis of the Oikoumene
The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean
Volume 14
Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England
Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture
Volume 45
Churches and Social Power in Early Medieval Europe
Integrating Archaeological and Historical Approaches
Volume 42
Text, Image, Interpretation
Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Eamonn O Carragain
Volume 18
Duelling with the Past
Medieval Authors and the Problem of the Christian Era (c. 990-1135)
Volume 21
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