Post-Roman Transitions
Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West
Edited by Walter Pohl Edited by Gerda Heydemann
This volume looks at changing identities during the transition from the Roman Empire to a political world defined by a 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).
- Edited by Walter Pohl
- Edited by Gerda Heydemann
Other Titles in this Series
Between Personal and Institutional Religion
Self, Doctrine, and Practice in Late Antique Eastern Christianity
Volume 15
De Sion exibit lex et verbum domini de Hierusalem
Essays on Medieval Law, Liturgy and Literature in Honour of Amnon Linder
Volume 1
D’Orient en Occident
Les recueils de fables enchassees avant les Mille et une Nuits de Galland (Barlaam et Josaphat, Calila et Dimna, Disciplina clericalis, Roman des Sept Sages)
Volume 16
Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Studies from Western Europe and North Africa
Volume 44
The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World
Converting the Isles I
Volume 19
Writing in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem
Inscription and Graffiti in a Multilingual and Multigraphic Perspective
Volume 45
Historiography and Identity VI
Competing Narratives of the Past in Central and Eastern Europe, c. 1200 -c. 1600
Volume 32
Incubation in Early Byzantium
The Formation of Christian Incubation Cults and Miracle Collections
Volume 41
Carolingian Scholarship and Martianus Capella
Ninth-Century Commentary Traditions on 'De nuptiis' in Context
Volume 12
Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond
Converting the Isles II
Volume 23
Political Ritual and Practice in Capetian France
Essays in Honour of Elizabeth A. R. Brown
Volume 34
Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle
Music, Relics, and Sacral Kingship in Thirteenth-Century France
Volume 35
Writing ‘True Stories’
Historians and Hagiographers in the Late Antique and Medieval Near East
Volume 9
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