Shifting ethnic identities in spain and gaul, 500-700

Book excerpt: Previous scholarship has examined the ethnic identities of Goths, Franks, and other 'barbarian' groups in the post-Roman West, but Romans have been relatively neglected. Part of the reason for this lacuna is the assumption that 'Roman' continued to denote solely cultural and legal affiliation. In fact, as this book demonstrates, contemporaries also associated Romanness with descent and described Romans just like they described Franks and Goths - whom scholars are perfectly happy to call 'ethnic groups'. By distinguishing between political, religious, and descent nuances with which authors used the terms 'Roman', 'Goth', and 'Frank', this comparative study tracks changes in the use and perception of these identifications, which allowed Romans in Iberia and Gaul to adopt the Gothic or Frankish identities of their new rulers, one nuance at a time. AUP Catalogue S17 text Traditional scholarship on post-Roman western culture has tended to examine the ethnic identities of Goths, Franks, and similar groups while neglecting the Romans themselves, in part because modern scholars have viewed the concept of being Roman as one denoting primarily a cultural or legal affiliation. As this book demonstrates, however, early medieval 'Romanness' also encompassed a sense of belonging to an ethnic group, which allowed Romans in Iberia and Gaul to adopt Gothic or Frankish identities in a more nuanced manner than has been previously acknowledged in the literature.