Skip to main content

IMC 2012: Sessions

Session 1110: Texts and Identities, II: Being Roman in a Post-Roman World

Wednesday 11 July 2012, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies, Universiteit Utrecht / Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Organisers:E. T. Dailey, School of History, University of Leeds
Gerda Heydemann, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien
Moderator/Chair:Helmut Reimitz, Department of History, Princeton University
Paper 1110-aThe Multiplicity of Roman Identification: Some Examples from the Early Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Cinzia Grifoni, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Political Thought
Paper 1110-bColonus, civis, or conviva regis: Fuzzy Concepts of the homo Romanus and His Wergild in the Frankish Leges
(Language: English)
Lukas Bothe, Sonderforschungsbereich 700, Freie Universität Berlin
Index terms: Law, Political Thought, Social History
Paper 1110-cFrom a Roman to a Frankish World: The Evidence of 7th-Century Saints' Lives
(Language: English)
Erica Buchberger, University College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Hagiography, Political Thought
Abstract

What did Roman identity mean in a post-Roman world? This session investigates the tenacity and continued importance of Roman models of identification, but also the shifting meanings and the multiplicity of Romanness in the early medieval world. An overview of the semantic range and multiple uses of Romanus in Latin writings (Cinzia Griffoni) is followed by two papers looking at the significance of claiming Roman identities in early medieval Francia. While Lukas Bothe analyses the shifting valence of identifying as Roman in a legal context by examining the legal category Romanus in the Frankish laws, Erica Buchberger looks at 7th-century saints' Lives. She argues that the development of a politcal conception of Frankishness, which was seen as compatible with Roman, and other, identities, explains the diminished social importance of claims to Romanness which emerges from these texts. The session thus aims to contribute to our understanding of a post-Roman world in which Romanness, however transformed, remained fundamentally important as a mode of identification.