Early medieval identities

[Viggen]

There is a very interesting article (book chapter) by historian Roland Steinacher in "Die Anfänge Bayerns" where he writes about the formation of identities in early medieval communities.

 

The chapter is quite long and contains many good and interesting points. For example on pp. 85 Steinacher discussed the questoin of "how Roman were Franks, Alamanns, Goths and Vandals". Steinacher stresses the point that these Germanic groups formed in exact correspondents to Roman provinces. Thus, the Franks formed opposite the Germania inferior, the Alamanni opposite the upper Germanic province, the Vandals opposite the Pannonian provinces and the Goths opposite the Black Sea provinces. Steinacher states that this is no coincidence and suggests that these names were useful categories from the Roman perspective. Thus, when Romans refered to Franks, anybody knew that they meant barbarians boardering the lower Rhine frontier and so on.

 

In this interpretation, it is clear why Roman authors speak of the gens Gothicae as a collective term, that included both Germanic and non-Germanic groups. Thus, Sarmatians, Bastarni, Carpi, Alani, Huns, Rugi, and others were all called Gothi by the Romans. At times Romans used an even broader classification, calling all eastern barbarians Scythians and all western barbarians Celts. Clearly, such categorising by the Romans was not deliberate or planned, but developed naturally out of the need to name groups that were perceived in a geographical contexts. While the names are Germanic they were probably not used by the Germanic and non-Germanic groups in the same way as the Romans did. However, at the end the Roman persistent use of the terms prevailed, which led to the formation or at least our perception of such large tribal confederations as Franci, Alamanni, Gothi and Vandali.

 

...this is an excerpt from a Germanic reading group post... found it highly interesting especially for late antiquity experts like sonic

[sonic]

Ah.  Mentioned by name, eh?  I have to start writing a review of 'Post-Roman Transitions: Christian and Barbarian Identities in the Early Medieval West' when I get chance.  This looks at how identities changed after the Fall of the West.  However, with reference to the specific post above, superficially this would make a lot of sense and explain many things that would otherwise be confusing.  This needs a lot of thought!  I might even have to brush off my German for this one!!

[Viggen]

Steinacher is a very interesting author/scholar. His work on Vandals is one of the best in German language... and as you mentioned you know a bit german,

I found a bit of the book in pdf for you (and everyone else)

 

359-402_Anfange_Bayerns-libre.pdf

[sonic]

Many Thanks.  All help is gratefully received!!

[caldrail]

I'm not sure why the concept should suprise anyone. The Romans by habit set up administrative regions in provinces based on tribal focus. That later tribes emerged with the same boundaries would therefore seem perfectly reasonable.

[Onasander]

was there a correlation between names and spacing ratios?

 

If we were to make a map of these areas, I'm guessing alot of South to North Divisions....

 

If this is the case, was there ratios for tribal identity to given space WITH additional regard to population, and were the Roman Legions with and Without the federated tribes balanced on this north south axis centrally in each case, for easy defense of the Roman side and penetration into the barbarian side?

 

It's the difference between a scalar and static field. If the Romans though static in terms of geographical deposition of their opposition, and ordered their legions accordingly, a domino effect could mess everything up when groups moved laterally instead of north to south piecemeal.

 

I would be forced to conclude it was a mistake on the imperial palace level then if this is what happened.

[Onasander]

I literally just found this, looks eerily similar, which uncomfortably suggests this theory migrated from the 19th century Germany to explain the origins of Dorian Greece, to the 21st Century to explain Late Roman and Medieval identities. If that's the case, then we have a disturbing conundrum on our hands..... a fully formed historical hypothesis that manages to replicate itself over time, by forcing the facts to fit it's already formed outlook, like a virus.

 

Here is the section I found on Wikipedia:

 

In 1824 Karl Otfried Müller's Die Dorier was published in German and was translated into English by Tufnel and Lewis for publication in 1830. They use such terms as "the Doric invasion"[8] and "the invasian of the Dorians"[9] to translate Müller's "Die Einwanderung von den Doriern" (literally: "the migration of the Dorians"),[10] which was quite a different concept.

 

On one level the Einwanderung meant no more than the Heraklidenzug, the return of the Heracleidae. However, Müller was also applying the sense of Völkerwanderung to it, which was being used of the Germanic migrations. Müller's approach was philological. In trying to explain the distribution of tribes and dialects he hypothesized that the aboriginal or Pelasgian population was Hellenic. His first paragraph of the Introduction asserts:[11]

 

"The Dorians derived their origin [der Ursprung des dorischen Stammes] from those districts in which the Grecian nation bordered toward the north upon numerous and dissimilar races of barbarians. As to the tribes which dwelt beyond these borders we are indeed wholly destitute of information; nor is there the slightest trace of any memorial or tradition that the Greeks originally came from those quarters."

 

Müller goes on to propose that the original Pelasgian language was the common ancestor of Greek and Latin,[12] that it evolved into Proto-Greek and was corrupted in Macedon and Thessaly by invasions of Illyrians. This same pressure of Illyrians drove forth Greeks speaking Achaean (includes Aeolian), Ionian and finally Dorian in three diachronic waves, explaining the dialect distribution of Greek in classical times.[13]

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorian_invasion

 

I don't know what to call this phenomena. I was just googling Minoan philosophy, saw "Return of the Heracleidae" and followed it.

 

Obvious parallelism, but I don't knowwhat to call this phenomena in the discipline of history.

 

Hypothesis Creep has a good ring to it, but want to denote it comes from a older unrelated theory.

 

 

Crypto-Archaic Hypothesis Creep.

 

Took a long time on thesaurus.com to figure out how to coin it.

 

My definition: The Axiomatic Structure underlining a theory that has managed overtime, to detach itself from the older theory and migrate to a newer, at face value unrelated theory, appearing original, thought provoking and cutting edge, despite it's much earlier, sometimes but not always, discredited origins.

[Onasander]

Not saying he did this purposely. De Ja Vue and authors unconsciously plagiarizing..... Jung noting Nietzsche did it, Charles Dickens questioning if he somehow did it, is common. I suppose historians are especially prone to this. I'll have to think about the cognitive parallels and neurological origins of this,and it's implications for the science aspects of history.

 

Religious Apologetics, especially Catholic-Orthodox and Hindu Theologians are prone to it, removing whole theories out of context at times, applying them as new.... out of context. Syncretism fits well for them, but I don't think historians are favorable towards applying a concept of "Historical Syncretism" to ourselves. Just sounds..... bad.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Onasander

[MarieAntoniaParsons]

This is an interesting subject, and I think there are other books, not just in German, about establishing and forming identities in early medieval periods (after the 6th century ACE).  Sometimes Identity formation comes as part of the larger "Romanization" subject. Studies have been done analyzing Roman Sardinia, with reference to the indigenous population, analyzing Gallic Romans, Brit-Romans, North African Romans, and more.

 

I had the feeling, after some reading on this a while ago, that the "common people," those with less connection to the Roman administration, retained more of their linguistic, religious and cultural identity, their length of time as Roman citizens notwithstanding.

[Viggen]

I had the feeling, after some reading on this a while ago, that the "common people," those with less connection to the Roman administration, retained more of their linguistic, religious and cultural identity, their length of time as Roman citizens notwithstanding.

 

I find this interesting, a smiliar conclusion was drawn at the indigenous population from celtic Noricum (i come and live in what was than Noricum) When you look at images/statues etc...from the 2nd and 3rd century you will notice that although they have been for two hundreds years or more under roman rule women were still wearing celtic outfit. When i spoke with some scholars at a meeting at Magdalensberg museum they claimed even that at that time men would speak latin at work/public but at home they probably spoke their celtic language. This celtic "population" only disapeared with the "Völkerwanderung" and the influx of Awares and later Slaves from the 7th century on. So one might be allowed to say that Romans actually presereved local customs and let them thrive in private as long as it was not interfering with public life?

[MarieAntoniaParsons]

Viggen, I don't know if the Romans "preserved" local customs--which sounds deliberate and intentional, versus, they just simply did not make any fuss as long as public life went on, as you say. I think that might be a fair statement, yes. They seemed to allow religious practice so long as it did not conflict with the state practice (I would bet that if Christians had not conflicted in their practices, there may have been no persecutions, as one example). 

 

It would be a fascinating small armchair study to look at different regions of the Empire, e.g. Britannia, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Dacia, Gaul, Spain, Sardinia in terms of the way local and town indigenous cultures, language, religion, etc, lived side by side with the Roman state administration. Such a study may exist somewhere (I am fairly sure that at least one if not more books on Romanisation and assimiliation in my above examples have been published, looking solely at that specific region/province. But looking at them all in-depth side by side could be interesting.