Fifth-Century Gaul

Fifth-Century Gaul PDF Author: John Drinkwater
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521529334
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
A unique collection of papers looking at how the Gallo-Romans reacted to barbarian invasion.

Fifth-Century Gaul

Fifth-Century Gaul PDF Author: John Drinkwater
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521529334
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
A unique collection of papers looking at how the Gallo-Romans reacted to barbarian invasion.

Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul

Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul PDF Author: Ralph Whitney Mathisen
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292758073
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Skin-clad barbarians ransacking Rome remains a popular image of the "decline and fall" of the Roman Empire, but why, when, and how the Empire actually fell are still matters of debate among students of classical history. In this pioneering study, Ralph W. Mathisen examines the "fall" in one part of the western Empire, Gaul, to better understand the shift from Roman to Germanic power that occurred in the region during the fifth century AD Mathisen uncovers two apparently contradictory trends. First, he finds that barbarian settlement did provoke significant changes in Gaul, including the disappearance of most secular offices under the Roman imperial administration, the appropriation of land and social influence by the barbarians, and a rise in the overall level of violence. Yet he also shows that the Roman aristocrats proved remarkably adept at retaining their rank and status. How did the aristocracy hold on? Mathisen rejects traditional explanations and demonstrates that rather than simply opposing the barbarians, or passively accepting them, the Roman aristocrats directly responded to them in various ways. Some left Gaul. Others tried to ignore the changes wrought by the newcomers. Still others directly collaborated with the barbarians, looking to them as patrons and holding office in barbarian governments. Most significantly, however, many were willing to change the criteria that determined membership in the aristocracy. Two new characteristics of the Roman aristocracy in fifth-century Gaul were careers in the church and greater emphasis on classical literary culture. These findings shed new light on an age in transition. Mathisen's theory that barbarian integration into Roman society was a collaborative process rather than a conquest is sure to provoke much thought and debate. All historians who study the process of power transfer from native to alien elites will want to consult this work.

Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-century Gaul

Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Controversy in Fifth-century Gaul PDF Author: Ralph W. Mathisen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description


Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul

Society and Culture in Late Antique Gaul PDF Author: Ralph Mathisen
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 135189921X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Late Roman Gaul is often seen either from a classical Roman perspective as an imperial province in decay and under constant threat from barbarian invasion or settlement, or from the medieval one, as the cradle of modern France and Germany. Standard texts and "moments" have emerged and been canonized in the scholarship on the period, be it Gaul aflame in 407 or the much-disputed baptism of Clovis in 496/508. This volume avoids such stereotypes. It brings together state-of-the-art work in archaeology, literary, social, and religious history, philology, philosophy, epigraphy, and numismatics not only to examine under-used and new sources for the period, but also critically to reexamine a few of the old standards. This will provide a fresh view of various more unusual aspects of late Roman Gaul, and also, it is hoped, serve as a model for ways of interpreting the late Roman sources for other areas, times, and contexts.

Poverty in the Roman World

Poverty in the Roman World PDF Author: Margaret Atkins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139458825
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
If poor individuals have always been with us, societies have not always seen the poor as a distinct social group. But within the Roman world, from at least the Late Republic onwards, the poor were an important force in social and political life and how to treat the poor was a topic of philosophical as well as political discussion. This book explains what poverty meant in antiquity, and why the poor came to be an important group in the Roman world, and it explores the issues which poverty and the poor raised for Roman society and for Roman writers. In essays which range widely in space and time across the whole Roman Empire, the contributors address both the reality and the representation of poverty, and examine the impact which Christianity had upon attitudes towards and treatment of the poor.

The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity

The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Hugh Elton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108686273
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
In this volume, Hugh Elton offers a detailed and up to date history of the last centuries of the Roman Empire. Beginning with the crisis of the third century, he covers the rise of Christianity, the key Church Councils, the fall of the West to the Barbarians, the Justinianic reconquest, and concludes with the twin wars against Persians and Arabs in the seventh century AD. Elton isolates two major themes that emerge in this period. He notes that a new form of decision-making was created, whereby committees debated civil, military, and religious matters before the emperor, who was the final arbiter. Elton also highlights the evolution of the relationship between aristocrats and the Empire, and provides new insights into the mechanics of administering the Empire, as well as frontier and military policies. Supported by primary documents and anecdotes, The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity is designed for use in undergraduate courses on late antiquity and early medieval history.

Caesar's Footprints

Caesar's Footprints PDF Author: Bijan Omrani
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 168177612X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
An intellectual adventure through ancient France revealing how Caesar’s conquest of Gaul changed the course of French culture, forever transforming modern Europe. Julius Caesar’s conquests in Gaul in the 50s b.c. were bloody, but the cultural revolution they brought in their wake forever transformed the ancient Celtic culture of that country. After Caesar, the Gauls exchanged their tribal quarrels for Roman values and acquired the paraphernalia of civilized urban life. The Romans also left behind a legacy of language, literature, law, government, religion, architecture, and industry. Each chapter of Caesar’s Footprints is dedicated to a specific journey of exploration through Roman Gaul. From the amphitheatres of Arles and Nîmes to the battlefield of Châlons (where Flavius Aetius defeated Attila the Hun), Bijan Omrani—an exciting and authoritative new voice in Roman history—explores archaeological sites, artifacts, and landscapes to reveal how the imprint of Roman culture shaped Celtic France, and thereby helped to create modern Europe.

Medieval Ireland

Medieval Ireland PDF Author: Clare Downham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108546846
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
Medieval Ireland is often described as a backward-looking nation in which change only came about as a result of foreign invasions. By examining the wealth of under-explored evidence available, Downham challenges this popular notion and demonstrates what a culturally rich and diverse place medieval Ireland was. Starting in the fifth century, when St Patrick arrived on the island, and ending in the fifteenth century, with the efforts of the English government to defend the lands which it ruled directly around Dublin by building great ditches, this up-to-date and accessible survey charts the internal changes in the region. Chapters dispute the idea of an archaic society in a wide-range of areas, with a particular focus on land-use, economy, society, religion, politics and culture. This concise and accessible overview offers a fresh perspective on Ireland in the Middle Ages and overthrows many enduring stereotypes.

Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul

Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul PDF Author: Raymond Van Dam
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520341961
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
The rise of Christianity to the dominant position it held in the Middle Ages remains a paradoxical achievement. Early Christian communities in Gaul had been so restrictive that they sometimes persecuted misfits with accusations of heresy. Yet by the fifth century Gallic aristocrats were becoming bishops to enhance their prestige; and by the sixth century Christian relic cults provided the most comprehensive idiom for articulating values and conventions. To strengthen its appeal, Christianity had absorbed the ideologies of secular authority already familiar in Gallic society.

Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul

Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul PDF Author: Raymond Van Dam
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400821142
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Saints' cults, with their focus on miraculous healings and pilgrimages, were not only a distinctive feature of Christian religion in fifth-and sixth-century Gaul but also a vital force in political and social life. Here Raymond Van Dam uses accounts of miracles performed by SS. Martin, Julian, and Hilary to provide a vivid and comprehensive depiction of some of the most influential saints' cults. Viewed within the context of ongoing tensions between paganism and Christianity and between Frankish kings and bishops, these cults tell much about the struggle for authority, the forming of communities, and the concept of sin and redemption in late Roman Gaul. Van Dam begins by describing the origins of the three cults, and discusses the career of Bishop Gregory of Tours, who benefited from the support of various patron saints and in turn promoted their cults. He then treats the political and religious dimensions of healing miracles--including their relation to Catholic theology and their use by bishops to challenge royal authority--and of pilgrimages to saints' shrines. The miracle stories, collected mainly by Gregory of Tours, appear in their first complete English translations.