***
‘It wearies me to
record the diverse civil wars that beset the people and kingdom of the Franks [francorum gentem et regnum]...’[1]
One of the biggest areas of
research in early medieval history in recent decades has been the study of
ethnicity and its role in the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire. Indeed Walter Goffart, an outspoken opponent
of the ‘ethnogenesis’ approach, begins one book with a statement that the Roman
Empire ran into a ‘wave of ethnicity’ in Late Antiquity.[2] The often vitriolic debate has overwhelmingly
concerned the period between the late fourth and the sixth centuries, that of
the ‘fall of the Roman Empire’; the period covered by the present book has
featured very much less prominently except, perhaps, in discussions of the
Lombards and Avars. In this chapter,
however, I will suggest that in fact it was precisely in the decades around 600
that ethnic identity really came to the fore as a politically significant
factor.
I have offered a fairly full
discussion of the nature of ethnicity before[3]
but it will be helpful to offer a résumé of the conclusions reached there.
There is no single feature that can be used to define an ethnicity, other than
the belief in one’s membership of a group and in the distinctiveness of that
group. Ethnicity is subjective,
multi-layered (one can have more than one level of identity that functions in
an ‘ethnic’ way), performative (ethnic identity is not immanent but is
activated by performance), situational (it, or certain levels of an actor’s
ethnicity, is performed in certain situations) and dynamic (what an ethnic
identity means, or the effects achieved in its performance, change through
time). The principal means by which I would modify this view today would be in
which the identity being performed is seen.
In the 2007 book there is insufficient theorisation of what is meant by
an ‘identity’, although this flaw is very common across the innumerable studies
of identity in early medieval history.[4] It seems too strongly implied that the identity,
however mutable, is some sort of self-present entity or at least a set of unproblematically, mutually-understood
roles and images. The point to be
stressed though is that any identity is a mental image of an ideal, comprised
not only of what the social actor sees as its advantages and disadvantages but
also what they perceive to be others’ expectations of the correct performance
of the identity. That mental image will
of course constantly be changing as a result of the myriad ongoing performances
of social interactions between people of particular identities. The mental ideal image associated with the
identity can, furthermore, never be attained but is always striven towards. There is also no guarantee that that image,
as perceived by one actor, will correspond exactly to that imagined by other
parties in the interaction. That gives
the decision to perform a particular identity in a social interaction some of
the characteristics of a wager rather than something of which the outcome can
be entirely predicted in terms of the relative prestige or privilege associated
with particular identities.
In the fifth and early sixth
centuries it can be argued that ethnic identity was particularly fluid and
multi-layered. This should not be
assumed to mean that one could pick and choose identities at will. The ethnic shifts that can be observed are
best explained in terms of the acquisition, and reordering through time, of new
identities within the ethnic field. Thus
a provincial Roman (and one must remember that ‘Roman’ identity was itself
multi-layered, with regional and various civitas
identities beneath the general ’Roman’ heading) might acquire a new,
‘barbarian’ ethnicity, such as Goth or Frank, related to various activities or
functions within the realm. Over time
that identity might come to be stressed more than the others, until it was his
primary means of identification. There
can be no doubt that politics in this period could be seen as the interaction
of ethnic identities.
That said, however, ethnicities
at that time appear very often to have been functional. Famously, for example, barbarian ethnic
identities were associated with the military, across the west, while the
‘Roman’ identity was linked more heavily to educational culture, to civic administrative
roles, to the Church, and so on. The
implication of this is that ethnicity remained ‘nested’ within and authorised
by a particular conception of the Roman or post-imperial state. What shaped the social role of, for example,
Gothic identity was the perception of the military function of the Goths. This can be seen very clearly in the writings
of Cassiodorus and the ‘civilitas’ ideology to which he gave voice. Goths defended the realm, allowing Romans to
maintain their traditional civilised way of life, which included serving in the
administrative offices of the kingdom.
The two identities were largely defined by their interrelationship
within that structure and any power associated with them was ultimately
legitimated by a link to the king. In
many regards, this simply continued the late Roman distinction between the
civil and military arms of imperial service.
None of this denies that the relationship between such ethnic identities
was dynamic and that the relative standing of each was subject to change. This was one factor that led to particular
social actors adopting other identities.
Andrew Gillett has argued that
ethnicity was not politicised in the immediately post-imperial period.[5] This immediately, of course, begs the
question of what is meant by ‘politicised’.
Gillett appears to take the political to mean the level of political
units and their leaders, which is too restrictive an interpretation. Clearly, within any kingdom the interplay of
ethnic identities was political. Nonetheless,
at that high level of politics, his argument is forceful. Terms that associated royal titles or realms
with people, like those that appear in the epigram from Gregory of Tours with
which this chapter opened, do seem to be rare before the late sixth century. The preceding discussion perhaps suggests why
this was. The realm itself was not
associated with a single dominant ethnicity or ethnic group and the ruler was
the ruler of all groups within a territory.
As we have just seen, it was the overarching structure of the territory
or state and its government and ruler that legitimised, and created a frame
for, the performance of ethnic identities.
The place of ethnic identity in
society and politics may, however, have changed in the later sixth century. Two documentary references might give us a
way into examining this. The first comes
in Fredegar’s Chronicle (IV.78),
describing a punitive campaign launched in 636/7 by the Franks against the
Basques. King Dagobert sent an army led
by ten dukes: ‘Arinbert, Amalgar, Leudebert, Wandalmar, Wandelbert, Ermen,
Barontus, Chairard ex genere francorum,
Chramnelen ex genere romano [sic], Willibad the patrician genere burgundionum, Aighyna genere saxsonum [sic]’ and many other counts.
The second comes from Ripuarian
Law. Lex
Ribvaria’s date is difficult to establish with any precision; it lacks an
identifying prologue and the manuscripts, as is so often the case, are later
than its presumed date of issue.
Nonetheless, the communis opinio,
based on cross-reference from the prologues to the late Alamannic and Bavarian
codes, seems to be that it was issued in the reign of Dagobert. Whether the promulgation of the law would
date to the beginning of his sole rule (629) or, as I have proposed before,
associated with the council of Clichy (626) and the defusing of tensions
between Dagobert and his father, is uncertain.
We might nevertheless accept an early seventh-century date. The law might then belong to more or less the
same time as the Basque campaign described by Fredegar. Clause 40 of the law sets out the penalties
to be paid if a Ripuarian Frank kills another freeman of varying ethnic
identities: Frank, Burgundian, Roman, Alaman, Frisian, Bavarian and Saxon are
listed. More significantly for the
development and historiography of early medieval law, clause 35 says that
someone of Ripuarian, Frankish, Burgundian, Alamannic ‘or whatever other’
origin can be tried by the law of the place (or of the people into which) they
were born. This is the first reference
to the much discussed ‘personality of the law’ in the Merovingian world.
The two texts appear to suggest
that different ethnic identities were important within the ‘kingdom of the
Franks’. The analysis, however, may
require us to look at the two levels of kingship within the Merovingian world:
the regional Teilreiche and the
broader regnum francorum made up of
all of the different kingdoms and occasionally unified under a single ruler
(such as Chlothar I at the very start of our period or his grandson Chlothar II
between 613 and 621). If we start with the lower of these two levels,
represented by Ripuarian Law, it is difficult to imagine any ordinary freeman
making effective a claim to a non-Ripuarian Frankish identity and thus to be
tried by the law of his own people in a typical Frankish rural mallus or court. The title guaranteeing the right to be tried
by one’s own law seems more plausibly to be aimed at the higher ranks of
society. Within the Austrasian Teilreich, then, an aristocrat could
effectively employ an ethnic identity from outside the kingdom.
This is underlined by Fredegar’s
account, which shows that when the aristocracy of the different Teilreiche came together within the
aristocracy in the politics of the broader Frankish kingdom, their different ethnicities
were noted. The context of Fredegar’s
description, moreover, makes it clear that aristocrats of all of these
different identities (including Roman) were involved in leading the army.[6] Simple administrative function within the realm’s
governmental structures, then, does not explain ethnic difference, as had been
the case in the sixth century.
Fredegar’s Chronicle regularly
notes which of the various Frankish Teilreiche
a particular nobleman came from.
Fredegar particularly mentions those from Burgundy, evidently his own
region, for whom he occasionally uses the term Burgundaefarones (loosely: the clans of the Burgundians). These features are generally absent from the
writings of Gregory of Tours, who commonly identifies the actors in his account
by the civitas of origin or simply
qualifies them as a Frank. While the
Frankish label is clearly ethnic, it can also function, for Gregory, as a
description of the highest political levels of the realm. On the other hand, an
identity focused on a city-district is more than a geographical denomination;[7]
it is a form, or level, of ethnicity.
What seems different in Fredegar’s vocabulary is the increasing stress
laid upon broader identities within the ‘kingdom of the Franks’.
However, while this does seem, as
mentioned, to be a largely aristocratic phenomenon on the texts, that may be
because of the greater ability of the more powerful strata of society to move
within the realm and come into contact with each other. Returning to the level of the regional Teilreiche it may be that the free
population came to share the same regional identity. Ripuarian
Law uses the term francus to mean
a Frank from outside the region.
Sometimes it employs romanus
to mean an outsider as well.[8] The standard member of the free population
(man or woman) is called a Ripuarian. It
may be significant that this regional label is used, rather than a more
obviously ‘ethnic’ term or qualifier like ‘Frank’ (or Ripuarian Frank). That would fit with the use of identities
based upon regional kingdom used in Fredegar’s Chronicle. When discussing
society from within the territory of the Ripuarians, however, the ‘Romans’ are
no longer an element of the free population, divided into grades roughly
equivalent to those of the Franks, as in Pactus
Legis Salicae. Instead, they have
slipped down the scale to being a semi-free social category, needing Ripuarians
to speak for them at law. One exception
to this rule may have lain in the region of Trier, where some of the local population
clung on to a Roman identity. According
to his biographer, Saint Gaugeric (later Bishop of Cambrai) was born in the
late sixth century into a family of ‘Romans’ of the middling sort. In the seventh century, another holy man from
the same civitas, Saint Germanus of
Grandval, was born into a family of ‘senators’.
It may, however, be suggestive that Germanus’ familial identity was
based upon senatorial rank rather than a Roman ethnicity. Perhaps even here the cachet of Roman
identity had been seriously weakened. An
increasing stress on rank rather than ethnicity would tie in with other
developments.
The ethnic structure of the
Frankish kingdoms seems, therefore, subtly but importantly different in the
seventh century. Regional, ‘kingdom’
ethnicities appear to be important and, within those regions, the free
population appears to share that identity.
Furthermore, whereas ethnic identity in the sixth-century Merovingian
realm had largely related to function within the realm and could thus be
brought together in the kingdom itself, there is no such mechanism that
similarly ties Neustrians to Austrasians, to Burgundians within the overarching
structure of the regnum francorum. These look more like regional factions or
interest-groups within the ‘kingdom of the Franks’, a feature that seems to be
underlined by repeated Austrasian demands to have a king located within their
region. Even the other Teilreich, however, remained divided into
Burgundians and Neustrians. In its
broader sense, the seventh-century kingdom seems, in a very real sense, to be
significantly more ‘polyethnic’ than its sixth-century predecessor.
[1]
Gregory of Tours, LH 5.Preface.
[2] W.
Goffart, Barbarian Tides
[3]
Halsall, Barbarian Migrations,
pp.35-45.
[4]
Most significantly and ironically, there is, as far as I can see, no sufficient examination or
theorisation of what an identity is in the volume Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, ed. R. Corradini, R.
Meens, C. Pösel & P. Shaw (Vienna, 2006).
[5] A.
Gillett, ‘Was ethnicity politicised?’
[6]
Note that the names do not give a very clear indication of origin. The sole ‘Roman’, Chramnelen, has a Germanic
name whereas one of the ‘Franks’, Barontus, has a Roman name.
[7]
In the same way that today, if one says that someone ‘comes from’ Jamaica or
Germany that is more than a simple account of their geographical origins. Halsall, Barbarian
Migrations, p.39.
[8]
For a similar use, to mean someone from the south, see Life of Eligius.
