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• The fourth problem is obviously the state of research on the ethno-


genesis of the early medieval peoples. After four decades of inten-
sive work on this topic using a “modern” approach we now have
far more knowledge of what a “Germanic” gens was not, than
what it was: that is, we are aware of so many problems that it
seems nearly impossible to provide any straightforward answers.
We do know, however, as already mentioned in the beginning of
this introduction, that the gentes were not stable groups with clear
ethnic origins, but (constantly) changing (an extremely important
point), and that the political factor was at least as decisive for
these developments as the (usually fictional) consciousness of com-
mon origins. Ethnogenetical processes, therefore, can no longer
be considered without taking into account the political develop-
ment, that is, without considering the establishment of kingdoms.
However, the problem which remains is how to define ethnicity.
By which criteria, or by which historical evidence can ethnicity
be comprehended? We have to bear in mind that there are different
approaches to, and definitions of ethnicity, and in consequence
we have to make explicit what we, that is, each contributor respec-
tively, mean by using terms, or rather theoretical constructions,
such as gens or regnum.
• The fifth problem, accordingly, lies in the (newly emerging) king-
doms and their character. It is not so much a matter of the long
(but probably typically German) discussion whether (or when) these
kingdoms may be called “states” (which is a modern expression
anyway)—“state” in this sense may be used as a term for the sys-
tem of political order which has to be described under contem-
porary conditions, however it is labelled. Far more important, and
indeed extremely relevant, is the question of which bonds and
institutions (if there were “institutions”) the power of the “Germa-
nic” kings rested in. Were these “Germanic” or Roman elements?
or both? or neither? And was there a “state” (or a kingdom) that
was not exclusively dependent on the ruling of a (certain) king or
dynasty? What were, for example, the differences between the
“realms” of Marbod in the first, Attila in the fifth and Theodoric
in the sixth century?
• A sixth problem is the question of our sources and how to deal
with them. The discrepancy between the evidence we have for
each individual kingdom makes it inevitable that we should con-
sider the quality and range of sources for each contribution respec-
tively, when we aim at comparing the different kingdoms. The
 9

real problem, however, goes deeper. It includes not only the well-
known and lamentable fact that at least the early stages of the
“Germanic” peoples and kingdoms are almost exclusively recorded
by Roman sources and seen from a Roman perspective, but, even
more important, the more general question of whether there were
decisive differences between the actual historical process and the
way it was perceived by the contemporary authors of those times,
not to mention the authors’ bias, intentions, narrative structures,
or choice of events. This is not only a question of criticism of
our sources. As they did not (and could not) have our concept
of, and, moreover, our interest in ethnogenesis, that neither means
that they were wrong, nor does it mean that our theories are
inadequate. Although we have to go farther in our explanations
than contemporary writers did, at the same time we have to be
aware of the characteristic features of their perceptions because
it was their view (not ours) that was underlying the thoughts as
well as the deeds of the people of those times. Thus we are obliged
to take into account what they meant when they spoke of a gens
or a regnum and how (and if ) they saw any changes.

Looking at these problems, the relations between gentes and regna (or
between a certain gens and a corresponding regnum) are neither clear,
nor is it at all self-evident that there was an (explorable) develop-
ment from gens to regnum or how a people changed after the estab-
lishment of a kingdom. Neither is it self-evident that these changes
were perceived by our sources or what our sources made of them.
Certainly, however, there were alterations that we are able to observe
and compare, and it is the aim of the present volume to consider
these relations and developments as well as the political and “eth-
nic” structures in different peoples and regions.
This volume may be regarded as the result of a long process of
discussion that the majority of the contributors were allowed to enjoy
for five years supported by the European Science Foundation and
its project “The Transformation of the Roman World” (TRW). The
Working Group 1 (“Imperium and gentes”) of this project, chaired
by Walter Pohl, after discussions on the early kingdoms, gentile struc-
tures and other topics,24 aimed at clarifying the crucial question of

24
Cf. Kingdoms of the Empire. The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity, ed. W. Pohl,
The Transformation of the Roman World 1 (Leiden-New York-Köln 1997); Strategies
10 - 

the relation between gens and regnum to some extent in a compa-


rative approach. A first step was taken during the meeting at Barcelona
(October 30–November 1, 1997) where some members considered
one gens (or regnum) each under common leading questions. This dis-
cussion was continued in the working group’s last meeting in Manerba
del Garda (October 22–25, 1998) where the group decided to elab-
orate its results, to complement them by further articles, which were
to include non-Germanic developments, and to publish them in a
volume of the TRW series. Pre-final drafts of all papers were dis-
tributed among the participants and some invited experts and were
discussed at a meeting in Bellagio, sponsored by the Rockefeller
Center, which most of the colleagues involved were able to attend
(December 11–15, 2000). The contributors were given leading ques-
tions, previously agreed upon, which were meant to assist and war-
rant a comparative approach, although these questions naturally had
to be adapted to the special cases respectively. These questions were:

• (main and central question): Was there a development from a


“Germanic” gens of the Migration Period to a “Germanic” king-
dom? Or did a gens (or this gens) not exist until after the estab-
lishment of a kingdom?
• What sorts of changes and conditions led to, or represented the
development towards, respectively, the establishment of a “Ger-
manic” kingdom?
• What was the role of a gentile identity (Stammesbewußtsein) for the
establishment of a regnum?
• What sorts of changes in the “constitution” (Verfassung) of a peo-
ple and a kingdom (such as central organs of power, local power
structures, or links between the two) were linked to the estab-
lishment of a kingdom? How did socio-economic developments
contribute to this process?
• What was the role of kings in this development?
• What part did the Roman Empire play in this process?
• In all these points, special attention should be paid to change and
development.

of Distinction. The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800, ed. W. Pohl with H. Rei-
mitz, The Transformation of the Roman World 2 (Leiden-New York-Köln 1998).
 11

In pursuing this enterprise, this volume is deliberately not just confined


to the “Germanic” peoples (Anglo-Saxons, Bavarians, Burgundians,
Franks, Langobards, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Visigoths), but compares
these with the West and East Roman tradition (Byzantium and Late
Antique Spain) and also with non-Germanic peoples (such as Celts,
Huns and Avars), and even with the Islamic kingdoms in early
medieval Spain. It also seemed advisable to include a comparative
survey of the different Germanic laws. The editors are particularly
grateful to those colleagues who willingly agreed to join the “group”
at a later phase. They wish to thank the participants for helpful
comments on the introduction and conclusion, and particularly Ian
Wood for a last revision of those texts that were translated into
English. They would also like to thank Julian Deahl and Marcella
Mulder of Brill Academic Publishers for guiding their work and
preparing the volume for publication. Last but not least, they are
grateful to Sören Kaschke (Hamburg) who has transformed articles
that varied in form and footnotes into a standardized and legible
volume.
By following the leading questions mentioned above and concen-
trating on the topic of the relationship between gentes and regna, we
hope to contribute to an essential problem and help to fill a crucial
gap, both by presenting concise articles on the single kingdoms dealt
with here and by suggesting a basis for a comparative approach to
this subject which is not only central for the period of the transfor-
mation of the Roman world but, in a time of changing national
identities, also bears significant signs of actuality for the present day.
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THE EMPIRE, THE GENTES AND THE REGNA

Evangelos Chrysos

In this volume the route taken by the individual gentes in the process
of establishing themselves as regna in or at the periphery of the Roman
Empire is studied comparatively. In this short contribution I will try
to articulate some common characteristics of the influence the Roman
Empire may have exercised on this process.
In a seminal paper on the Gothic kingship Herwig Wolfram has
made the observation that the transformation of the gentes into regna,
as we can grasp it through the evidence in Greek and Roman sources,
could take place only in some sort of connection with the Empire.1
It was mainly the need to accommodate themselves politically and
economically in their new environment and in relationship with the
Empire that the migrating peoples shaped the structure of their poli-
ties as regna. Is this hypothesis correct and how are we to under-
stand it?
If we base our analysis on the well established and accepted assump-
tion about the gentes being not solidly formed and statically estab-
lished racial entities but groups of people open to constant ethnogenetic
change and adaptation to new realities, then it is reasonable to expect
that their relationship with the Empire had a tremendous impact on
their formation. We can grasp this impact in the following three
phases of their development. It is unneccessary to underline the point
that these phases as presented here are merely indicative of processes
that follow different paths with different speed.

First phase

The individual or corporate recruitment of barbarians during the


migration period in the Roman army2 offered them experience of

1
H. Wolfram, “Gotisches Königtum und römisches Kaisertum von Theodosius dem
Großen bis Justinian I.”, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 13 (1979) pp. 1–28, here pp. 1–2.
2
T.S. Burns, Barbarians within the Gates of Rome (Bloomington 1994); M. Cesa,
Tardoantico e barbari (Como 1994).
14  

how the imperial army was organized, how the government arranged
the military and functional logistics of their involvement as soldiers
or officers and how it administered their practical life, how the pro-
fessional expertise and the social values of the individual soldier were
cultivated in the camp and on the battlefield, how the ideas about
the state and its objectives were to be implemented by men in uni-
form, how the Empire was composed and how it functioned at an
administrative level. This knowledge of and experience with the
Romans opened to individual members of the gentes a path which,
once taken, would lead them to more or less substantial affiliation
or even solidarity with the Roman world. To take an example from
the economic sphere: The service in the Roman army introduced the
individual or corporate members into the monetary system of the
Empire since quite a substantial part of their salary was paid to
them in cash. With money in their hands the “guests” were by neces-
sity exposed to the possibility of taking part in the economic system,
of becoming accustomed to the rules of the wide market, of absorb-
ing the messages of or reacting to the imperial propaganda passed
to the citizens through the legends on the coins. In addition the
goods offered in the markets influenced and transformed the new-
comers’ food and aesthetic tastes and their cultural horizon. Further-
more Roman civilitas was an attractive goal for every individual
wishing to succeed in his social advancement. Persons like Flavius
Fravitta, “by birth a barbarian but otherwise a Greek not only in
habits but also in character and religion”3 set a remarkable para-
digm to be followed by others.

Second phase

Similar but more substantial and in depth is the path migrating gentes
took when they entered the wide orbit of the Roman world either
in accordance with a peace treaty as foederati or subjected to Roman
domination as dediticii.4 Their communication with the Empire on a
local level, with provincial governors, or generals and ultimately with

3
Zosimus, Histoire Nouvelle 5,20, ed. and transl. F. Paschoud, 4 vols. (Paris 1971–89).
4
See the papers of G. Wirth, P. Heather, W. Liebeschuetz and E. Chrysos in
Kingdoms of the Empire. The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity, ed. W. Pohl, The
Transformation of the Roman World 1 (Leiden-New York-Köln 1997).
  15

the imperial government had by necessity to be in a Roman (Latin


or Greek) language and within the current legal and social concepts
and terminology which Rome had developed for her dealings with
her neighbours. The political terms concerning the regulations for
settlement on public, confiscated or derelict private land, the condi-
tions of autonomous (legal) conduct within the Roman system of
control and coercion, the framework for trade and the transfer of
foods for the people and—at a later stage—the work of the mission-
aries, who by preaching the Christian gospel opened to the converted
newcomers a gate to the Graeco-Roman culture of the Mediterranean;
all these and many other, more or less obvious channels of com-
munication and means of affiliation served as the instruments for
shaping the regna within or at the edge of the Roman Empire.
Furthermore an extensive nexus of kinships at all social levels, includ-
ing the leading figures in the gentes among themselves and with mem-
bers of the Roman aristocracy and even the imperial families,5 created
a new intermixed society despite the practically disregarded prohi-
bition of intermarriage between Romans and barbarians.6 However,
the way the Romans expected the gentile leadership to behave within
what was understood as the “international community”, created the
demand for access to standardised forms of political discourse. This
is obvious in the adaptation of imperial methods of diplomatic dis-
course by the regna.

5
A. Demandt, “The Osmosis of Late Roman and Germanic Aristocracies”, Das
Reich und die Barbaren, ed. E. Chrysos and A. Schwarcz (Vienna 1989) pp. 75–86
with the attached table, and S. Krautschick, “Die Familie der Könige in Spätantike
und Frühmittelalter”, ibid., pp. 109–42. This “family of kings” was a real one and
had little in common with the fictitious system anticipated by F. Dölger in his
famous theory of “Die ‘Familie der Könige’”, in his Byzanz und die europäische Staaten-
welt (Darmstadt 1964) pp. 34–69. For a critical detailed analysis see J. Moysidou,
To Byzantio kai oi boreioi geitones tou ton 10o aiona (Athens 1995). Cf. E. Chrysos, “Legal
Concepts and patterns for the Barbarians’ Settlement on Roman Soil”, Das Reich
und die Barbaren, pp. 13–23, here pp. 13–4; id., “Perceptions of the International
Community of States during the Middle Ages”, Ethnogenese und Überlieferung. Angewandte
Methoden der Frühmittelalterforschung, ed. K. Brunner and B. Merta, Veröffentlichun-
gen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 31 (Wien-München 1994)
pp. 293–307, here pp. 293–4.
6
H. Sivan, “The appropriation of Roman law in barbarian hands: ‘Roman-bar-
barian’ marriage in Visigothic Gaul and Spain”, Strategies of Distinction. The Construction
of Ethnic Communities, 300–800, ed. W. Pohl with H. Reimitz, The Transformation
of the Roman World 2 (Leiden-New York-Köln 1998) pp. 189–203. On the Hispano-
Romans see D. Claude, “Remarks about relations between Visigoths and Hispano-
Romans in the seventh century”, ibid., pp. 117–30.
16  

Following this demand several forms of imitatio imperii were placed


on the agenda. The court, the language, public ceremonies involv-
ing the king, court rituals, his titles and dress, forms of distinct
munificence to the people and many other expressions of power were
imitating Roman forms that were thought to safeguard and support
the position of the rex as dominus over his gens and the Roman pop-
ulation in his regnum.7

Third phase

The legal arrangement with the Empire in one way or the other
remained for quite some time the legal frame for the physical exis-
tence and the institutional consolidation of the new polities as regna.
As we know from the case of the Vandals, part of the agreement
with the Empire in A.D. 474 which created the basis for the insti-
tutionalization of the gens into a regnum in Africa was the agreed
“order of succession” (Nachfolgeordnung)8 and it was the breach of this
order by Gelimer that allowed Justinian to send Belisarius and the
fleet against him. Similarly the breakdown of Theoderic’s arrange-
ment with Anastasius after the death of his son-in-law Eutharic in
A.D. 518 opened the gate to a gradual destabilization of Amal rule
in Italy and hence the murder of Amalasuintha, who personified the
legitimacy of the regime, by her cousin Theodahad made the mili-
tary intervention of Justinian inevitable.9 For the organization of the
personal relations between individuals, members of the ruling gens

7
See M. McCormick, “Clovis at Tours, Byzantine Public Ritual and the Origins
of Medieval Ruler Symbolism”, Das Reich und die Barbaren, pp. 155–80.
8
D. Claude, “Probleme der vandalischen Herrschaftsnachfolge”, Deutsches Archiv
30 (1974) pp. 329–55, here pp. 329–30.
9
Ch. Schäfer, Der weströmische Senat als Träger antiker Kontinuität unter den Ostgotenkönigen
(490 –540 n.Chr.) (St. Katharinen 1991) pp. 240–1; J. Moorhead, “Libertas and
Nomen Romanum in Ostrogothic Italy”, Latomus 46 (1988) pp. 161–8. For a long
period of Amal rule over the pars occidentis people such as Cassiodorus and Ennodius
would propagate Theoderic’s image as the custos libertatis et propugnator Romani nominis
(CIL X 6850) in order to legitimise him in the eyes of the Roman population,
while in the years of decline (after 518 and more clearly after 526) Roman aristo-
crats dare to voice their hope for restoration of the libertas Romana anticipating the
ideological preparation of Justinian’s war of reconquista. Cf. J. Moorhead, “Italian
loyalties during Justinian’s Gothic War”, Byzantion 53 (1983) pp. 575–96.
  17

and the Roman local population, the two legal systems, i.e. the writ-
ten Roman Law and the orally transmitted barbarian code of norms,
had to be harmonized.
At the end of this development we find the creation of regnal leg-
islation, the so-called leges barbarorum.10 It was this lex, the “national”
code that gave the gens the necessary impetus for a maturing state.
In this sense what Orosius cites as Athaulf ’s dilemma concerning his
attitude towards the Empire—regardless of its historical reliability11—
becomes a classic (at least a classicized) paradigm. Athaulf is said to
have refrained from establishing a Gothic empire in the place of the
Roman one, because his people would have difficulties in abiding
by the laws (= leges, sine quibus respublica non est respublica).12 Apparently
it was known to everybody that in order to consolidate their terri-
tory and organize their people into kingdoms the kings needed the
existence of a functioning legal system.
When this stage of development was reached the successor states
experimented with what we can call the aemulatio imperii, an attitude
operating as an advanced form of imitatio. To emulate the Empire
meant for the successor states simply to present the merits of “national”
achievement and compare their own activities, building programmes,
political and military achievements and institutions, personal and col-
lective piety, social care etc. with analogue Roman realities and con-
sequently to claim equality and hence to be proud of their record.
On the other hand, political and/or denominational eulogists were
asked to articulate an ideological concept critical of Roman institu-
tions, behaviour and practices that were to be condemned and
opposed. Isidore of Seville, despite being consciously Hispano-Roman,
launched a negative image of the Roman Empire and its past achieve-
ments in contrast to that of the juvenile and pious peoples of his
time. In this sense he would recall intentionally that multae gentes a
Romano imperio recesserunt.13

10
P. Wormald, “Lex Scripta and Verbum Regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship,
from Euric to Cnut”, Early Medieval Kingship, ed. P.H. Sawyer and I.N. Wood (Leeds
1977) pp. 105–38 and the paper by the same author in this volume.
11
W. Suerbaum, Vom antiken zum frühmittelalterlichen Staatsbegriff (3rd edn., Münster
1977) pp. 222–3.
12
Orosius, Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII 7,43, ed. K. Zangemeister, CSEL
5 (Vienna 1882; repr. Hildesheim 1967).
13
Isidore of Seville, Chronica maiora 238, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (Berlin
1894) p. 454. Cf. H. Löwe, “Von Theoderich dem Grossen zu Karl dem Grossen.

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