International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2006 Abstracts

Calling strangers "barbarians" has been a common concept throughout European written history. Frequently used in Greek and Roman Antiquity, this term gradually became an ever more multi-layered concept of idealtypical cultural perception, its meanings ranging from being simply synonymous with "strange" to a quasi anti-human lack of social structure. Quite a few Merovingian sources are dealing with what is considered to be "barbarian", ranging from rather topical stigmatizations of certain actions and forms of behaviour as barbarous (Gregory of Tours) to reproducing aloof cultural ideals of the Roman elites of litterati (Sidonius Apollinaris). The analysis of a longue durée stretching from Merovingian to Carolingian times, first of all, shows a significant reduction of the possible meanings of barbarus. Most of the culturally stigmatising variables of the Roman concept reflecting the lifestyle of the Roman erudite elites lost their significance, whereas "simpler" categories seem to have been easier to adapt. Thus, we can observe a strong emphasis on religious issues (Catholic Christianity vs. "barbarian" heresy and paganism) as well as on the topos of furorbarbaricus. The rise of the Frankish regnum and later imperium to being a dominant expansive power in turn lead to adapting and refining the concept of barbarus according to the new social and political developments. In this process, the dealing with non-Christian neighbours, be it new subjects or invaders, as well as the Carolingian rise to regal and imperial power, crucially modified the contemporary sources' classification of civilized society and its antinomous counterpart: the barbarians.