REGNA AND GENTESTHE TRANSFORMATION OFTHE ROMAN WORLDa scientific programme of the european science foundationCoordinatorsJAVIER ARCE .EVANGELOS CHRYSOS .IAN WOODSeries EditorIAN WOODVOLUME 13REGNA AND GENTESTeam LeadersMiquel BarcelMark BlackburnGianpietro BrogioloAlain DierkensRichard HodgesMarco MostertPatrick PrinWalter PohlFrans TheuwsLeslie WebsterSteering CommitteeGunilla kerstrm-HougenVolker BierbrauerNiels HannestadPrzemyslaw Urba nczykMario MazzaH.H. van Regteren AltenaHeid Gjstein ResiL. Cracco RugginiREGNA AND GENTESThe Relationship between Late Antique and Early MedievalPeoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman WorldEDITED BYHANS-WERNER GOETZ, JRG JARNUTANDWALTER POHLWITH THE COLLABORATION OFSREN KASCHKEBRILLLEIDENBOSTON2003This book is printed on acid-free paper.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataRegna and gentes : the relationship between late antique and early medieval peoples andkingdoms in the transformation of the Roman world / edited by Hans Werner Goetz,Jrg Jarnut and Walter Pohl ; with the collaboration of Sren Kaschke.p. cm. (The transformation of the Roman world, ISSN 1386 4165 ; v. 13)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 90041252481. Germanic peoples History. 2. Ethnicity Europe History. 3. Ethnicity HolyRoman Empire History. 4. Europe History 392-814. 5. Europe Politics andgovernment. I. Goetz, Hans Werner. II. Jarnut, Jrg. III. Pohl, Walter, 1953 IV. Series.GN549.G4 R44 2002305.8'00943 dc212002034271Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-EinheitsaufnahmeRegna and gentes : the relationship between late antique and early medievalpeoples and kingdoms in the transformation of the Roman world / ed. byHans-Werner Goetz ... With collab. of Sren Kaschke. Leiden ; Boston :Brill, 2003(The transformation of the Roman world ; Vol. 13)ISBN 9004125248ISSN 13864165ISBN 90 04 12524 8 Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The NetherlandsAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior writtenpermission from the publisher.Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personaluse is granted by Brill provided thatthe appropriate fees are paid directly to The CopyrightClearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910Danvers, MA 01923, USA.Fees are subject to change.printed in the netherlandsCONTENTSList of Contributors .................................................................. viiAbbreviations .............................................................................. xi Introduction ................................................................................ 1Hans-Werner GoetzThe Empire, the gentes and the regna ...................................... 13Evangelos ChrysosThe Leges Barbarorum: law and ethnicity in the post-Roman West .................................................................. 21Patrick WormaldGens into regnum: the Vandals .................................................. 55J.H.W.G. LiebeschuetzGens and regnum among the Ostrogoths .................................. 85Peter Heather The enigmatic fth century in Hispania: some historical problems ................................................................................ 135Javier ArcePro patriae gentisqve Gothorvm statv ................................................ 161Isabel VelzquezThe transformation of Hispania after 711 .............................. 219Ann ChristysGentes, kings and kingdomsthe emergence of states. The kingdom of the Gibichungs .......................................... 243Ian N. Woodvi cox+rx+sThe relationship between Frankish gens and regnum:a proposal based on the archaeological evidence .............. 271Michael SchmauderGens, kings and kingdoms: the Franks .................................... 307Hans-Werner GoetzThe Britons: from Romans to barbarians .............................. 345Alex Woolf Anglo-Saxon gentes and regna .................................................... 381Barbara YorkeGens, rex and regnum of the Lombards ...................................... 409Jrg JarnutThe Bavarians ............................................................................ 429Matthias HardtAvars and Avar archaeology. An introduction ...................... 463Falko DaimA Non-Roman Empire in Central Europe: the Avars .......... 571Walter PohlConclusion .................................................................................. 597Bibliography .............................................................................. 629Index of Peoples ........................................................................ 691Index of Persons ........................................................................ 694Index of Places .......................................................................... 700Index of Subjects ...................................................................... 705LIST OF CONTRIBUTORSEy\xorros Cnnvsos is Professor of Byzantine History at the Universityof Athens and Director of the Institute for Byzantine Research atthe Hellenic Research Foundation. His research interests includeByzantiums international relations in the early Middle Ages.P\+nick Wonv\rr is a Research Lecturer at the Faculty of ModernHistory, University of Oxford. He is a specialist in the law and leg-islation of post-Roman Europe, his publications including The Makingof English Law, King Alfred to the Twelfth-Century, vol. 1: Legislation andits Limits (Oxford 1999), and Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West(London 1999).Worr Lirnrscntr+z is professor emeritus, and formerly head of theDepartment of Classical and Archaeological Studies, at NottinghamUniversity. His principal interests are Late Antiquity and Romanreligion. His most recent books are Barbarians and Bishops (Oxford1990), and The Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford 2001).Pr+rn Hr\+nrn is Fellow in Medieval History at Worcester College,Oxford. He is a specialist in the history of the Later Roman Empireand its successor states (c. 250600 A.D.), with a strong interest inthe issues surrounding the so-called Migration Period. His publica-tions include Goths and Romans 332489 (Oxford 1991), The Goths(Oxford 1996), and Philosophy Propaganda and Empire in the Fourth Century:Select Speeches of Themistius (Liverpool 2001).J\yirn Ancr is Research Professor in the Higher Council of ScienticalResearch (CSIC), Depart. de Historia Antigua y Arqueologa at theInstituto de Historia in Madrid, Spain. He specialises in Late RomanHistory and Archaeology, and his recent books include: Centcelles. Elmonumento tardorromano. Iconograa y Arquitectura, ed. J. Arce (Roma2000), Memoria de los antepasados. Puesta en escena y desarrollo del elogiofnebre romano (Madrid 2000), El ltimo siglo de la Espaa romana (284409A.D.) (3rd edn., Madrid 1997) and Esperando a los brbaros en Hispania(409507) (forthcoming).viii ris+ or cox+nint+onsIs\nrr Vrr\zotrz is professor of the Latin Department in theComplutense University of Madrid. She is a specialist in Late andMedieval Latin and Epigraphy. She is Director of the ArchivoEpigrco de Hispania and the review Hispania Epigraphica of theComplutense University and Secretary of the Latin Studies Societyof Spain (SELat). Recently she has published Documentos de poca visigodaescritos en pizarra (siglo VIVIII), 2 vols. (Turnhout 2000).Axx Cnnis+vs specialises in the historiography of Spain in the earlyIslamic period and has recently published Christians in al-Andalus7111000 (Richmond, Surrey 2002). She works as an anaesthetist inLeeds.I\x Woor, Professor of Early Medieval History, University of Leeds,has published numerous articles on Early Medieval History. His booksinclude The Merovingian Kingdoms 450751 (London-New York 1994),The Missionary Life (Harlow 2001), and, together with Danuta Shanzer,Avitus of Vienne: Letters and Selected Prose (Liverpool 2002). He was acoordinator of the ESF programme on the Transformation of theRoman World.Micn\rr Scnv\trrn is curator at the Rheinische Landesmuseum inBonn and teaches early Christian and early Medieval archaeologyat the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn. His researchelds are late Antique, migration period and early medieval archaeol-ogy. He wrote several articles on these topics. His book Oberschichtgrberund Verwahrfunde in Sdosteuropa im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert. Zum Verhltniszwischen sptantikem Reich und barbarischer Oberschicht aufgrund der archol-ogischen Quellen is just out.H\xs-Wrnxrn Gor+z is Professor of Medieval History at the Universityof Hamburg and president of the German Medivistenverband. Hismain elds of research are the history of medieval mentality andattitudes, historiography and social history of the Early and HighMiddle Ages. His books include Life in the Middle Ages (London 1993),Frauen im frhen Mittelalter. Frauenbild und Frauenleben im Frankenreich (Wei-mar 1995), Moderne Medivistik. Stand und Perspektiven der Mittelalterforschung(Darmstadt 1999), Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbewutsein im hohenMittelalter (Berlin 1999) and Handbuch der Geschichte Europas, vol. 2: DasFrhmittelalter (5001050) (forthcoming).ris+ or cox+nint+ons ixArrx Woorr is Lecturer in Early Medieval Scottish History at theUniversity of St Andrews. He has published a number of articlesrelating to kingship and social transformation in early medieval Britainand Ireland.B\nn\n\ Yonkr is Professor of Early Medieval History at KingAlfreds College, Winchester. She specialises in Anglo-Saxon Historyand recent publications include Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-SaxonEngland and Wessex in the Early Middle Ages.Jono J\nxt+, born in 1942 in Weimar, Germany, from 19621967study of history and German studies in Bonn (Germany), Caen(France) and Perugia (Italy). 1970 Dr. phil. Bonn, 1977 habilitationBonn, 1980 professor Bonn, since 1983 professor for medieval his-tory in Paderborn.M\++ni\s H\nr+ is Coordinator for Medieval History and Archaeol-ogy at the Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und KulturOstmittel-europas at Leipzig. He specialises in History of MigrationPeriod, Early Middle Ages and History of settlement structures inCentral Germany and East Central Europe.F\rko D\iv is Professor at the Institute for Prehistory of the UniversityVienna, Austria, and Director of the Vienna Institute of ArchaeologicalScience. He specialises in Avar studies and the archaeological evi-dence for cultural exchange between Byzantium and its neighbours.His recent publications include Das awarische Grberfeld von Leobersdorf,Niedersterreich (Wien 1987), Typen der Ethnogenese unter besonderer Berck-sichtigung der Bayern 2, ed. F. Daim and H. Friesinger (Wien 1990),Awarenforschungen, 2 vols., ed. F. Daim (Wien 1992) and Die Awarenam Rand der byzantinischen Welt. Studien zu Diplomatie, Handel und Techno-logietransfer im Frhmittelalter, ed. F. Daim (Innsbruck 2000).W\r+rn Ponr is Director of the Medieval research unit of the AustrianAcademy of Sciences and teaches medieval history at the Universityof Vienna. His books include Die Awaren (Mnchen 1988; an Englishtranslation is in preparation), Die Germanen (Mnchen 2000), Werksttteder ErinnerungMontecassino und die langobardische Vergangenheit (Wien2001), and Die Vlkerwanderung (Stuttgart-Berlin-Kln 2002).This page intentionally left blank ABBREVIATIONSCIL Corpus Inscriptionum LatinarumCSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum LatinorumMGH Monumenta Germaniae HistoricaAA Auctores antiquissimiCapit. Capitularia regum FrancorumConc. ConciliaEE EpistolaeLL LegesSS ScriptoresSSrG Scriptores rerum GermanicarumSSrL Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et ItalicarumSSrM Scriptores rerum MerovingicarumPL Patrologiae cursus completus. Series latina, ed. J.P. Migne,221 vols. (Paris 18441855)This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTIONHans-Werner GoetzLate Antiquity, no doubt, was a time of transition or rather transi-tions.1In spite of extensive research on the Germanic (or, fromthe Roman point of view, barbarian) invasions and the successorstates of the Roman Empire, comparatively little attention has beenpaid to the transition of peoples, or their developing into king-doms. As far as we can see, research on the Later Roman Empireand the late antique and early medieval kingdoms has focused onfour aspects: rst, the Great Migration,2second, the decline of theEmpire (including the role of migration and of the barbarian hordesin this process),3third, the ethnogenesis of the Germanic peoples,4and fourth, the rise of (single) kingdoms.5Meanwhile, we know a lot1Thus, for example, I.N. Wood, The Merovingian kingdoms, 450751 (London-NewYork 1994) p. 1.2Cf., for example, E. Demougeot, La formation de lEurope et les invasions barbares,vol. 1: Des origines germaniques lavnement de Diocltien (Paris 1969); vol. 2: De lavne-ment de Diocltien (284) loccupation germanique de lEmpire romain dOccident (dbut du VIesicle), Collection historique (Paris 1979); W. Goart, Barbarians and Romans A.D.418584. The Techniques of Accomodation (Princeton NJ 1980); J.D. Randers-Pehrson,Barbarians and Romans. The Birth Struggle of Europe, A.D. 400700 (London-Canberra1983); Das Reich und die Barbaren, ed. E. Chrysos and A. Schwarcz (Vienna 1989).3Cf. A. Demandt, Die Sptantike. Die Rmische Geschichte von Diocletian bis Justinian,284565 n. Chr., Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft III,6 (Mnchen 1989); id.,Der Fall Roms. Die Ausung des Rmischen Reiches im Urteil der Nachwelt (Mnchen 1984);A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284602. A social, economic and administrativesurvey, 3 vols. (Oxford 1964); Der Untergang des Rmischen Reiches, ed. K. Christ, Wegeder Forschung 269 (Darmstadt 1970).4Cf. n. 7, and, summarizing, W. Pohl, Die Germanen, Enzyklopdie deutscherGeschichte 57 (Mnchen 2000).5Cf. D. Claude, Geschichte der Westgoten (Stuttgart-Berlin-Kln-Mainz 1970); H. Wol-fram, Geschichte der Goten. Von den Anfngen bis zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts. Ent-wurf einer historischen Ethnographie (Mnchen 1979; 3rd edn. 1990); T.S. Burns, AHistory of the Ostrogoths (Bloomington 1984); P.J. Heather, Goths and Romans 332489(Oxford 1991); id., The Goths (Oxford 1996); P. Amory, People and Identity in Ostro-gothic Italy, 489534, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought (Cambridge1997); J. Jarnut, Geschichte der Langobarden, Urban 339 (Stuttgart 1982); D. Geuenich,Geschichte der Alemannen, Urban 575 (Stuttgart-Berlin-Kln 1997); R. Kaiser, Die Franken:Roms Erben und Wegbereiter Europas?, Historisches Seminar N.F. 10 (Idstein 1997).2 n\xs-vrnxrn oor+z6H. Wolfram, Das Reich und die Germanen. Zwischen Antike und Mittelalter, Das Reichund die Deutschen (Berlin 1990) [English transl. The Roman Empire and its GermanicPeoples (Berkeley 1997)].7H. Schutz, The Germanic Realms in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400750 (NewYork 2000).8J. Moorhead, The Roman Empire Divided, 400700 (Harlow-London 2001).9P.J. Geary, The Myth of Nations. The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton 2001).10W. Pohl, Die Vlkerwanderung. Eroberung und Integration (Stuttgart-Berlin-Kln 2002).11R. Gnther and A.R. Korsunskij, Germanen erobern Rom. Der Untergang des West-rmischen Reiches und die Entstehung germanischer Knigreiche bis zur Mitte des 6. Jahrhun-derts, Verentlichungen des Zentralinstituts fr Alte Geschichte und Archologieder Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR 15 (Berlin/Ost 1986; 2nd edn. 1988).12P.S. Barnwell, Kings, Courtiers and Imperium. The Barbarian West, 565725 (London1997). A rst volume, Emperors, Prefects and Kings. The Roman West, 395565 (London1992), covered other peoples within a more strictly Roman context.13Ibid., pp. 172 .about the political development of this period, and we may also havesucient knowledge concerning the political, social and cultural(including religious) structures of this epoch. And, of course, thereare splendid surveys of the period, for example, by Herwig Wolfram,6Herbert Schutz,7John Moorhead,8Patrick Geary9and, most recently,by Walter Pohl.10What we lack, however, is a comparative view ofthese kingdoms as well as an attempt to combine these four ele-ments within a common perspective. One of the rst attempts inthis direction was the Marxist volume Germans are conqueringRome (Germanen erobern Rom) by Rigobert Gnther and AlexanderKorsunskij,11limited, however, to a short presentation of each king-dom. Another, more recent attempt by P.S. Barnwell was restrictedto four kingdoms (Franks, Visigoths, Langobards, and Anglo-Saxons),each dealt with under three aspects: kings and queens, royal house-hold, and provincial administration.12In his conclusion, Barnwelldemands a revision of our image of Germanic government (whichwas less decadent than generally assumed).13He rightly points outour complete dependence on evidence which is, actually, totallydierent for each kingdom. He lays further emphasis on the impor-tance of rank for the Visigoths and Anglo-Saxons, and he dis-covers a continuation of Roman traditions throughout in legislation,administration (which was dependent on the extension of the king-dom), minting, royal ceremonies, and Christianity. No doubt theseare important observations, which have been conrmed and renedby numerous works on individual kingdoms. Nevertheless, we stillix+nortc+iox 3lack an overall comparison of these kingdoms, and the central ques-tion, namely of the relation between gentes and regna, has so far onlybeen slightly touched upon and has never been explicitly and tho-roughly discussed in a comparison of the single realms. As KarlFerdinand Werner observed, rex, gens and regnum formed a triad:There were gentes which formed a vast kingdom, and there were oth-ers which were absorbed by or integrated into these realms.14However,it is by no means clear whether existing gentes established kingdoms,which would mean that the foundation of the Germanic king-doms marks a development from gens to regnum, or whether gentesresulted from the establishment of realms, orthe most probableassumptionwhether there was mutual inuence, which in turnaected both gens and regnum: how this all worked is equally unclear.An important contribution to this problem has recently been madeby Hans Hubert Anton who, by considering the geographical ter-minology, asked how the gentile communities/federations (or peo-ples) developed into political and territorial ones. He showed thatextensive geographical terms (such as Hispania, Gallia, Germania, andItalia) partly lost their political connotation in the new realms andwere overtaken by those of new segmentations (such as Aquitania,Burgundia, and Francia), but survived (or were revived) as expressionsfor the kingdoms in the case of Italy and Spain, and were also usedby foreign writers outside the respective kingdom.15Thus, geo-graphical terms lost and regained their political impact and (again)superseded ethnic ones. This, however, is of course only one aspectof a most complicated process.Ethnicity and ethnogenesis meanwhile have come to be seen asextremely dicult and complex phenomena. Since Reinhard Wenskuspublished his great book on The Growth of the early medievalgentes in 1961,16it has become more and more clear and may nowbe considered a nearly undisputed conviction that the gentes of the14K.F. Werner, Vlker und Regna, Beitrge zur mittelalterlichen Reichs- und Nations-bildung in Deutschland und Frankreich, ed. C. Brhl and B. Schneidmller, HistorischeZeitschrift Beiheft N.F. 24 (Mnchen 1997) pp. 1544, particularly pp. 156.15H.H. Anton, Antike Grolnder, politisch-kirchliche Traditionen und mittel-alterliche Reichsbildung, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fr Rechtsgeschichte, KanonistischeAbteilung 86 (2000) pp. 3385.16R. Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung. Das Werden der frhmittelalterlichen gentes(Kln-Graz 1961).4 n\xs-vrnxrn oor+zMigration period and the Early Middle Ages were not stable eth-nic units (in the biological sense of an Abstammungsgemeinschaft), buthistorical, that is, unstable communities that were prone to change.17If former research identied peoples as communities of humanbeings who spoke the same language, as members of a cultural grouprepresented in archaeological ndings, as groups presented under asingle name in written sources, as ethnic groups of the same descent,or as political groups under the leadership of a king or prince, wehave, in the meantime and to an equal degree, not only becomeaware that these ve elements do not correspond with each other,but also that each of these elements is contestable.18The key fac-tors, however, according to Wenskus and his followers, were politicsand tradition. The ethnogenesis of early medieval peoples, there-fore, was not a matter of blood, but of shared traditions and insti-tutions; belief in common origins could give cohesion to ratherheterogeneous communities. The early medieval kingdoms were, for17Cf. Wolfram, Geschichte der Goten; id., Ethnogenesen im frhmittelalterlichenDonau- und Ostalpenraum (6. bis 10. Jahrhundert), Frhmittelalterliche Ethnogenese imAlpenraum, ed. H. Beumann and W. Schrder, Nationes 5 (Sigmaringen 1985) pp.97151; Typen der Ethnogenese unter besonderer Bercksichtigung der Bayern 1, ed. W. Pohland H. Wolfram, Denkschriften der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,philosophisch-historische Klasse 201. Verentlichungen der Kommission fr Frh-mittelalterforschung 12 (Wien 1990); Ethnogenese und berlieferung. Angewandte Metho-den der Frhmittelalterforschung, ed. K. Brunner and B. Merta, Verentlichungen desInstituts fr sterreichische Geschichtsforschung 31 (Wien-Mnchen 1994). An in-structive overview and estimation of this research is given by W. Pohl, Tradition,Ethnogenese und literarische Gestaltung: eine Zwischenbilanz, ibid., pp. 926; cf.id., Gentilismus, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 11 (2nd edn., 1998) pp.91101; and, recently, id., Zur Bedeutung ethnischer Unterscheidungen in derfrhen Karolingerzeit, Studien zur Sachsenforschung 12, ed. H.-J. Hler (Olden-burg 1999) pp. 193298. Cf. also After Empire. Towards an Ethnology of Europes Bar-barians, ed. G. Ausenda, Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology (Woodbridge 1995);S. Gasparri, Prima delle nazioni. Popoli, etnie e regni fra Antichit e Medioevo (Rom 1997).For later periods: Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages, ed. S. Forde, L. Johnson and A.V. Murray, Leeds Texts and Monographs. New Series 14 (Leeds1995); Peuples du Moyen ge. Problmes didentication. Sminaires Socits, Idologies et Croyancesau Moyen ge, ed. C. Carozzi and H. Taviani-Carozzi, Publications de lUniversitde Provence (Aix-en-Provence 1996); Medieval Europeans. Studies in ethnic identity andnational perspectives in medieval Europe, ed. A.P. Smyth (Basingstoke 1998). For a gen-eral archaeological approach to the question, see S. Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity(London 1997).18Cf. W. Pohl, Franken und Sachsen: die Bedeutung ethnischer Prozesse im 7.und 8. Jahrhundert, 799Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Groe und PapstLeo III. in Paderborn. Beitrge zum Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, ed. C. Stiegemannand M. Wemho (Mainz 1999) pp. 2336; id., Die Germanen, pp. 710.ix+nortc+iox 5a time, a successful form of making such ethnic communities thefocus of states on the territory of the empire.19Seen from this angle,modern ethnogenetical research has to investigate the subject in adierent way:1. If gentes were not static units but prone to change, we are obligedto investigate these changes in the course of the Early MiddleAges rather than ask for the origins of peoples.2. If gentes were political rather than ethnic units,20and, conse-quently, in many cases tended to establish kingdoms (within thearea of, but also outside the institution of the Roman Empire),the relation between gens and regnum which is the theme of thisvolume becomes not only a central, but also a crucial issue.213. If gentes were groups formed by tradition (Traditionsgemeinschaften)rather than by descent, we have to inquire into their self-per-ception as a gens.These are central questions concerning the transformation of theRoman world and the establishment of the late antique and earlymedieval Germanic kingdoms. Without doubt, the Roman Empirewas not assassinated by the Germans, as Andr Piganiol, stillinuenced by the burden of the Second World War, believed.22Butwe are now much less certain about the role of the Germanic19Thus W. Pohl, The Barbarian Successor States, The Transformation of the RomanWorld A.D. 400900, ed. L. Webster and M. Brown (London 1997) pp. 3347, herep. 46.20Recently, with reference to Bede, H. Kleinschmidt, The Geuissae and Bede:On the Innovations of Bedes Concept of the Gens, The Community, the Family andthe Saint. Patterns of Power in Early Medieval Europe. Selected Proceedings of the InternationalMedieval Congress. University of Leeds, 47 July 1994, 1013 July 1995, ed. J. Hill andM. Swan, International Medieval Research 4 (Turnhout 1998) pp. 77102, again,claimed a conceptual change of the gens in so far as the political concept of a gensas a group of settlers under the control of one ruler was a secondary, post-migra-tional one.21Cf. C. Brhl, DeutschlandFrankreich. Die Geburt zweier Vlker (Kln-Wien 1990;repr. 1995); M. Becher, Rex, Dux und Gens. Untersuchungen zur Entstehung des schsischenHerzogtums im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert, Historische Studien 444 (Husum 1996); K.F.Werner, Volk, Nation, Nationalismus, Masse, IIIV, Geschichtliche Grundbegrie. Histo-risches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland 7 (1992) pp. 171281.22A. Piganiol, Les causes de la ruine de lempire romain, id., LEmpire chrtien(Paris 1947) pp. 41122 [repr. id., Die Ursachen des Untergangs des RmischenReiches, Der Untergang des Rmischen Reiches, ed. K. Christ, Wege der Forschung 269(Darmstadt 1970) pp. 27085].6 n\xs-vrnxrn oor+zpeoples in this process. Orosiuss report that the Visigothic kingAthaulf planned to destroy the Roman Empire, in order to estab-lish a Gothic one,23seems completely anachronistic for his time. Inthe end, however, historical development seemed to have reached astate which came very close to Athaulf s plans, achieved by the veryGermanic kingdoms which (without knowing or planning it) hadbecome the heirs of a Roman Empire which in its turn had devel-oped into an alienated gure far away in the East. Therefore, weare forced to investigate very closely what had happened in themeantime.Examining the relation between regnum and gens is an approachwhich, in this context, may reveal the (dierent) phases of politicalchanges and, even more important, the causes and consequences ofthe establishment of new kingdoms. Moreover, it helps us to rec-ognize dierences and similarities between individual peoples andrealms. There are, however, (at least) six crucial problems inherentin this question. The rst problem is already inherent in the terms peoples andkingdom, terms that can no longer be dened per se (despitetheir necessary interrelation when peoples, too, are seen as hav-ing a political connotation). Not only is peoples an ambivalentterm (and, what is more, the German Volk has become fraughtwith ideologically incriminating connotations), but also a king-dom does not simply emerge where there is a king, but can orshould be understood as a political order, or a state with asucient measure of organization. Since the interest of this vol-ume lies in the relationship between peoples and kingdoms,our concern is focussed on those gentes which developed into, andgave their name to (larger) regna, particularly with regard to thesuccessor states of the Roman Empire. In practice, however, it is not at all easy to draw a clear line between Germanic com-munities and Germanic kingdoms as successor states of theEmpire. A second, and particularly prevalent problem is the term Ger-manic itself. After centuries of a seemingly clear distinction, fol-23Orosius, Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII 7,43,3 ., ed. K. Zangemeister,CSEL 5 (Vienna 1882; repr. Hildesheim 1967) pp. 55960.ix+nortc+iox 7lowed by doubts and restrictions, we have now reached the pointwhere we are not even sure any more what Germanic reallymeans. The Germani of the Roman sources seem to be a Romanconstruction (and, moreover, the term was not used very fre-quently), and there are no signs of a Germanic self-conceptionamong the barbarian peoples which the Romans considered (or we think) to have been Germanic. In other words, theGermanic peoples did not conceive themselves as being Germa-nic, or at least did not attach any importance to this feature.The term can be dened, of course, in terms of language, butwith regard to the early period we have little knowledge of thelanguage spoken by those peoples which, according to ReinhardWenskus, were conglomerations of dierent communities anyway.Moreover, previous (German) research overemphasized many phe-nomena (such as Herrschaft, Eigenkirche, Sippe, or Gefolgschaft) thatseem specic to the Early Middle Ages rather than being typi-cally Germanic. It is important, therefore, to compare so-calledGermanic peoples and kingdoms with presumably non-Germanicones. As a consequence of these problems, it was suggested thatthe term Germanic be dropped completely in this volume, butto substitute it with barbarian would only mean adopting another(Roman) ideology which, in the nal analysis, is as inadequate asGermanic. The only neutral alternative, therefore, would be tosimply speak of late antique and early medieval peoples and king-doms, but, of course, this would merely be evading the problem.Probably it is more important to remain constantly aware of theproblematic questions that are inherent in our topic. Moreover,it would also be necessary to have some critical reection on theterm Roman. The third problem concerns the dierence in development andstructure of Germanic kingdom-building. Sometimes the for-mation of a realm focuses more or less on a single act (such asTheodorics Ostrogothic kingdom), sometimes it resembles a grad-ual movement (as under both Visigothic kingdoms, the Tolosanas well as the Toledan one), sometimes it consists of an accu-mulation of territories and realms (as with Cloviss foundationof the Merovingian kingdom of the Franks). Moreover, we shouldnot forget that we are comparing developments that extendedover a considerable period, from the early fth to the late eighthcenturies.8 n\xs-vrnxrn oor+z 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 havefar more knowledge of what a Germanic gens was not, thanwhat it was: that is, we are aware of so many problems that itseems nearly impossible to provide any straightforward answers.We do know, however, as already mentioned in the beginning ofthis introduction, that the gentes were not stable groups with clearethnic origins, but (constantly) changing (an extremely importantpoint), and that the political factor was at least as decisive forthese developments as the (usually ctional) consciousness of com-mon origins. Ethnogenetical processes, therefore, can no longerbe 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 dene ethnicity.By which criteria, or by which historical evidence can ethnicitybe comprehended? We have to bear in mind that there are dierentapproaches to, and denitions of ethnicity, and in consequencewe 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 fth 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) thesekingdoms may be called states (which is a modern expressionanyway)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, andindeed extremely relevant, is the question of which bonds andinstitutions (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) thatwas not exclusively dependent on the ruling of a (certain) king ordynasty? What were, for example, the dierences between therealms of Marbod in the rst, Attila in the fth and Theodoricin the sixth century? A sixth problem is the question of our sources and how to dealwith them. The discrepancy between the evidence we have foreach 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 dierent kingdoms. Theix+nortc+iox 9real problem, however, goes deeper. It includes not only the well-known and lamentable fact that at least the early stages of theGermanic peoples and kingdoms are almost exclusively recordedby Roman sources and seen from a Roman perspective, but, evenmore important, the more general question of whether there weredecisive dierences between the actual historical process and theway 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 ofour sources. As they did not (and could not) have our conceptof, and, moreover, our interest in ethnogenesis, that neither meansthat they were wrong, nor does it mean that our theories areinadequate. Although we have to go farther in our explanationsthan contemporary writers did, at the same time we have to beaware of the characteristic features of their perceptions becauseit was their view (not ours) that was underlying the thoughts aswell as the deeds of the people of those times. Thus we are obligedto take into account what they meant when they spoke of a gensor a regnum and how (and if ) they saw any changes.Looking at these problems, the relations between gentes and regna (orbetween 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 changeswere perceived by our sources or what our sources made of them.Certainly, however, there were alterations that we are able to observeand compare, and it is the aim of the present volume to considerthese relations and developments as well as the political and eth-nic structures in dierent peoples and regions.This volume may be regarded as the result of a long process ofdiscussion that the majority of the contributors were allowed to enjoyfor ve years supported by the European Science Foundation andits project The Transformation of the Roman World (TRW). TheWorking Group 1 (Imperium and gentes) of this project, chairedby Walter Pohl, after discussions on the early kingdoms, gentile struc-tures and other topics,24aimed at clarifying the crucial question of24Cf. Kingdoms of the Empire. The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity, ed. W. Pohl,The Transformation of the Roman World 1 (Leiden-New York-Kln 1997); Strategies10 n\xs-vrnxrn oor+zthe relation between gens and regnum to some extent in a compa-rative approach. A rst step was taken during the meeting at Barcelona(October 30November 1, 1997) where some members consideredone gens (or regnum) each under common leading questions. This dis-cussion was continued in the working groups last meeting in Manerbadel Garda (October 2225, 1998) where the group decided to elab-orate its results, to complement them by further articles, which wereto include non-Germanic developments, and to publish them in avolume of the TRW series. Pre-nal drafts of all papers were dis-tributed among the participants and some invited experts and werediscussed at a meeting in Bellagio, sponsored by the RockefellerCenter, which most of the colleagues involved were able to attend(December 1115, 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 hadto be adapted to the special cases respectively. These questions were: (main and central question): Was there a development from aGermanic 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 thedevelopment towards, respectively, the establishment of a Ger-manic kingdom? What was the role of a gentile identity (Stammesbewutsein) for theestablishment 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 powerstructures, or links between the two) were linked to the estab-lishment of a kingdom? How did socio-economic developmentscontribute 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 anddevelopment.of Distinction. The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300800, ed. W. Pohl with H. Rei-mitz, The Transformation of the Roman World 2 (Leiden-New York-Kln 1998).ix+nortc+iox 11In pursuing this enterprise, this volume is deliberately not just connedto the Germanic peoples (Anglo-Saxons, Bavarians, Burgundians,Franks, Langobards, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Visigoths), but comparesthese with the West and East Roman tradition (Byzantium and LateAntique Spain) and also with non-Germanic peoples (such as Celts,Huns and Avars), and even with the Islamic kingdoms in earlymedieval Spain. It also seemed advisable to include a comparativesurvey of the dierent Germanic laws. The editors are particularlygrateful to those colleagues who willingly agreed to join the groupat a later phase. They wish to thank the participants for helpfulcomments on the introduction and conclusion, and particularly IanWood for a last revision of those texts that were translated intoEnglish. They would also like to thank Julian Deahl and MarcellaMulder of Brill Academic Publishers for guiding their work andpreparing the volume for publication. Last but not least, they aregrateful to Sren Kaschke (Hamburg) who has transformed articlesthat varied in form and footnotes into a standardized and legiblevolume.By following the leading questions mentioned above and concen-trating on the topic of the relationship between gentes and regna, wehope to contribute to an essential problem and help to ll a crucialgap, both by presenting concise articles on the single kingdoms dealtwith here and by suggesting a basis for a comparative approach tothis subject which is not only central for the period of the transfor-mation of the Roman world but, in a time of changing nationalidentities, also bears signicant signs of actuality for the present day.This page intentionally left blank THE EMPIRE, THE GENTES AND THE REGNAEvangelos ChrysosIn this volume the route taken by the individual gentes in the processof establishing themselves as regna in or at the periphery of the RomanEmpire is studied comparatively. In this short contribution I will tryto articulate some common characteristics of the inuence the RomanEmpire may have exercised on this process.In a seminal paper on the Gothic kingship Herwig Wolfram hasmade 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.1It was mainly the need to accommodate themselves politically andeconomically in their new environment and in relationship with theEmpire 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 ethnogeneticchange and adaptation to new realities, then it is reasonable to expectthat their relationship with the Empire had a tremendous impact ontheir formation. We can grasp this impact in the following threephases of their development. It is unneccessary to underline the pointthat these phases as presented here are merely indicative of processesthat follow dierent paths with dierent speed.First phaseThe individual or corporate recruitment of barbarians during themigration period in the Roman army2oered them experience of1H. Wolfram, Gotisches Knigtum und rmisches Kaisertum von Theodosius demGroen bis Justinian I., Frhmittelalterliche Studien 13 (1979) pp. 128, here pp. 12.2T.S. Burns, Barbarians within the Gates of Rome (Bloomington 1994); M. Cesa,Tardoantico e barbari (Como 1994).14 ry\xorros cnnvsos3Zosimus, Histoire Nouvelle 5,20, ed. and transl. F. Paschoud, 4 vols. (Paris 197189).4See the papers of G. Wirth, P. Heather, W. Liebeschuetz and E. Chrysos inKingdoms of the Empire. The Integration of Barbarians in Late Antiquity, ed. W. Pohl, TheTransformation of the Roman World 1 (Leiden-New York-Kln 1997).how the imperial army was organized, how the government arrangedthe military and functional logistics of their involvement as soldiersor ocers and how it administered their practical life, how the pro-fessional expertise and the social values of the individual soldier werecultivated in the camp and on the battleeld, how the ideas aboutthe state and its objectives were to be implemented by men in uni-form, how the Empire was composed and how it functioned at anadministrative level. This knowledge of and experience with theRomans opened to individual members of the gentes a path which,once taken, would lead them to more or less substantial aliationor even solidarity with the Roman world. To take an example fromthe economic sphere: The service in the Roman army introduced theindividual or corporate members into the monetary system of theEmpire 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 passedto the citizens through the legends on the coins. In addition thegoods oered in the markets inuenced and transformed the new-comers food and aesthetic tastes and their cultural horizon. Further-more Roman civilitas was an attractive goal for every individualwishing to succeed in his social advancement. Persons like FlaviusFravitta, by birth a barbarian but otherwise a Greek not only inhabits but also in character and religion3set a remarkable para-digm to be followed by others.Second phaseSimilar but more substantial and in depth is the path migrating gentestook when they entered the wide orbit of the Roman world eitherin accordance with a peace treaty as foederati or subjected to Romandomination as dediticii.4Their communication with the Empire on alocal level, with provincial governors, or generals and ultimately with+nr rvrinr 15the imperial government had by necessity to be in a Roman (Latinor Greek) language and within the current legal and social conceptsand terminology which Rome had developed for her dealings withher neighbours. The political terms concerning the regulations forsettlement on public, conscated or derelict private land, the condi-tions of autonomous (legal) conduct within the Roman system ofcontrol and coercion, the framework for trade and the transfer offoods for the people andat a later stagethe work of the mission-aries, who by preaching the Christian gospel opened to the convertednewcomers 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 aliation served as the instruments forshaping 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 gures in the gentes among themselves and with mem-bers of the Roman aristocracy and even the imperial families,5createda new intermixed society despite the practically disregarded prohi-bition of intermarriage between Romans and barbarians.6However,the way the Romans expected the gentile leadership to behave withinwhat was understood as the international community, created thedemand for access to standardised forms of political discourse. Thisis obvious in the adaptation of imperial methods of diplomatic dis-course by the regna.5A. Demandt, The Osmosis of Late Roman and Germanic Aristocracies, DasReich und die Barbaren, ed. E. Chrysos and A. Schwarcz (Vienna 1989) pp. 7586with the attached table, and S. Krautschick, Die Familie der Knige in Sptantikeund Frhmittelalter, ibid., pp. 10942. This family of kings was a real one andhad little in common with the ctitious system anticipated by F. Dlger in hisfamous theory of Die Familie der Knige, in his Byzanz und die europische Staaten-welt (Darmstadt 1964) pp. 3469. For a critical detailed analysis see J. Moysidou,To Byzantio kai oi boreioi geitones tou ton 10o aiona (Athens 1995). Cf. E. Chrysos, LegalConcepts and patterns for the Barbarians Settlement on Roman Soil, Das Reichund die Barbaren, pp. 1323, here pp. 134; id., Perceptions of the InternationalCommunity of States during the Middle Ages, Ethnogenese und berlieferung. AngewandteMethoden der Frhmittelalterforschung, ed. K. Brunner and B. Merta, Verentlichun-gen des Instituts fr sterreichische Geschichtsforschung 31 (Wien-Mnchen 1994)pp. 293307, here pp. 2934.6H. Sivan, The appropriation of Roman law in barbarian hands: Roman-bar-barian marriage in Visigothic Gaul and Spain, Strategies of Distinction. The Constructionof Ethnic Communities, 300800, ed. W. Pohl with H. Reimitz, The Transformationof the Roman World 2 (Leiden-New York-Kln 1998) pp. 189203. On the Hispano-Romans see D. Claude, Remarks about relations between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans in the seventh century, ibid., pp. 11730.16 ry\xorros cnnvsosFollowing this demand several forms of imitatio imperii were placedon the agenda. The court, the language, public ceremonies involv-ing the king, court rituals, his titles and dress, forms of distinctmunicence to the people and many other expressions of power wereimitating Roman forms that were thought to safeguard and supportthe position of the rex as dominus over his gens and the Roman pop-ulation in his regnum.7Third phaseThe legal arrangement with the Empire in one way or the otherremained 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 agreementwith the Empire in A.D. 474 which created the basis for the insti-tutionalization of the gens into a regnum in Africa was the agreedorder of succession (Nachfolgeordnung)8and it was the breach of thisorder by Gelimer that allowed Justinian to send Belisarius and theeet against him. Similarly the breakdown of Theoderics arrange-ment with Anastasius after the death of his son-in-law Eutharic inA.D. 518 opened the gate to a gradual destabilization of Amal rulein Italy and hence the murder of Amalasuintha, who personied thelegitimacy of the regime, by her cousin Theodahad made the mili-tary intervention of Justinian inevitable.9For the organization of thepersonal relations between individuals, members of the ruling gens7See M. McCormick, Clovis at Tours, Byzantine Public Ritual and the Originsof Medieval Ruler Symbolism, Das Reich und die Barbaren, pp. 15580.8D. Claude, Probleme der vandalischen Herrschaftsnachfolge, Deutsches Archiv30 (1974) pp. 32955, here pp. 32930.9Ch. Schfer, Der westrmische Senat als Trger antiker Kontinuitt unter den Ostgotenknigen(490540 n.Chr.) (St. Katharinen 1991) pp. 2401; J. Moorhead, Libertas andNomen Romanum in Ostrogothic Italy, Latomus 46 (1988) pp. 1618. For a longperiod of Amal rule over the pars occidentis people such as Cassiodorus and Ennodiuswould propagate Theoderics 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 theideological preparation of Justinians war of reconquista. Cf. J. Moorhead, Italianloyalties during Justinians Gothic War, Byzantion 53 (1983) pp. 57596.+nr rvrinr 17and 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 nd the creation of regnal leg-islation, the so-called leges barbarorum.10It was this lex, the nationalcode that gave the gens the necessary impetus for a maturing state.In this sense what Orosius cites as Athaulf s dilemma concerning hisattitude towards the Empireregardless of its historical reliability11becomes a classic (at least a classicized) paradigm. Athaulf is said tohave refrained from establishing a Gothic empire in the place of theRoman one, because his people would have diculties in abidingby the laws (= leges, sine quibus respublica non est respublica).12Apparentlyit was known to everybody that in order to consolidate their terri-tory and organize their people into kingdoms the kings needed theexistence of a functioning legal system.When this stage of development was reached the successor statesexperimented with what we can call the aemulatio imperii, an attitudeoperating as an advanced form of imitatio. To emulate the Empiremeant for the successor states simply to present the merits of nationalachievement 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 wereasked to articulate an ideological concept critical of Roman institu-tions, behaviour and practices that were to be condemned andopposed. 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 histime. In this sense he would recall intentionally that multae gentes aRomano imperio recesserunt.1310P. 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 (Leeds1977) pp. 10538 and the paper by the same author in this volume.11W. Suerbaum, Vom antiken zum frhmittelalterlichen Staatsbegri (3rd edn., Mnster1977) pp. 2223.12Orosius, Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII 7,43, ed. K. Zangemeister, CSEL5 (Vienna 1882; repr. Hildesheim 1967).13Isidore of Seville, Chronica maiora 238, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (Berlin1894) p. 454. Cf. H. Lwe, Von Theoderich dem Grossen zu Karl dem Grossen.18 ry\xorros cnnvsosMore inuential in the Middle Agesand current even today!is Paul the Deacons perception of the Empires disturbing role inthe formative development of the regna. In his much-quoted HistoriaRomana he replaces the regnal years of the emperors with incarna-tion chronology after Theoderics takeover in Italy in A.D. 49214(theImperium Romanum is replaced by the Imperium Christianum!). Hencehe regards Justinians reconquista as a subjugation (servitium) of theRomans by the Greeks and consequently labels Justinians suc-cessors as Greek emperors, and thus no longer Romans.15Overthe next centuries questioning the Romanitas of the Empire of NewRome will remain a frequently applied method for pushing Constan-tinople to the periphery as an exotic and anachronistic survival fromthe past.The next two alternative stages would take us beyond the periodunder investigation: The Franks, to be followed by others, set as their nal goal, thetranslatio imperii. On the basis of the ideas introduced with theConstitutum Constantini, a text fabricated in the eighth century toserve papal aspirations of political hegemony in Italy, but whichat the same time helped to re-arrange the world-system in favourof the Frankish interests, the Franks claimed the imperium, at leasta Frankish imperium, and the nomen imperatoris, for their king. Manycenturies later, in A.D. 1202, this attitude was to be followed byPope Innocent III with his claim of the translatio imperii ad Germanos.16(Two years later, the fourth crusade brought the sack of Cons-tantinople and the establishment of a Latin Empire on the shoresof Bosporus!).Das Werden des Abendlands im Geschichtsbild des frhen Mittelalters, DeutschesArchiv 9 (1952) pp. 353401, here pp. 3634; G.B. Ladner, On Roman Attitudestoward Barbarians in Late Antiquity, Viator 7 (1976) pp. 126.14Paul the Deacon, Historia Romana, ed. A. Crivellucci, Fonti per la storia dItalia51 (Rome 1914): cessante iam Romanae urbis imperio utiliusque aptiusque mihi videtur abannis dominicae incarnationis supputationis lineam deducere.15On this see now H. Hofmann, Roma caput mundi? Rom und ImperiumRomanum in der literarischen Diskussion zwischen Sptantike und dem 9. Jahr-hundert, Roma fra oriente e occidente, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studisullalto medioevo 49 (Spoleto 2002) pp. 493556, here pp. 5345.16H. Beumann, Unitas EcclesiaeUnitas ImperiiUnitas Regni. Von der impe-rialen Reichseinheitsidee zur Einheit der Regna, Nascita dellEuropa ed Europa Carolingia:Unequazione da vericare, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sullaltomedioevo 27 (Spoleto 1981) pp. 53171.+nr rvrinr 19 Those kings of the early medieval states who could not claim ordream of a translatio imperii for themselves would be consoled withthe principle ofto use a medieval expressionrex superiorem nonrecognoscens, imperator est in regno suo.The picture of the emergence and the shaping of the regna in con-stant and close connection with the Empire as suggested in this papercould create the wrong impression that the Empire remained through-out the critical period a static structure with no changes in form andlife. On the contrary, it is true that the Empire was itself subjectedto these developments. The idea and the functioning of the emper-orship, the social structure of the Roman population, the role of thearmy, the principles and the trends of the policy towards the neigh-bours, the cultural values and tastes, the impact of religion on every-day life and many other practical and theoretical aspects of publicinteraction underwent substantial changes. Some of these aspects inthe Empire were directly or indirectly aected by the existence ofthe regna on formal Roman soil or at the edge of the imperial ter-ritory. The political developments caused by the occupation and con-quest of Roman soil and parallel to that the consolidation of thesuccessor states brought an equilibrium of growth and capabilities.The road to the strengthening and the stabilization of the regna causedwhat we can call the regnalisation of the Empire. The expressionregnum Romanum, already in use in the fourth century, acquired realpolitical meaning. The general use of the word Romania in the sev-enth and later centuries by the Byzantines for their Empire expressedthe same attitude. In this sense the dispute with Constantinople overthe imperial title of Charlemagne after his coronation in A.D. 800was merely a quarrel about the nomen imperatoris.This page intentionally left blank THE LEGES BARBARORUM:LAW AND ETHNICITY IN THE POST-ROMAN WESTPatrick WormaldIOne experience shared by almost every barbarian gens that sur-vived as a post-Roman polity into the seventh century was the even-tual adoption of a written lex.1From this alone, it is clear thatpossession of a lex came to be a highly signicant element in themaking of any acknowledged political unit in the West. Further, theleges have enough in common to suggest that the processes whichbrought them forth were broadly similar. They entirely justify across-regnum approach, such as has often been essayed, and notonly by legal historians.2The salient diculty here has been the historians usual bugbearof hindsighted teleology. It has been normal to read back into thesetexts the legislative assumptions espoused by legally literate westerncultures since the twelfth century: principally that a mutually identiablelaw is a fundamental ingredient in the personality of any people1Exceptions: most obviously the Avars (though perhaps not the Bulgars: R.Browning, Byzantium and Bulgaria: a comparative study across the early medieval frontier[London 1975] pp. 1245); also the Anglian and most Saxon peoples in Britain.For present purposes, it makes no dierence that some had to await the eighth orearly-ninth century (or in Scandinavia much later) for this.2Thus, H. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, 2 vols. (Leipzig 1906, 2nd edn. 1928);R. Buchner, Die Rechtsquellen, Wattenbach-Levison, Deutschlands Geschichtsquel-len im Mittelalter, Vorzeit und Karolinger, Beiheft (Weimar 1953); most recently,M. Lupoi, Alle radici del mondo giuridico europeo (Rome 1994), Engl. transl. The Origins ofthe European Legal Order (Cambridge 2000). See also J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, EarlyGermanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford 1971) pp. 329; and my ownapproachnot, as has been observed, that of a legal historianP. Wormald, LexScripta 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. 10538,reprinted and corrected in my Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West. Law as Text,Image and Experience (London 1999) pp. 143; together with that volumes Preface,pp. xixv; and my The Making of English Law. King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, vol.1: Legislation and its Limits (Oxford 1999), chapter 2. In compiling this retractatio, Iowe much to this volumes editors and my fellow-contributors, notably ProfessorWood and Dr Christys.22 r\+nick vonv\rr3Note the discussion (following Regino of Prm) of legal pluralism as a criterionof ethnicity, and of its erosion from the twelfth century onwards, by R. Bartlett,The Making of Europe. Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 9501350 (London1994) pp. 197220.4This article of faith, widespread in the Rechtsschule (Buchner, Rechtsquellen,p. 5)though controversial as regards Visigothic legislationis epitomized in S.L.Guterman, From Personal to Territorial Law. Aspects of the History and Structure of theWestern Legal-Constitutional Tradition (New York 1972).quis populus, eius lex, as it were.3A law somehow emerges from thesociety to which it applies, helping not just to resolve its tensionsbut also to demarcate it as a community. Because the units thatdeveloped out of the western Empire were recognizably the germ oftodays European states, as this volume is concerned to analyse, thelex that they came to profess must (it is thought) have been one oftheir dening features: scarcely less so than is the law enforced bythe courts of modern governments.On this supposition, the legislation of Germanic kings merely markstheir assuming responsibility to regulate the problems of the king-doms created by their armies. The persistence of Roman law withintheir regna would then amount to a concession on their part. Norwere Romans the only ones covered by this allegedly prevalent prin-ciple of the personality of law. Any people incorporated into arealm must axiomatically have had an inherent lex of its own. Thatpeople, therefore, could only feasibly be ruled by recognizing theirlaw. Hence, codes were issued for peoples other than the ascen-dant Volk, which these peoples were then allowed to apply in casesinvolving their members.4This may indeed have become the posi-tion by the time of the Carolingian hegemony. But it is very farfrom clear that it was true anywhere before the seventh century,while in certain parts of the West it was never the case. Nor is itobvious how Roman law can have been something conceded, as ifto a minority group, when the aristocracies that adhered to it wereanything but marginal; or why the charters and formulae that gov-erned property relations should have remained deeply inuenced byRoman concepts, when so few of the leges seemingly were. And howdid it come about that the Edict of King Rothari of the Lombards(643) gives every sign of being an unambiguously Germanic doc-ument with little to say of Romans, when the legislation of his suc-cessors not only reected the presence of Romans but was evidentlyinuenced by their legal ideas?+nr LEGES BARBARORUM 23A central thesis of this volume is that the foundation of a regnumwas not simply a matter of displacing the structures of imperial gov-ernment. To support that thesis, we need a view of early medievallaw-making which explains how extant texts developed out of estab-lished Roman practice. In the argument that follows, two princi-ples will be primary. First, chronology will be closely observed. Thecourse of legislative development will be plotted from the fth century,when it can be taken for granted that Roman procedures remaineddominant (except where, as in Britain, all aspects of Romanitas wereevidently at risk) through to the ninth, when something of a newlegislative equilibrium seems to have emerged. Second, the maxi-mum possible attention will be given to geographical variation. Justas some post-Roman regimes were clearly a lot more Roman in styleand machinery than others, so their legal pronouncements wereexposed to variable levels and types of Roman inuence. At thesame time, it is regarded as not likely that the legal memorials ofpost-Roman society were merely varieties of a Roman legacy. Muchin Germanic law can be adequately explained as sub-Roman provin-cial routine. But a great deal of the extant material can only beunderstood in terms of the customs imported by the Wests newmasters.IIThe legislation of the later Roman emperors was pre-eminently theprovince of their Quaestors of the Sacred Palace.5The PraetorianPrefects of the Severan dynasty were among the great lawyers of alltime, with correspondingly enriching results on imperial rescripts.Quaestors from Constantine to Justinian were not always legallyuntrained but they were above all rhetoricians, with literary tastesto match. The quintessential case is Ausonius, drafted from the lec-ture-room of Bordeaux University to address and administer his ex-pupils realm. Their legislative output was thus characterized by a5For what follows, see above all A.M. Honor, The Making of the TheodosianCode, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fr Rechtsgeschichte, Romanistische Abteilung 103 (1986)pp. 133222; followed up by his Law in the Crisis of Empire, 379455 A.D. TheTheodosian Dynasty and its Quaestors (Oxford 1998); with, as background, his Emperorsand Lawyers (London 1981).24 r\+nick vonv\rrnew expansiveness and sonority, which has done much to persuadehistorians of the depth of the empires problemsespecially giventhat the compilers of the Theodosian (4358) and Justinianic (52934)Codes generally obeyed their instructions to preserve only what wasof general import, deleting all traces of any pronouncements speciccontext. Two implications of this position are crucial for the under-standing of sub-Roman law-making. First, appearances in the Codesto the contrary, later imperial law continued to be made, as eversince the rst Caesars, in response to petitions and pressures fromcitizens.6That law not be generated by the solicitions of special in-terests was one of the more spectacularly disregarded late Romanprohibitions. Second, imperial decrees were vulgarized, like Romanlaw throughout the post-Constantinian empire (except perhaps alongthe Beirut-Constantinople axis). They were products of the educa-tional system that qualied literary specialists to rule the state, a sys-tem in which law of course had its place, yet subsidiary to theimperatives of a properly Demosthenic or Ciceronian training.7The Ausonian model of governance survived to steer post-imperialregimes in the same direction. The Variae of Cassiodorus were com-posedand preservedas literary showpieces by a highly trainedItalian rhetorician, but this does not mean that they were any theless ocial pronouncements by Italys Ostrogothic kings.The lamentable grievance of Constantius and Venerius has moved my[King Athalarics] serenity: they complain that they have been deprivedby Tanca of their legal property [. . .] They add that, lest they shouldtry an action to reclaim their own, he is imposing on them the sta-tus of meanest slavery. Therefore your mightiness, in obedience to thisdecree [decretum], is to command the aforementioned person to attendyour court. There the whole truth of the case is to be examined, andyou are to dispense a justice that accords with law.Tancas name implies a Gothic identity, as does that of the lettersaddressee, Cunigast vir illustris, whose own depredations Boethiusclaimed to have obstructed.8A Roman ocial was making a Gothic6The classic account is now F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, 31 B.C.A.D.337 (London 1977).7On all this, the fundamental account remains that of F. Wieacker, AllgemeineZustnde und Rechtszustnde gegen Ende des westrmischen Reichs, Ius Romanum MediiAevi 1,2a (Milano 1963); but note the reservations of Honor, Law in the Crisis ofEmpire, pp. 1923.8Cassiodorus, Variae 8,28, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH AA 12 (Berlin 1894) [hence-+nr LEGES BARBARORUM 25king see that justice was done to Romans by Goths. The Variae alsoincluded a General Edict in Athalarics name (5334), decryingsundry current breaches of civilitas: pervasio and other judicial mal-practice, adultery, concubinage and bigamy, extorted gifts, sorceryand homicide, and abuse of appeals procedure.9The same topicsand many others no less typical of later imperial law-giving featurein the well-known Edict of Theodoric himself (493526), a shortcode explicitly directed at barbarians and Romans.10Now, Cassio-dorus announced in Theodorics name that cases among the Gothswere to be settled by his edicts, those of Romans were to go before Roman examiners, and those between Goth and Romanshould be decided by fair reason in association with a Romanjurisconsult; so each may keep his own laws, and with variousjudges one Justice may embrace the whole realm. The implicationhere is that Theodoric laid down written law for Goths. That wouldsquare with the remark of the Valesian Anonymous that by theGoths, because of his edict in which he established justice, he wasjudged to be in all respects their best king.11Theodoric may havedone something of the sort. His Ravenna scribes produced the mostspectacular monument of early barbarian culture in the Codex Argenteusof the Gothic Bible; not to mention charters signed manually inGothic script and language. Jordanes, probably following Cassiodoruslost Gothic History, knew of written belagines traceable to the dawnforth: Variae], translations: Cassiodorus, Variae, ed. and transl. S.J.B. Barnish, TranslatedTexts for Historians 12 (Liverpool 1992) p. 106 [henceforth: transl. Barnish]; Boethius,The Consolation of Philosophy 1,4, ed. and transl. S.J. Tester, Loeb Classical Library[The theological tractates] (2nd edn., London 1973) pp. 1489.9Variae 9,18; 9,1920 (transl. Barnish, pp. 11621).10Most conveniently edited by J. Baviera in Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani 2, ed.S. Riccobono et al. (2nd edn., Florence 196869) pp. 683710: for its remit, seeProl.; for injustice: 9; 55; 7374; 91; 103; 129; on potentiores etc.: 4347; 145; mar-riage: 3639; 54; 5967; 93; slaves: 4849; 56; 6871; 7887; 9496; 117118;120121; 128; 148; inheritance etc.: 2333; 90; rape: 1722; 92; homicide: 1516;99. Though it has been strongly argued that the Edict is that of one of the VisigothicTheodorics in fth-century Gaul, Dr Barnish has pointed out to me that clauses10 and 111 seem to reect Italian conditions, and that Variae 4,10 probably refersto clauses 123124; since there is no reason to suppose that Cassiodorus issued allTheodorics decrees, the Edicts lack of Cassiodoran rhetorical ornament is noobjection to its Ostrogothic provenance.11Variae 7,3 (transl. T. Hodgkin, The Letters of Cassiodorus [Oxford 1886] p. 321);Anonymus Valesianus, Fragmenta 2,12, ed. and transl. J.C. Rolfe, Ammianus Marcellinus12 (Cambridge Mass. 1939) pp. 5445.26 r\+nick vonv\rrof Gothic history.12Yet all we can know for sure is that Ostrogothickings made law for Goth and Roman alike. Roman ocialdom gavebarbarian kings the role of making law for Italy, as they were alsoentrusted with its defence.Italy was always a special case. But it is not unreasonable to extrap-olate from Italian paradigms when sifting evidence of poorer qual-ity from other Latin-speaking provinces. Sidonius Apollinaris was noCassiodorus, yet his poems and letters strongly suggest that his friendstook on Cassiodoran functions for the Visigothic and Burgundiankings of southern Gaul.13Unfortunately, Gallic legal texts are veryerratically preserved. The apparently earliest phase of Visigothic law-making survives only as a fragmentary palimpsest. This may well beequated with the rst written record of Gothic law, dated by Isidoreof Seville to the reign of Euric (46684). But if so, Euric seems torefer to laws of Theodoric I (41951).14Likewise, the extant LexBurgundionum was most probably the work of Sigismund in 517. ButGregory of Tours reported that Gundobad (474516) issued legesmitiores [. . .] that there be no undue oppression of the Romans,and the Burgundian code was later called Lex Gundobada.15The bestresolution of these conundra is that Theodoric I and Gundobad had12Chartae Latinae Antiquiores 20,704, ed. A. Bruckner and R. Marichal (Zurich1982); Die nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri Italiens aus der Zeit 445700 2, ed. J.-O.Tjder (Lund-Stockholm 1955) pp. 956. On Jordanes and the belagines: Jordanes,Getica 11, ed T. Mommsen, MGH AA 5,1 (Berlin 1882) pp. 735, see commentby P.J. Heather, Goths and Romans 332489 (Oxford 1991) p. 36. The fact remainsthat belagines is not in Cassius Dios account of the Getic proto-hero, nor does itseem to be a Greek word; whereas the words central syllable (cf. OE lagu!) makesa strong case for regarding it as Germanic and legal: S. Feist, Vergleichendes Wrterbuchder Gotischen Sprache (Leiden 1939) p. 91.13Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm. 7,31113, ed. and transl. W.B. Anderson [Poems andLetters], Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols. (Cambridge Mass. 1936/65) vol. 1, p. 144:the future Emperor Avitus as assertor legum under Theodoric I; Carm. 5,562, vol. 1,p. 108: Magnus of Narbonne dictat modo iura Getis when prefect in 4589; Ep. 2,1,3,vol. 1, p. 416: Seronatus leges Theodosianas calcans, Theudoricianasque proponens; Carm.23,4479, vol. 1, p. 312 and Ep. 8,3,3, vol. 2, p. 408: Leo of Narbonne eclipsingAppius Claudius, and putting declamationes in Eurics mouth which frenat arma sublegibus; Ep. 5,5,3, vol. 2, p. 180: Syagrius a novus Burgundionum Solon in legibus dis-serendis.14Codex Euricianus 277 (signicantly on the sortes Gothicae et tertias Romanorum); 305;and cf. 327?, ed. K. Zeumer, MGH LL nationum Germanicarum 1 (Hannover1902) pp. 5; 16; 25 [henceforth: Cod. Eur.].15Gregory of Tours, Historiae 2,33, ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison, MGH SSrM1,1 (2nd edn., Hannover 1951) p. 81. For this persuasive view of the genesis of LexBurgundionum, see Ian Wood this volume, pp. 2534. +nr LEGES BARBARORUM 27issued individual laws on particular problems brought to their atten-tion, as emperors and Ostrogothic kings did. Much of the BurgundianLex gives just that impression, and the topics covered by the Italiantexts recur there and in the Visigothic material.16That these lawsand others should have been gathered into codes by their succes-sors was simply a further case of barbarian-led regimes following theRoman exemplum.If the Italian analogy holds, there is no reason to think that Euricsor Sigismunds codes were targeted only at their own peoples, anymore than were the Ostrogothic edicts of Theodoric or Athalaric(i.e. Cassiodorus). The Burgundian Lex never said it was. Very muchmore of it concerns Burgundians and Romans in inter-relationshipthan Burgundians alone.17The Visigothic palimpsest gives no war-rant for the widespread view that Eurics code consisted exclusivelyof Gothic law for Gothic use. Isidores Historia Gothorum says merelythat under this king [Euric], the Goths began to have instituta legumin writing, for before they were governed by tradition and customalone. That was not to say that Euric legislated only for Goths;Isidore need have meant no more than that Goths were for the rsttime integrated into the lex scripta regime of the old Empire.18TheRoman law of the Visigothic kingdom was recodied in Alaric IIsname in 506, and a shorter equivalent is extant for the Burgundianrealm. But neither of these points sustain the proposition that Eurics16This is especially clear with the Novellae, cf. Liber Constitutionum 4255; 62; 64;7481, ed. L.R. von Salis, MGH LL nationum Germanicarum 2,1 (Hannover 1892)[henceforth: Lib. Const.]; Constitutiones Extravagantes 20, ed. L.R. von Salis, MGH LLnationum Germanicarum 2,1 (Hannover 1892) [henceforth: Const. Extr.]. Lib. Const.42; 52; 62; 76; 79 and Const. Extr. 20 bear their own dates, Lib. Const. 42; 76 and79 being apparently laws of Gundobad. Among topics covered in n. 10, cf. oninjustice: Lib. Const. 1 and Cod. Eur., pp. 28; 312 for probable fragments of theCodex Euricianus, with Lex Visigothorum, ed. K. Zeumer, MGH LL nationum Germani-carum 1 (Hannover 1902) pp. 4679 [henceforth: Lex Vis.] for a Spanish law of546 on judicial expenses; on potentiores etc.: Cod. Eur. 276277; 312; Lib. Const. 22;5455; 60; 84; Const. Extr. 21,12; on marriage: Cod. Eur. 319; Lib. Const. 12; 34;36; 44; 52; 61; 66; 6869; 86; 100101; on slaves: Cod. Eur. 288; 300; Lib. Const.67; 20; 39; 77; on inheritance etc.: Cod. Eur. 320 .; Lib. Const. 14; 24; 42; 51;53; 59; 62; 65; 7475; 78; 85; 87; on rape, Lib. Const. 30; 35; on homicide: Lib.Const. 2; 10.17Figures from Lib. Const., p. 11.18Isidore of Seville, Historia Gothorum, Wandalorum, Sueborum 35, ed. T. Mommsen,MGH AA 11 (Berlin 1894) p. 281; Isidores information perhaps came from thelost prologue of the code of Liuvigild that nally superseded Eurics (below, notes50 and 51).28 r\+nick vonv\rror Sigismunds own codes were solely for barbarians, nor of coursedo they mean that Alarics Breviarium in any way replaced the CodexEuricianus.19In sum, the barbarian kings of Italy and southern Gaullegislated in the rst instance for all their peoples, not to supersedebut to supplement the law they had inherited from their imperialpredecessors. It had become an important part of their new job.IIIWith the rise to dominance in Gaul of Clovis Franks, the legisla-tive picture changed quite sharply. Their famous (one might almostsay infamous) Lex Salica is most plausibly credited to Clovis himself,probably before he eliminated the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse(507).20But the rst thing to be said about it, and one of the mostimportant, is that it is not professedly a royal text. In what seems itsearliest form, that represented by the four A manuscripts (eventhe earliest of which, however, is as late as the 760s), there is noformal prologue at all. The so-called Shorter Prologue, clearly pri-mary even though it is accompanied by the Longer Prologue onall but one of its appearances, may date to the 590s, but it does notneed to be any earlier than the Liber Historiae Francorum of 727, whichquotes and amplies it. As the clearest ethnic statement to befound in any early Germanic legislation, it deserves quotation:It has been accepted and agreed among the Franks and their leaders[proceribus] that for the sake of keeping peace among themselves, allintensied dispute [incrementa rixarum] should be curtailed, so that justas they stand out among their neighbours for the strength of theirarm, so they may also excel them in authority of law, and thus putan end to criminal behaviour [sumerent criminalis actio terminum] [. . .]Hence, there came forward among them, chosen from many [electi depluribus] four men by name Wisogast, Arogast, Salegast and Widogastwho, assembling in three courts and carefully debating the sources oflitigation [causarum origines] gave judgement on each.2119Justied rebuttal of the case that the remit of the Breviarium was territorial(covering all subjects) underlies the view that Eurics code was personal: cf. H. Wolf-ram, History of the Goths (Berkeley 1988) pp. 1947 and nn.20I.N. Wood, The Merovingian kingdoms, 450751 (London-New York 1994) pp.10813, supersedes all previous discussions of dating, in particular the view (adoptedby myself and many others) that the code must post-date 507.21Pactus legis Salicae C, Prol., ed. K.A. Eckhardt, MGH LL nationum Germa-+nr LEGES BARBARORUM 29The Longer Prologue almost certainly dates from the 760s and isthe product of King Pippins Chancery.22It celebrates the Frankishgens with rhythmic stridency, and it also credits Clovis (and his suc-cessors) with the amending of whatever seemed less tting in thePactus.23But the four mysterious electi are still the primary authors,though now rectores; either way they are still not kings. For its part,the Liber Historiae Francorum placed them in villae beyond the Rhine.It seems, then, that the Lex Prologues reect a vision of the code asderiving from a remote, pre-invasion Frankish past, of the sortthat the Liber itself liked to dwell on at length.24Up to a point, the content of the original (i.e. A) code supportsthis vision. It is singularly devoid of Christian traces. It is repeatedlyglossed by vernacular and presumably Frankish words, the Malbergglosses.25Roman inuence has been detected, even in the most sur-prising places.26But it is a good deal less evident than in (for exam-ple) the Burgundian laws, or indeed the edicts of the Merovingiankings that were to follow (below, pp. 3940). Yet if the code is (rel-atively) un-Roman, for all that it was composed in Latin, howspecically Frankish is it?Given the discoveries of the last two generations of historians inthe eld of Roman vulgar (or, for these purposes, provincial)law, we can no longer suppose that a community of free men,nicarum 4,1 (Hannover 1962) pp. 23 [henceforth: Pactus], and for Eckhardts viewof its date (criticized by Wood, as above), see his Pactus legis Salicae, ed. K.A. Eckhardt,Germanenrechte 1 (Gttingen 1954) pp. 1702; and cf. Liber historiae Francorum 4,ed. B. Krusch, MGH SSrM 2 (Hannover 1888) p. 244. Eckhardts skilful con-struction of a homogenized text tends to conceal variation between versions, andit is often wisest to follow the texts arranged in his columns below. In this instance,it seems that only C5, a late eighth-century Luxeuil MS, has the Shorter Prologuealoneits text possibly taken from the Liber Historiae Francorum itself.22Lex Salica D/E, Prol., ed. K.A. Eckhardt, MGH LL nationum Germanicarum4,2 (Hannover 1969) pp. 29; B. Merta, Politische Theorie in den KnigsurkundenPippins, Mitteilungen des Instituts fr sterreichische Geschichtsforschung 100 (1992) pp.11731.23The Longer Prologue here follows the Epilogue, cf. Pactus A, p. 253, adoubtfully ocial text dating from revisions by Bishop Leodegar of Autun: Wood,The Merovingian kingdoms, pp. 1134.24See above, note 21.25Cf. Hans-Werner Goetz this volume, pp. 3334.26As with the case that the historically fateful restriction of the heirs of terra Salicato males, Lex Salica 59,6, pp. 2223, derives from the Roman armys needs: T. Ander-son Jr., Roman military colonies in Gaul, Salian ethnogenesis and the forgottenmeaning of Pactus Legis Salicae 59.5, Early Medieval Europe 4 (1995) pp. 12944.30 r\+nick vonv\rrpre-occupied with its animals, its boundaries, and its mutual injuriesdeliberate or accidental, is ex hypothesi Germanic.27But there aretwo good reasons to think that the law brought to light in Lex Salicawas that of a self-consciously barbarian culture. In the rst place,its keynote is compensation paid to an injured by the injuring party,including the kin of each. The harmonics underlying that note arethose of bloodfeud: if payment was not made by the perpetratorand/or his kin to the victim and/or his, then revenge would betaken on any of the former by any of the latter.28Social anthro-pologists have made this process hugely better understood than itwas fty years ago. We now see that it means much more than theinterminable antiphony of violence feared by the great nineteenth-century English legal historian, F.W. Maitland.29Yet, whatever itspeace-keeping validity, it had not been Roman laws approach tosocial discord since the time of the Twelve Tables. Under the empire,initiative in placating or repressing disorder lay with governmentauthority, an agency which in Lex Salica is only a last resort.30Perhapsthe presuppositions of feud had inltrated Roman provincial justicebefore imperial power collapsed in the West. If so, one must sup-pose that ultra-frontier inuence was already making itself felt.31Atthe same time, feud is so ubiquitous a feature of literature in theGermanic vernacular, that to ascribe its prominence to anything otherthan the custom of the invaders ies in the face of common-sense.3227Cf. the comments of R. Collins, Early Medieval Spain. Unity in Diversity, 4001000,New Studies in Medieval History (London 1983) p. 28, about the Byzantine FarmersLaw.28This is therefore the point not only of the many clauses dening payment fordamage, death or injury, Pactus 1517; 2334; 4143 etc. (see Appendix below),but also those regulating the extent and liabilities of kindreds: ibid. 58; 60; 62.29The key paper (in any language) remains that of J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, TheBloodfeud of the Franks, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 41 (1958/59) pp. 45987,repr. in his Long-Haired Kings, pp. 12147; drawing on a famous paper by MaxGluckman, The Peace in the Feud, id. Custom and Conict in Africa (Oxford 1956)pp. 126; for a sophisticated account of feud as reected in Icelandic saga, see W.I.Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago 1990).30E.g. Pactus 50; 56.31As, later, with a Roman law text from seventh-century Italy: C. Wickham,Early Medieval Italy. Central Power and Local Society 4001000, New Studies in MedievalHistory (London 1981) p. 118. It ought conversely to be remembered, with refer-ence to possibly Roman inuence on barbarian codes, that imperial practices werewell capable of penetrating beyond the frontier before the late-fourth century, e.g.through returning army veterans.32It is not, for example, a noticeable element in the Farmers Law (above, note+nr LEGES BARBARORUM 31The second consideration is less ambivalent. A famous clause ofthe Lex distinguishes between compensations payable for killing var-ious classes of subject:If anyone kill a free Frank or barbarian who lives by Salic law [ingenuumFrancum aut barbarum, qui lege Salica vivit] [. . .] let him against whom itis proved be liable for [iudicetur] [. . .] 200 solidi [. . .] But if anyonekill him who is in the lords trust [truste dominica] [. . .] let him be liablefor [. . .] 600 solidi [. . .] But if a Roman man, a guest of the king[Romanus homo, conviva regis] should have been killed, let him be liablefor [. . .] 300 solidi. But if a Roman man, a landholder [Romanus homo,possessor] should have been killed, let him who is proved to have killedhim be liable for [. . .] 100 solidi. If anyone kill a Roman tributary[tributarium] [. . .] let him be liable for [. . .] sixty-two and a half solidi.Likewise, a Roman robbing a Salic barbarian (previously identiedas ingenuum) is liable for sixty-two and a half solidi, must nd twenty-ve oath-takers to clear himself, or go to the hot-water ordeal; whereasa Frank robbing a Roman clears himself with twenty swearers orpays thirty solidi.33The rst thing these clauses make clear is that aFrank, whatever else he or she was, was not a Roman. Second, aFrank was also both a barbarian adhering to Salic law and aningenuus. The word barbarian does not otherwise occur; Frankonly in additions to the original sixty-ve titles; and Salic vemore times with special reference to the Lex.34On the other hand,ingenuus is the standard qualier for homo and appears hardly lessoften. It is no outrageous deduction that its normal meaning is theone it has in the clauses cited; hence, that barbarism, Frankishnessor (as it were) Salicity are specied in these clauses because a dis-tinction is being drawn with Romans. In a further set of clauses,killing a hominem ingenuum with a (war)band costs 600 solidi, or if hebe in truste dominica 1800 solidi, whereas slain Romans or leti areworth half the amount (i.e. 300 solidi ). T