Leadership, Social Cohesion, and Identity in Late Antique Spain and Gaul (500-700) (Late Antique and Early Medieval Iberia)

"The replacement of the Roman Empire in the West with emerging kingdoms like Visigothic Spain and Merovingian Gaul resulted in new societies, but without major population displacement. Societies changed because identities shifted and new points of cohesion formed under different leaders and leadership structures. This volume examines two kingdoms in the post-Roman west to understand how this process took shape. Though exhibiting striking continuities with the Roman past, Gaul and Spain emerged as distinctive, but not isolated, political entities that forged different strategies and drew upon different resources to strengthen their unity, shape social ties, and consolidate their political status"-- Publisher, page 4 of cover Cover 1 Table of Contents 6 Introduction 8 Dolores Castro and Fernando Ruchesi 8 1. Building Leadership, Forging Cohesion: Bishops and Charity in Late Antiquity 30 Dolores Castro 30 2. The Logic of Control: Postulating a Visigothic Ontology of Human Being 64 Michael J. Kelly 64 3. Ritual Communities and Social Cohesion in Merovingian Gaul 104 Alexander O’Hara 104 4. Constructing New Leaders: Bishops in Visigothic Hispania Tarraconensis (Fifth to Seventh Centuries) 132 Meritxell Pérez Martínez 132 5. Coexisting Leaderships in the Visigothic Cities: A ‘Coopetitive’ Model 160 Pablo Poveda Arias 160 6. Leadership and Social Cohesion in Merovingian Gaul and Visigothic Spain: The Case of Military Groups 186 Fernando Ruchesi 186 7. Between Rome and Toulouse: The Catholic Episcopate in the regnum Tolosanum (418–507) 216 Christian Stadermann 216 Index 258 List of Figures 6 Fig. 1: Political map of Roman Hispania in the 5th century (Pérez Martínez, Tarraco en la Antigüedad tardía, Fig. 2, p. 447) 136 Fig. 2: Political map of the Regnum Visigothorum ca. 636 (Pérez Martínez, Tarraco en la Antigüedad tardía, Fig. 6, p. 451) 151