People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, Series Number 33)

The barbarians of the fifth and sixth centuries were long thought to be races, tribes or ethnic groups who toppled the Roman Empire. This book proposes a new view, through a case study of the Goths of Italy between 489 and 554. The author suggests wholly new ways of understanding barbarian groups and the end of the Western Roman Empire. The book also proposes a complete reinterpretation of the evolution of Christian conceptions of community, and of so-called "Germanic" Arianism. The barbarians of the fifth and sixth centuries were long thought to be races, tribes or ethnic groups who toppled the Roman Empire and racist, nationalist assumptions about the composition of the barbarian groups still permeate much scholarship on the subject. This book proposes a new view, through a case-study of the Goths of Italy between 489 and 554. It contains a detailed examination of the personal details and biographies of 379 individuals and compares their behaviour with ideological texts of the time. This inquiry suggests wholly new ways of understanding the appearance of barbarian groups and the end of the western Roman Empire, as well as proposing new models of regional and professional loyalty and group cohesion. In addition, the book proposes a complete reinterpretation of the evolution of Christian conceptions of community, and of so-called 'Germanic' Arianism The barbarians of the fifth and sixth centuries have long been considered the ethnic group responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire. This book challenges this interpretation, through a case-study of the Goths of Italy between 489 and 554. Fifth- and sixth-century use of classical ethnographic ideologies - in propaganda, literature, theology and art - created the Goths of Italy. A new view of the Goths of Italy, challenging racist, nationalist assumptions about barbarian groups