Leadership, Social Cohesion, and Identity in Late Antique Spain and Gaul (500-700) [Kõva köide]

1. The work brings together current research on areas that have received growing interest in recent years, encouraging international communication and cooperation. 2. It provides a comparative approach that allows the study of relevant processes within the Mediterranean context. 3. It reflects the convergence of ongoing investigations on relevant themes that are still the subject of intense discussion amongst scholars, and continue to raise key questions about the past but also about the present. 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.