REGNA AND GENTES

THE TRANSFORMATION OF
THE ROMAN WORLD
a scientific programme of the european science foundation

Coordinators
JAVIER ARCE . EVANGELOS CHRYSOS . IAN WOOD

Team Leaders Steering Committee

Miquel Barceló Gunilla Åkerström-Hougen
Mark Blackburn Volker Bierbrauer
Gianpietro Brogiolo Niels Hannestad
Alain Dierkens Przemyslaw Urbańczyk
Richard Hodges Mario Mazza
Marco Mostert H.H. van Regteren Altena
Patrick Périn Heid Gjöstein Resi
Walter Pohl L. Cracco Ruggini
Frans Theuws
Leslie Webster

Series Editor
IAN WOOD

VOLUME 13

REGNA AND GENTES

 REGNA AND GENTES
The Relationship between Late Antique and Early Medieval
Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World

EDITED BY

HANS-WERNER GOETZ, JÖRG JARNUT

AND

WALTER POHL

WITH THE COLLABORATION OF

SÖREN KASCHKE

BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2003
 This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Regna and gentes : the relationship between late antique and early medieval peoples and
kingdoms in the transformation of the Roman world / edited by Hans Werner Goetz,
Jörg Jarnut and Walter Pohl ; with the collaboration of Sören Kaschke.
p. cm. (The transformation of the Roman world, ISSN 1386 4165 ; v. 13)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9004125248
1. Germanic peoples History. 2. Ethnicity Europe History. 3. Ethnicity Holy
Roman Empire History. 4. Europe History 392-814. 5. Europe Politics and
government. I. Goetz, Hans Werner. II. Jarnut, Jörg. III. Pohl, Walter, 1953 IV. Series.

GN549.G4 R44 2002

305.8'00943 dc21
2002034271

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Regna and gentes : the relationship between late antique and early medieval
peoples and kingdoms in the transformation of the Roman world / ed. by
Hans-Werner Goetz ... With collab. of Sören Kaschke. – Leiden ; Boston :
Brill, 2003
(The transformation of the Roman world ; Vol. 13)
ISBN 90–04–12524–8

ISSN 1386–4165
ISBN 90 04 12524 8

© Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
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Fees are subject to change.

printed in the netherlands

 CONTENTS

List of Contributors .................................................................. vii

Abbreviations .............................................................................. xi

Introduction ................................................................................ 1
Hans-Werner Goetz

The Empire, the gentes and the regna ...................................... 13

Evangelos Chrysos

The Leges Barbarorum: law and ethnicity in the

post-Roman West .................................................................. 21
Patrick Wormald

Gens into regnum: the Vandals .................................................. 55

J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz

Gens and regnum among the Ostrogoths .................................. 85

Peter Heather

The enigmatic fifth century in Hispania: some historical

problems ................................................................................ 135
Javier Arce

Pro patriae gentisqve Gothorvm statv ................................................ 161

Isabel Velázquez

The transformation of Hispania after 711 .............................. 219

Ann Christys

Gentes, kings and kingdoms—the emergence of states.

The kingdom of the Gibichungs .......................................... 243
Ian N. Wood
vi 

The relationship between Frankish gens and regnum:

a proposal based on the archaeological evidence .............. 271
Michael Schmauder

Gens, kings and kingdoms: the Franks .................................... 307

Hans-Werner Goetz

The Britons: from Romans to barbarians .............................. 345

Alex Woolf

Anglo-Saxon gentes and regna .................................................... 381

Barbara Yorke

Gens, rex and regnum of the Lombards ...................................... 409

Jörg Jarnut

The Bavarians ............................................................................ 429

Matthias Hardt

Avars and Avar archaeology. An introduction ...................... 463

Falko Daim

A Non-Roman Empire in Central Europe: the Avars .......... 571

Walter Pohl

Conclusion .................................................................................. 597

Bibliography .............................................................................. 629

Index of Peoples ........................................................................ 691
Index of Persons ........................................................................ 694
Index of Places .......................................................................... 700
Index of Subjects ...................................................................... 705
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

E C is Professor of Byzantine History at the University

of Athens and Director of the Institute for Byzantine Research at
the Hellenic Research Foundation. His research interests include
Byzantium’s international relations in the early Middle Ages.

P W is a Research Lecturer at the Faculty of Modern

History, University of Oxford. He is a specialist in the law and leg-
islation of post-Roman Europe, his publications including The Making
of English Law, King Alfred to the Twelfth-Century, vol. 1: Legislation and
its Limits (Oxford 1999), and Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West
(London 1999).

W L is professor emeritus, and formerly head of the

Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies, at Nottingham
University. His principal interests are Late Antiquity and Roman
religion. His most recent books are Barbarians and Bishops (Oxford
1990), and The Decline and Fall of the Roman City (Oxford 2001).

P H is Fellow in Medieval History at Worcester College,

Oxford. He is a specialist in the history of the Later Roman Empire
and its successor states (c. 250–600 A.D.), with a strong interest in
the issues surrounding the so-called Migration Period. His publica-
tions include Goths and Romans 332– 489 (Oxford 1991), The Goths
(Oxford 1996), and Philosophy Propaganda and Empire in the Fourth Century:
Select Speeches of Themistius (Liverpool 2001).

J A is Research Professor in the Higher Council of Scientifical

Research (CSIC), Depart. de Historia Antigua y Arqueología at the
Instituto de Historia in Madrid, Spain. He specialises in Late Roman
History and Archaeology, and his recent books include: Centcelles. El
monumento tardorromano. Iconografia y Arquitectura, ed. J. Arce (Roma
2000), Memoria de los antepasados. Puesta en escena y desarrollo del elogio
fúnebre romano (Madrid 2000), El último siglo de la España romana (284–409
A.D.) (3rd edn., Madrid 1997) and Esperando a los bárbaros en Hispania
(409–507) (forthcoming).
viii   

I V is professor of the Latin Department in the

Complutense University of Madrid. She is a specialist in Late and
Medieval Latin and Epigraphy. She is Director of the Archivo
Epigráfico de Hispania and the review Hispania Epigraphica of the
Complutense University and Secretary of the Latin Studies Society
of Spain (SELat). Recently she has published Documentos de época visigoda
escritos en pizarra (siglo VI–VIII), 2 vols. (Turnhout 2000).

A C specialises in the historiography of Spain in the early

Islamic period and has recently published Christians in al-Andalus
711–1000 (Richmond, Surrey 2002). She works as an anaesthetist in
Leeds.

I W, Professor of Early Medieval History, University of Leeds,

has published numerous articles on Early Medieval History. His books
include The Merovingian Kingdoms 450–751 (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 a
coordinator of the ESF programme on the Transformation of the
Roman World.

M S is curator at the Rheinische Landesmuseum in

Bonn and teaches early Christian and early Medieval archaeology
at the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn. His research
fields are late Antique, migration period and early medieval archaeol-
ogy. He wrote several articles on these topics. His book Oberschichtgräber
und Verwahrfunde in Südosteuropa im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert. Zum Verhältnis
zwischen spätantikem Reich und barbarischer Oberschicht aufgrund der archäol-
ogischen Quellen is just out.

H-W G is Professor of Medieval History at the University

of Hamburg and president of the German Mediävistenverband. His
main fields of research are the history of medieval mentality and
attitudes, historiography and social history of the Early and High
Middle Ages. His books include Life in the Middle Ages (London 1993),
Frauen im frühen Mittelalter. Frauenbild und Frauenleben im Frankenreich (Wei-
mar 1995), Moderne Mediävistik. Stand und Perspektiven der Mittelalterforschung
(Darmstadt 1999), Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbewußtsein im hohen
Mittelalter (Berlin 1999) and Handbuch der Geschichte Europas, vol. 2: Das
Frühmittelalter (500–1050) (forthcoming).
    ix

A W is Lecturer in Early Medieval Scottish History at the

University of St Andrews. He has published a number of articles
relating to kingship and social transformation in early medieval Britain
and Ireland.

B Y is Professor of Early Medieval History at King

Alfred’s College, Winchester. She specialises in Anglo-Saxon History
and recent publications include Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon
England and Wessex in the Early Middle Ages.

J J, born in 1942 in Weimar, Germany, from 1962–1967

study of history and German studies in Bonn (Germany), Caen
(France) and Perugia (Italy). 1970 Dr. phil. Bonn, 1977 habilitation
Bonn, 1980 professor Bonn, since 1983 professor for medieval his-
tory in Paderborn.

M H is Coordinator for Medieval History and Archaeol-

ogy at the Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur
Ostmittel-europas at Leipzig. He specialises in History of Migration
Period, Early Middle Ages and History of settlement structures in
Central Germany and East Central Europe.

F D is Professor at the Institute for Prehistory of the University

Vienna, Austria, and Director of the Vienna Institute of Archaeological
Science. He specialises in Avar studies and the archaeological evi-
dence for cultural exchange between Byzantium and its neighbours.
His recent publications include Das awarische Gräberfeld von Leobersdorf,
Niederösterreich (Wien 1987), Typen der Ethnogenese unter besonderer Berück-
sichtigung der Bayern 2, ed. F. Daim and H. Friesinger (Wien 1990),
Awarenforschungen, 2 vols., ed. F. Daim (Wien 1992) and Die Awaren
am Rand der byzantinischen Welt. Studien zu Diplomatie, Handel und Techno-
logietransfer im Frühmittelalter, ed. F. Daim (Innsbruck 2000).

W P is Director of the Medieval research unit of the Austrian

Academy of Sciences and teaches medieval history at the University
of Vienna. His books include Die Awaren (München 1988; an English
translation is in preparation), Die Germanen (München 2000), Werkstätte
der Erinnerung —Montecassino und die langobardische Vergangenheit (Wien
2001), and Die Völkerwanderung (Stuttgart-Berlin-Köln 2002).