The Barbarian 'other' in Western Europe and Byzantium, 376-1066CE: Historical, Archaeological, and Anthropological Approaches

The early medieval migrations of Germanic, Slavic and Hun groups transformed Roman Europe and laid the foundations of medieval kingdoms in the Latin and Germanic-speaking west and the Byzantine Greek and Slavic speaking East. Because of the paucity and problematic nature of the textual sources for these population movements, scholars examining their causes, nature and impact are compelled to also draw upon archaeological and visual evidence. To aid their attempts at building up a coherent picture from these various sources of evidence, some scholars have also applied modern anthropological approaches to their evidence.

This module will introduce students to the range of sources, methods and skills for studying the barbarian migrations and their social, political, economic and cultural impact throughout continental Europe in the early medieval period. It will examine textual sources written by the barbarian groups themselves and by the communities affected by their migrations and invasions. Archaeological evidence for the settlement patterns and material culture of barbarian groups will also be examined, as well as anthropological approaches used by modern scholars to fill in the gaps left by the patchy textual and material evidence. Students will also be introduced to modern debates concerning the usage and meanings of these various sources and approaches. This introduction to interdisciplinarity in early medieval European history will stress the need to understand different sources of evidence on their own terms before comparing and contrasting them.

Selected secondary literature:

• Heather P. Empires and Barbarians (London 2009).

• Goffart W. Barbarian Tides: the Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire (Philadelphia 2006).

• Goffart W. The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton 1988).

• Halsall G. Barbarians and Migrations in the Roman West, 376-568 (Cambridge 2007).

• Garipzanov I. H., Geary P. and Urbańczyk P. edd. Franks, Northmen and Slavs (Turnhout 2008).

• Gillett A. ed. On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages (Studies in the Early Middle Ages 4) (Turnhout 2002).

• Pohl W. and Reimitz H. edd. Strategies of Distinction: the Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800 (Transformation of the Roman World 2) (Leiden 1998).

• Curta F. The Making of the Slavs: History and Archaeology of the Lower Danube Region, c.500-700 (Cambridge 2001).

• James E. Europe’s Barbarians A.D. 200-600 (Harlow 2009).

• Maas M. ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila (Cambridge 2014) chs. 10-14.

• Brink S. and Price N. edd. The Viking World (Oxford 2012).

• Coupland S. “The Vikings in Francia and Anglo-Saxon England to 911”, in The New Cambridge Medieval History 2, ed. R. McKitterick (Cambridge 1995) 190-201.

By the end of the course, the students will have gained a good understanding of the historical and archaeological evidence for groups of people known to Romans and medieval Christian communities as barbarians. As part of this they will have acquired knowledge of the prejudices towards barbarian groups included in written sources as well as the ways the archaeological evidence can help us to gain a new perspective on barbarian groups. An understanding of the ways that modern anthropological approaches can help historians understand issues such as barbarian ethnicity and migration will also be acquired. Finally, students will have considered how modern nationalist ideas have influenced continued prejudicial views of the so-called ‘barbarians’.

The final grade will be based upon the active participation in the class, completing tasks, such as in class quizzes and short presentations, and writing a short essay.