Romanness in Visigothic Hagiography

Abstract

[EN] This chapter evaluates the use (or not) of Roman identities and institutions in Visigothic hagiography. Visigothic hagiographical materials display a telling absence of ‘Romanness’, understood as a collective or individual consciousness of belonging to a Roman cultural tradition. This absence is tied to the erosion of ethnic binaries during the political construction of the Gothic kingdom, a process in which both the Roman aristocracy and the Catholic episcopate participated. I argue that in the seventh century, invocations of Roman heritage did not represent a continuation of ethnic conflict; rather, the hagiographers in their treatment of Rome’s legacy were less interested in articulating the Roman identities of contemporary individuals than in placing their subjects within a world with recognizably Roman features