Category: Book chapter

Stadermann on the Catholic Episcopate

Christian Stadermann contributed a chapter, called ‘Between Rome and Toulouse: The Catholic Episcopate in the regnum Tolosanum (418–507)’, to the edited volume Leadership, Social Cohesion, and Identity in Late Antique Spain and Gaul (500-700) (eds Dolores Castro and Fernando Ruchesi; Amsterdam: AUP, 2023).

Go to the book in the catalogue of Amsterdam University Press.
Go to the chapter in ScienceOpen or ResearchGate.

Keywords: Visigoths, Kingdom of Toulouse, Gallo-Roman senatorial aristocracy, Sidonius Apollinaris, late antique Gaul, Catholic episcopate.

Abstract: The Visigothic kings of the fifth and early sixth centuries adopted a tough stance towards the Catholic episcopate in Gaul. While this has been attributed to the missionary zeal of the ‘Arians’, more recent studies suggest their aim was to strengthen political cohesion: The measures imposed were meant to break resistance of powerful authorities within and to reduce influence of those beyond the borders of the Visigothic kingdom. It is assumed that the Roman Empire used the Catholic Church to exert influence on Visigothic Gaul, turning the Catholic faith into a central element of Roman identity; yet many aspects of this argument have never received an in-depth discussion. This chapter examines the relations between the Catholic episcopate in Gaul, Rome, and the Visigothic court at Toulouse.

Egetenmeyr on Emotions

Just out by Veronika Egetenmeyr: ‘Constructing Emotions and Creating Identities: Emotional Persuasion in the Letters of Sidonius Apollinaris and Ruricius of Limoges’, in: Mateusz Fafinski and Jakob Riemenschneider (eds), The Past Through Narratology: New Approaches to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Das Mittelalter Supplements 18, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2022, 75-92.

Download here (open access)

Furbetta on the Domus Aurorae

Luciana Furbetta writes on ‘Les architectures, les décors et l’image dans les écrits de Sidoine Apollinaire entre mémoire, création littéraire, imagination et réalité. L’exemple de la domus Aurorae dans le carmen 2,407-435’ in Gaëlle Herbert de la Portbarré-Viard and Pedro Duarte (eds), Architectures et décors fictifs antiques et médiévaux. Illusion, fiction et réalité, Paris: Karthala, 2022, 139-77.

Go to the publisher’s catalogue

Van Waarden on SAxxi and Contingency Projects

In 2017, at the invitation of the University of Bonn, Joop van Waarden reflected on the SAxxi project and the Bonn Contingency project. Now out, in de proceedings of that day: ‘Das Sidonius- und das Kontingenz-Projekt im Spiegel der Theorie’, in: Matthias Becher and Hendrik Hess (eds), Kontingenzerfahrungen und ihre Bewältigung zwischen imperium und regna. Beispiele aus Gallien und angrenzenden Gebieten vom 5. bis zum 8. Jahrhundert, Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2021, 29-49.

The book’s blurb: In Gaul and neighbouring areas Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages were times of political upheaval, change and unpredictable dynamics. As alternative to historical metanarratives such as ‘fall/decline’, ‘continuity’ or ‘transformation’ the papers of this volume analyse the narrative modes of (coping with) contingency – understood as the space which makes coincidence possible and intelligible (following Luhmann, Rüsen and others) – in contemporary sources.