Pre-Carolingian Western European Kingdoms

Introduction

Between c. 500 and 750 CE western Europe experienced significant political transformation. In the centuries immediately following the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire, a constellation of new polities evolved, merged, mutated, and, in a number of cases, vanished completely. While political change during these centuries is undeniable, cultural, social, and administrative continuities with a not-so-distant Roman past retained their potency. Certainly, few would argue that the Roman Empire rapidly declined and fell as a result of the deposition of the last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 CE. This dichotomy of continuity versus change has become a dominant paradigm in academic study of the early medieval centuries, regardless of whether specific topical studies emphasize the former or the latter phenomenon. While on the macro-scale, this dichotomy is perhaps less revealing, it nevertheless has led to some disparity in the periodization of this period. While the majority of scholars now reject the characterization of the centuries in question as constituting a “Dark Age,” marked by barbarism and cultural regression, depending on their preference they might utilize the labels of “Late Antiquity” or “Early Middle Ages.” Brown 1971, cited under General Overviews, popularized the former periodization, which implicitly emphasizes continuities with the classical past, particularly cultural. The latter periodization, in turn, suggests that these centuries constituted a transformative period leading to a new sociocultural epoch. As neither periodization is dated consistently scholars have the freedom to apply the terminology most appropriate to their topical focus or interpretive orientation, as reflected in the range of works below. The decision to end this bibliography with the Carolingian assumption of royal power in Francia is similarly subjective. It can be justified, however, by several factors: (1) the disappearance by the mid-8th century of many of the original post-Roman continental polities; (2) the political and administrative transformations instigated by Carolingian expansionism; and (3) the tendency among modern overviews of early medieval continental European history to distinguish between the Merovingian and Carolingian eras. While roughly half of the works below concentrate on specific peoples or polities, many of the remainder adopt a comparative approach. As emphasized recently by Wickham 2005, cited under General Overviews, such an approach has the tangible benefit of emphasizing the diversity of repercussions of, and responses to, the collapse of western imperial administration. Conversely, a comparative approach also can draw attention to similar trends across geographic space. Recent regional studies, such as Halsall 2013, cited under British Kingdoms, have emphasized the latter point, taking advantage of comparative data. Regardless of scope, the works contained in this bibliography demonstrate not only the sociocultural vitality of early medieval Western Europe, but also the dynamism of modern scholarship devoted to the period.

General Overviews

There are a number of excellent overviews of early medieval Western European history currently available to students and scholars. Some, while intended principally for classroom use, nevertheless offer original analysis. The classic example is Brown 1971, which helped to establish the periodization of Late Antiquity as a means of emphasizing cultural continuities between the late Roman and early medieval eras. Brown 2013 shares its predecessor’s emphasis on cultural and religious history, but with far greater elaboration and more focus on the Western Mediterranean. Smith 2005 likewise concentrates on culture within the context of social relations and organization. Wickham 2005, in turn, is primarily socio-economic in focus, while prioritizing more explicitly and at greater length a comparative perspective. Like Smith 2005 and Wickham 2005, McKitterick 2001 is organized topically, rather than chronologically, but its chapters are conceived of us as introductory essays aimed primarily at nonspecialists. In contrast, Innes 2007 and Collins 2010 adopt the form of traditional chronological textbooks, with the latter particularly focused on political and military events.

Brown, Peter. The World of Late Antiquity AD 150–750. Library of World Civilizations. London: Thames and Hudson, 1971.
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A brief but seminal text, which popularized the nomenclature and periodization of Late Antiquity. Brown’s textbook has had the additional impact of establishing cultural and intellectual history as central to the historiography of the period.
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Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200–1000. 3d ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2013.
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A survey text, lengthier and more detailed than Brown’s earlier attempt at a textbook, with a strong emphasis on cultural and religious history. Despite the title, Brown does include discussion of the Byzantine and Islamic worlds.
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Collins, Roger. Early Medieval Europe, 300–1000. 3d ed. New York: Palgrave, 2010.
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A clearly written, chronologically organized, survey text with a particular emphasis on political history.
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Innes, Matthew. Introduction to Early Medieval Western Europe, 300–900: The Sword, the Plough and the Book. London: Routledge, 2007.
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A synthetic work, organized chronologically and geographically, notable for its inclusion of topical and bibliographical essays interspersed throughout.
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McKitterick, Rosamond. The Early Middle Ages: Europe 400–1000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
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A brief and topically arranged introductory guide to the period, with chapters on politics, society, the economy, religion, culture, and Europe and the wider world.
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Smith, Julia M. H. Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History, 500–1000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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Eschews a traditional political narrative in order to prioritize social and cultural history. Topics covered include communication, kinship, gender, labor, and ideologies.
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Wickham, Chris. Framing the Early Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264490.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A magisterial work. Wickham applies a comparative perspective to the social and economic history of the Mediterranean World c. 400–800 CE, providing wide-ranging discussions of statecraft, nobility, peasant society, urbanism, and commerce.
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Journals and Serials

There are several established periodicals devoted specifically to Late Antiquity and/or the Early Middle Ages. In English, the biannual Journal of Late Antiquity (2008–) and the quarterly Early Medieval Europe (1992–) are the leading interdisciplinary publications. There also are several multilingual serials whose annual volumes are thematic in scope, for example, Antiquité tardive (1993–) and Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto medioevo (1954–). Significant short studies of early medieval topics also can be found regularly in journals with a broader chronological scope, such as Speculum, Traditio, Viator, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Church History, Le Moyen Âge, Francia, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, and Frühmittelalterliche Studien.

Antiquité tardive: Revue internationale d’histoire et d’archéologie (IVe–VIIIe siècles). Paris: Brepols, 1993–.
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An annual, multilingual, and interdisciplinary publication covering the period from the fourth through the 8th century. Individual volumes are thematic, but also contain unrelated studies.
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Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992–.
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Prominent English-language journal, with a chronological range stretching from Late Antiquity to the 11th century.
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Journal of Late Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008–.
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Relatively new, but high-quality, periodical with broad geographical and chronological (i.e., c. 250–800 CE) coverage.
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Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto medioevo. Spoleto, Italy: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1954–.
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The published proceedings of the thematic study weeks held annually in Spoleto under the auspices of the Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto medioevo (Italian Center of Early Medieval Studies).
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Reference Works

There are several general reference works devoted to early medieval Europe. Frassetto 2003, an encyclopedia, is aimed primarily at undergraduate researchers, whereas the multivolume and multiauthored Cambridge History series are designed for use by both students and professional scholars. The final volume of The Cambridge Ancient History, that is, Cameron, et al. 2000, together with the first two volumes of the New Cambridge Medieval History, that is, Fouracre 2005 and McKitterick 1995, cover the entirety of the period stretching from the 5th through the 9th century. Each of the individual Cambridge volumes contains regional and thematic essays written by leading scholars, intended to summarize the current state of research. There also are two major series of prosopographical reference books available to researchers. The third volume of The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Martindale 1992, provides biographical information on primarily secular officeholders of the 6th and 7th centuries. Mandouze 1982, Pietri, et al. 1999–2000, and Pietri and Heijmans 2013, all three of which are volumes in the series Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, prioritize ecclesiastics and laymen whose religious activities are attested.

Cameron, Averil, Bryan Ward-Perkins, and Michael Whitby, eds. The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 14, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425–600. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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A systematic and comprehensive collection of essays, both regional and thematic in focus, covering the 5th and 6th centuries.
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Fouracre, Paul, ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. 1, c. 500–c. 700. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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A systematic and comprehensive collection of essays, both regional and thematic in focus, covering the 6th and 7th centuries.
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Frassetto, Michael. Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003.
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Encyclopedic work, arranged alphabetically, and aimed primarily at undergraduate researchers. The short (and selective) individual entries contain useful bibliographies.
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Mandouze, André, ed. Prosopographie de l’Afrique chrétienne (303–533). Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire 1. Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1982.
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Prosopographical reference work that includes biographical data on over two thousand Christians, lay and ecclesiastical, from late antique Africa.
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Martindale, J. R., ed. The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Vol. 3, AD 527–641. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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The third volume of an essential reference work, providing alphabetically arranged biographical data on (primarily secular) officeholders in both the eastern and western Mediterranean (including the Islamic caliphate).
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McKitterick, Rosamond, ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. 2, c. 700–c. 900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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A systematic and comprehensive collection of essays, both regional and thematic in focus, covering the 8th and 9th centuries.
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Pietri, Charles, Janine Desmulliez, and Luce Pietri, eds. Prosopographie de l’Italie chrétienne (313–604). Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire 2. Rome: École française de Rome, 1999–2000.
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Prosopographical reference work that includes biographical data on several thousand individuals from late antique Italy, including monks and clerics, ordinary Christians whose religious or charitable activities are attested, and elites who engaged with the church in an official or personal capacity.
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Pietri, Luce, and Marc Heijmans, eds. Prosopographie de la Gaule chrétienne, 314–614. Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire 4. Paris: Association des amis du Centre d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, 2013.
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Prosopographical reference work that includes biographical data on over three thousand individuals from late antique Gaul, including monks and clerics, ordinary Christians whose religious or charitable activities are attested, and elites who engaged with the church in an official or personal capacity.
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Historiography

In recent years, historians and archaeologists alike have endeavored to document the development of their disciplines and their respective methodological approaches to the early medieval past. Of particular interest have been the ways in which modern political events and ideologies (especially nationalism) have influenced interpretations of the past. Wood 2013 traces longstanding, multinational debates over the barbarians’ role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the formation of post-Roman kingdoms. James 2012 (the first publication in an ongoing project) looks more narrowly at 19th-century French scholarly and popular attitudes toward the Merovingian dynasty. Effros 2013 too focuses on France, again primarily in the 19th century, but looks at archaeological research.

Effros, Bonnie. Uncovering the Germanic Past: Merovingian Archaeology in France, 1830–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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An examination of institutional structures and networks supporting the work of those 19th-century archaeologists and antiquarians whose findings drew attention to France’s “Germanic” past. Despite the relevance of these findings for local and national history, Effros shows how they did not always fit comfortably within the accepted national historical narrative.
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James, Edward. “The Merovingians from the French Revolution to the Third Republic.” Early Medieval Europe 20.4 (2012): 450–471.
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Discusses how the French Revolution engendered hostility toward the Franks and their role in the history of France. Despite this hostility, Romanticism nevertheless nurtured an interest in “barbarity,” influencing, most notably, Augustin Thierry, author of Récits des temps mérovingiens (1840).
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Wood, Ian. The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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Survey of the historiographical debates surrounding the barbarians and the formation of post-Roman successor states in western Europe. Begins in the 18th century and concludes in the 21st with the ongoing debate between the so-called “movers” and “shakers” regarding the dissolution of the Western Empire.
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Primary Sources in Translation

The availability of high-quality translations of early medieval sources has grown exponentially in recent decades. This is due, in no small part, to the ongoing Translated Texts for Historians series (Whitby, et al. 1985–), whose many volumes include extensive scholarly commentary of the translated documents. The series is also notable for translating a wide variety of sources from throughout the Mediterranean world and Near East. Source anthologies intended for classroom use also have proliferated since the 1980s. Several of these are regional in focus, with late antique Gaul being particularly well-served: McNamama, et al. 1992, Fouracre and Gerberding 1996, and Murray 2000. Others are devoted to specific genres or themes. Along with McNamama, et al. 1992 and Fouracre and Gerberding 1996, Van Dam 1993 and Head 2000 anthologize hagiographical literature. Mathisen 2003 is notable both for including original Latin texts along with translations, as well as for its social historical emphasis. Maas 2010 has the broadest scope of the anthologies listed in this section, subsuming documents from early medieval western Europe into a broader late antique context.

Fouracre, Paul, and Richard Gerberding, eds. Late Merovingian France. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1996.
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A collection of hagiographical and chronicle sources crucial for the study of 7th- and 8th-century Francia. Fouracre and Gerberding not only supply a lengthy general introduction, but also valuable commentaries on individual works.
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Head, Thomas. Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology. New York: Routledge, 2000.
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Although broad in chronological (and geographical) scope, the anthology contains early medieval vitae composed by Jonas of Bobbio, Dado of Rouen, and Bede.
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Maas, Michael. Readings in Late Antiquity: A Sourcebook. 2d ed. London: Routledge, 2010.
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A useful source reader containing relatively short excerpts from a wide variety of Mediterranean and Near Eastern documents dating from the 3rd through the 7th century. Sources are organized topically, for example, Imperial Administration, Theology, Arabs before Islam, and so on.
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Mathisen, Ralph W. People, Personal Expression, and Social Relations in Late Antiquity. 2 vols. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003.
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A collection of primary source documents, with an emphasis on social history. The second volume contains the original Latin texts.
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McNamama, Jo Ann, John E. Halborg, and E. Gordon Whatley, eds. Sainted Women of the Dark Ages. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992.
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A collection of eighteen early medieval hagiographical texts devoted to 6th- and 7th-century women, in particular queens and abbesses. The translations are accompanied by extensive commentary.
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Murray, Alexander, ed. From Roman to Merovingian Gaul. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2000.
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An indispensable teaching tool containing a wide range of legal, hagiographical, epistolary, and historical documents, including lengthy excerpts from Gregory of Tours’ Decem Libri Historiarum, and the fourth book of Fredegar’s Chronica in its entirety.
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Van Dam, Raymond. Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
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Combines perceptive discussion of the development, promotion, and patronage of Gallic cults of sanctity with translations from the works of Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours, including the entirety of the latter’s Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi.
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Whitby, Mary, Gillian Clark, and Mark Humphries eds. Translated Texts for Historians. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 1985–.
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A series of well-annotated translations of late antique philosophical, theological, conciliar, political, epistolary, and hagiographical sources. More than sixty-one volumes to date.
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Culture and Religion

Late Antiquity was an epoch marked by both cultural dynamism and transformation. While Christianity was a crucial contributor to this vitality, it was not the sole cultural or intellectual tradition that influenced the syncretic material, literary, and religious cultures of post-Roman Europe. Certain classical (i.e., pagan) traditions continued to maintain their relevance, even if in altered form. Thus, scholarship has emphasized both continuities and change in western European culture in the Early Middle Ages.

Religious and Ecclesiastical History

Extensive scholarship has been devoted to the Christianization of western Europe and its impact. The process of Christianization, in fact, constituted a broader cultural transformation; it was not limited to the official adoption of Christianity by individual rulers, polities, or populations. In addition, the contributors to the most comprehensive general introductions to this phenomenon, Casiday and Norris 2014 and Noble and Smith 2008, acknowledge that it is more accurate to speak of “Christianities” in this period, than of a single monolithic religious culture (let alone ecclesiastical organization). There is less agreement, however, regarding the extent to which one can still distinguish between elite and popular “Christanities” in the early medieval era. Brown 1981, for example, firmly rejects what he calls the “two-tiered model.” Flint 1990, in turn, argues that the survival of magic in Christianized western Europe is less suggestive of entrenched rural paganism than of a syncretic program supervised by ecclesiastical elites. Fletcher 1997 reaches a similar conclusion, arguing that syncretism was a necessary component of the missionary project, which continued well into the Early Middle Ages. Wood 2001 further complicates the narrative of mission by examining the authorial programs underlying those hagiographical texts that are the primary sources for this activity. Canon law, as composed and compiled in this period, offered a normative view of Christian practice and community, which did not always reflect reality. The best guides to the sources for early medieval canon law are Kéry 1999 and Fowler-Magerl 2005.

Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
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Originally a series of lectures, this short book examines the sociocultural significance of late antique cults of sanctity, arguing that they were not merely an expression of an unlearned, popular Christianity. Brown rejects the idea of a late antique Christianity divided between the enlightened and the vulgar.
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Casiday, Augustine, and Frederick W. Norris, eds. The Cambridge History of Christianity 2: Constantine to c. 600. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
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A systematic and comprehensive collection of essays, both regional and thematic in focus, which examine Eurasian and African Christian communities, rituals, texts, and dogma, from the 4th through the 6th century.
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Fletcher, Richard. The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
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A comprehensive and very readable narrative of European Christianization and missionary activities.
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Flint, Valerie. The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe. Princeton, UK: Princeton University Press, 1990.
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Argues for the Christianization and consequent assimilation of pagan magic and magical practices by Catholic elites.
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Fowler-Magerl, Linda. Clavis Canonum: Selected Canon Law Collections before 1140. Hanover, Germany: Hahn, 2005.
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Combines a short handbook, containing information on individual canonical collections, with a CD-ROM, which allows users to search for specific canons within a wide range of collections.
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Kéry, Lotte. Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400–1140). Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1999.
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An indispensable reference work, containing a wealth of information on individual canonical collections, including bibliography.
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Noble, Thomas F. X., and Julia M. H. Smith, eds. The Cambridge History of Christianity. Vol. 3, Early Medieval Christianities, 600–1100. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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A systematic and comprehensive collection of essays, both regional and thematic in focus, which examine Eurasian and African Christian communities, rituals, texts, and dogma, from the 7th through the 11th century.
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Wood, Ian N. The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe, 400–1050. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2001.
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A study of early medieval mission and missionaries as constructed by hagiographical texts, deeply influenced (as Wood acknowledges) by the methodology of Goffart 2005, cited under Barbarian Identity.
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Language and Literacy

In her survey of late antique literature and language studies, Shanzer 2009 observes that the “literary-philological ‘late antique’ still has to contend with her sources’ poor public image” (p. 918). The question of literary quality has much to do with the perceived state of the Latin language itself. A range of studies on late Latin language and texts are collected in Latin vulgaire, latin tardif (1987–), Wright 1991, and Garrison, et al. 2013. The old question of how and when Latin metamorphosed into Romance has prompted a wide variety of answers. Wright 1982, for instance, has argued influentially that Late Latin and Early Romance were one and the same in the pre-Carolingian era. Banniard 1992 approaches the same question from a different angle, but arrives at a comparable conclusion. Negative assessments of early medieval language and literature traditionally have gone hand-in-hand with pessimistic assumptions about low literacy rates and the relative unimportance of the written word outside of the church. Thanks to the pioneering work of Rosamond McKitterick on the applications of the written word in the Carolingian era, studies such as those collected in McKitterick 1992 as well as Everett 2003 have overturned this overly gloomy appraisal, finding evidence not only for lay literacy, but also for the centrality of the written word in governance, law, and religion in pre-Carolingian Europe.

Banniard, Michel. Viva voce: Communication écrite et communication orale du IVe au IXe siècle en occident latin. Paris: Institut des etudes augustiniennes, 1992.
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Argues that “vertical communication,” that is, “An act of communication by which a speaker addresses an interlocutor (or listeners) of a cultural and linguistic level significantly inferior to his own” (p. 38) was facilitated in the centuries following the collapse of Roman imperial rule by a prevailing monolingualism in western Europe.
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Everett, Nicholas. Literacy in Lombard Italy, c. 568–774. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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Positive assessment of literacy and its applications (including administrative, legal, and epigraphic) in early medieval Italy.
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Garrison, Mary, Arpad P. Orbán, and Marco Mostert, with Wolfert S. van Egmond, eds. Spoken and Written Language: Relations between Latin and the Vernacular Languages in the Earlier Middle Ages. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2013.
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Collection of essays in German, English, and French which examine language and communication in Early Medieval Europe.
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Latin vulgaire, latin tardif. Tübingen, Germany: Max Niemayer, 1987–.
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Published multilingual proceedings of the Colloque international sur le latin vulgaire et tardif (International Colloquium on Vulgar and Late Latin).
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McKitterick, Rosamond, ed. The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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Collection of English-language essays particularly notable for its emphasis on lay literacy and literary culture.
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Shanzer, Danuta. “Literature, History, Periodization, and the Pleasures of the Latin Literary History of Late Antiquity.” History Compass 7.3 (2009): 917–954.
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A lively and accessible overview of scholarly approaches to the study of late antique Latin language and literature.
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Wright, Roger. Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France. Liverpool, UK: Francis Cairns, 1982.
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Argues that Medieval Latin was a Carolingian invention and that Late Latin and Early Romance cannot be distinguished from one another in the pre-Carolingian period.
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Wright, Roger, ed. Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.
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Collection of English-language essays, eight of which deal with the period before 800, and examine the relationship between Latin and Romance. The authors generally agree that “[linguistic] differences between styles, registers, and regions were great, but compatible with the feelings that theirs was one monolingual speech community” (p. 8).
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Classical and Courtly Culture

Although it is impossible to completely detangle secular and religious culture in the early medieval West, a number of publications have focused on the cultural artifacts and traditions of lay peoples (particularly monarchs), and/or the preservation of classical non-Christian writings and ideas. Reydellet 1981, for example, examines the definition of the monarchical ideal by major intellectuals and writers of the Early Middle Ages. Hen 2007 demonstrates through a comparative study that the royal court itself was a key source of cultural patronage in this era. Although it is indisputable that elements of the classical heritage retained their potency, scholars also have examined their transformation over the course of Late Antiquity. Riché 1976, for example, remains the classic overview of changes in education and intellectual culture between Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In a more focused study, McCluskey 2000 emphasizes that those areas of astronomical inquiry important to early medieval Europeans were not necessarily those most prevalent in antiquity. McCormick 1986 stresses the continuing significance of Roman ceremonial expressions of victory in the post-Roman era. Whereas the aforementioned works focus primarily on the history of ideas, Rosenwein 2006 is a recent but influential effort to locate bonds between early medieval individuals based on shared emotional norms and expression.

Hen, Yitzhak. Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West. New York: Palgrave, 2007.
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A brief comparative examination of cultural patronage in (primarily pre-Carolingian) early medieval courts, including those of Theodoric the Great, Sisebut, and Dagobert I.
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McCluskey, Stephen C. Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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Survey of those areas of astronomical inquiry prioritized in early medieval Europe: the division of the year by means of solar observations, Easter computus, monastic timekeeping, and the classical (geometrical) astronomy of the quadrivium.
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McCormick, Michael. Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium and the Early Medieval West. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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Wide-ranging study of the ceremonial ideology, rituals, and language of victory employed by Roman emperors, which served as models for subsequent eastern and western European rulers.
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Reydellet, Marc. La royauté dans la littérature latine de Sidoine Apollinaire à Isidore de Séville. Rome: École française de Rome, 1981.
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A survey of the monarchic ideal, as articulated by a number of the major authors of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, including Sidonius Apollinaris, Gregory of Tours, Venantius Fortunatus, and Gregory the Great.
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Riché, Pierre. Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: Sixth Through Eighth Centuries. Translated by John J. Contreni. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1976.
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Originally published in French as Éducation et culture dans l’Occident barbare, VIe-VIIIe siècles in 1962, a study of transformations in intellectual culture over the course of the Early Middle Ages. Riché has been criticized for using the elite intellectual culture of Antiquity as a standard for evaluating that of early medieval Europe.
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Rosenwein, Barbara. Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.
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Short and innovative study, which postulates the existence and significance in early medieval Europe of “emotional communities . . . in which people adhere to the same norms of emotional expression and value‑‑or devalue‑‑the same or related emotions” (p. 2).
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Society, Economy, and Law

As the work of Horden and Purcell 2000, cited under Commerce and Communications, and Wickham 2005, cited under General Overviews, have stressed, it is necessary to avoid generalizing about the social and economic conditions in the post-Roman West. While certain trans-regional commercial networks, legal traditions, and social norms and structures persisted, local and regional particularities in some cases became even more pronounced. Although scholars long have debated the role of the barbarians themselves in fomenting social and economic change in this period, that certain transformations occurred seems indisputable. Nevertheless, many of the works in this section assume gradual change, as well as the maintenance of significant continuities in socioeconomic and legal institutions and practices.

Urban and Rural Settlements and Economies

Due in no small part to the centrality of archaeological evidence for the study of rural life in early medieval Europe, most studies of rural settlements, peasants, and the agricultural economy have tended to focus on individual sites or regions. This makes works that synthesize or compare data from the various microstudies especially valuable. Among these synthesizing works Devroey 2003 and Devroey 2006 focus on the Frankish world, Hamerow 2002 on the North Sea region, and Christie 2004, Wickham 2005, cited under General Overviews, and Lewit 2009 on the wider Mediterranean. Studies of early medieval urbanism similarly have tended to take the form of case studies, such as Verhulst 1999 on the region between the Meuse, Somme, and North Sea. However, Rich 1992 and Christie and Loseby 1996 are collections of essays covering multiple regions that encourage comparative analysis. In addition to the aforementioned works, individual volumes of the Transformation of the Roman World 1997–2004, cited under Barbarian and Roman Relations, focus on agriculture, urbanism, and regional economies.

Christie, Neil, ed. Landscapes of Change: Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004.
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Collection of essays that examine from the perspective of archaeology continuities and transformations in rural organization and settlement in western and eastern Europe and North Africa.
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Christie, Neil, and S. T. Loseby, eds. Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. London: Scolar, 1996.
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Collection of essays that examine case-studies of urbanism in the Mediterranean world, North Africa, and Near East.
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Devroey, Jean-Pierre. Économie rurale et société dans l’Europe franque (VIe-IXe siècles). Vol. 1. Paris: Belin, 2003.
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Textbook-style survey originally written for candidates seeking secondary education teaching certification in France. Topics covered include the environment, demography, production, trade, and property. Devroey includes both helpful historiographical discussion as well as topical mini-essays.
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Devroey, Jean-Pierre. Puissants et misérables. Système social et monde paysan dans l’Europe des Francs (VIe–IXe siècles). Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique, 2006.
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Situates the Frankish peasantry within contemporary social systems. Complements Devroey 2003, but is not an official sequel.
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Hamerow, Helena. Early Medieval Settlements: The Archaeology of Rural Communities in Northwest Europe 400–900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
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Comparative study of excavated settlements from the North Sea zone, which posits a considerable “degree of economic complexity, integration, and resilience” (p. 191) among these diverse communities. Hamerow sees the so-called “Long Eighth Century” (i.e., 680–830) as a transitional epoch, which witnessed economic reorganization and greater emphasis on planned settlements.
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Lewit, Tamara. “Pigs, Presses, and Pastoralism: Farming in the Fifth to Sixth Centuries AD.” Early Medieval Europe 17.1 (2009): 77–91.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0254.2009.00245.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Compares developments in the eastern and western Mediterranean. Argues that in the West the loss of an imperial economic system allowed local conditions to determine land usage, thereby encouraging diversification.
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Rich, John, ed. The City in Late Antiquity. London: Routledge, 1992.
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Collection of essays on urban change and continuities in both the Western and Eastern Mediterranean.
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Verhulst, Adriaan. The Rise of Cities in North-West Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511612275Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines urbanism in the region between the Meuse, Somme, and North Sea from Late Antiquity through the 12th century. Verhulst generally argues for discontinuity in the early period, suggesting that “only the location of the Roman city or agglomeration . . . affected the location of the oldest group of medieval cities” (p. 1)
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Commerce and Communications

Modern scholarly debate over the fate of trans-Mediterranean commerce in the Early Middle Ages generally has been framed in relation to the famous thesis articulated by Pirenne 1957. See, for example, the responses collected in Havinghurst 1976. Pirenne argued that it was Arab, not barbarian, domination of the Mediterranean that cut off western Europe from existing maritime trade networks. Dopsch 1969 also influentially argued for commercial continuity between the imperial and post-imperial eras, while not sharing Pirenne’s belief that Arab expansion of the 7th and 8th centuries marked a pivotal turning-point. Dissenting from the position favoring continuity, Hodges and Whitehouse 1983 argues on the basis of archaeological evidence for commercial decline between the 5th and 6th centuries. McCormick 2001 acknowledges gradual decline during Late Antiquity, but rejects the barbarian invasions as the single major impetus, and furthermore suggests a revival beginning in the late-8th century, arguing essentially that Pirenne had it backwards: the Islamic domination of much of the Mediterranean stimulated the western European commercial economy. In contrast to the aforementioned titles, Horden and Purcell 2000 purposely avoids questions of causation, preferring instead to examine the constant and extensive “background noise” of smaller-scale regional communications and exchanges that went on during what is labeled the “Pirenne period.” In a similar vein, Gillett 2003 argues that diplomatic communications in the Mediterranean world continued apace despite the disappearance of the western imperial court. Although it does not engage directly with the Pirenne thesis, Grierson and Blackburn 1986 explicitly acknowledges the centrality of numismatic evidence to debates over early medieval commerce.

Dopsch, Alfons. The Economic and Social Foundations of European Civilization. Edited by Erna Patzelt. Translated by M. G. Beard and Nadine Marshal. New York: Howard Fertig, 1969.
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Originally published in German as Wirtschaftliche und soziale Grundlagen der europäischen Kulturentwicklung in 1918–1920, argues for socioeconomic continuity between the Roman and Carolingian periods.
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Gillett, Andrew. Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West, 411–533. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511496318Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues for the regularity and political necessity of diplomatic embassies during those decades in which western Europe transitioned from imperial to post-imperial rule.
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Grierson, Philip, and Mark Blackburn. Medieval European Coinage: The Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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An introductory handbook on early medieval numismatics, containing an illustrated catalogue of coins.
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Havinghurst, Alfred, ed. The Pirenne Thesis: Analysis, Criticism, and Revision. 3d ed. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1976.
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Contains excerpts from Pirenne’s own work as well as responses to his thesis from historians writing in the middle decades of the 20th century. Although debate over the thesis has progressed since the publication of the volume, it serves a useful purpose is summarizing the early historiographical tradition.
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Hodges, Richard, and David Whitehouse. Mohammed, Charlemagne, and the Origins of Europe. London: Duckworth, 1983.
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A re-evaluation of the Pirenne thesis from an archaeological perspective. Argues for socio-economic, political, and demographic decline between 400 and 600 CE.
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Horden, Peregrine, and Nicholas Purcell. The Corrupting Sea. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
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A wide-ranging, chronologically broad, and methodologically sophisticated reconceptualization of the Mediterranean as a composite of microregions between which communications (in a variety of forms) were regular.
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McCormick, Michael. Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce A.D. 300–900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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Argues that commercial decline in the Mediterranean was gradual, and not stimulated solely by 5th-century barbarian invasions. McCormick suggests that communications and commercial activity revived in the later 8th and early 9th centuries, stimulated by a slave trade between the Carolingian West and the Muslim world.
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Pirenne, Henri. Mohammed and Charlemagne. Translated by Bernard Miall. Cleveland, OH: Meridian, 1957.
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Originally published in French as Mahomet et Charlemagne in 1937, it established the parameters of debate over the state of Mediterranean commerce in the post-Roman era for much of the 20th century. Pirenne argues that it was the Arab conquests of the 7th and early 8th centuries, not the “Germanic” invasions of the 5th, which finally severed the western from the eastern Mediterranean.
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Elites

In recent decades, two major European research projects have expanded considerably our knowledge and understanding of elites in post-Roman western Europe: Les élites dans le haut Moyen Âge (2006–2011) and Transformation of the Roman World 1997–2004, cited under Barbarian and Roman Relations. Apart from the edited volumes that resulted from these projects, a number of studies have examined specifically the effects of the disintegration of the western imperial government and the arrival of the barbarians on the senatorial aristocracy. Barnish 1988, for instance, focuses on Italy, and argues for the senatorial class’s rapid decline during and following the Gothic Wars. On the Gallic senatorial elite, Stroheker 1948 is the classic prosopographical study, suggestive of familial continuity into the post-Roman era, while Mathisen 1993 and Harries 1994 examine more generally the means by which Gallic aristocrats responded to, and managed to survive, the sometimes traumatic events of the 5th century, with the latter employing the career of Sidonius Apollinaris as a focal point. The study of nobility in the resulting barbarian kingdoms was long dominated by German scholars, some of whose work is collected and translated in Reuter 1979. Goetz 2003 offers a historiographical overview of this scholarship. Fouracre 2000 is a useful short introduction to the Frankish nobility that highlights some of the difficulties in defining this group. More generally, Martindale 1992, cited under Reference Works, provides biographical information on primarily secular officeholders of the 6th and 7th centuries.

Barnish, S. J. B. “Transformation and Survival of the Western Senatorial Aristocracy, C. A. D. 400–700.” Papers of the British School at Rome 56 (1988): 120–155.
DOI: 10.1017/S0068246200009582Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Effort to calculate demographical data for the Italian senatorial class. Barnish observes that unlike in Gaul, Italian senatorial families did not monopolize episcopal offices. He offers several explanations for the decline of the senatorial class during and following the Gothic wars, including Byzantine mistrust and a detachment from local politics.
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Fouracre, Paul. “The Origins of the Nobility in Francia.” In Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins, Transformations. Edited by Anne Duggan, 17–24. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2000.
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Emphasizes the diversity of peoples who constituted the Frankish nobility in the Merovingian era, and includes a useful discussion of terminology.
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Goetz, Hans-Werner. “(Weltliche) Eliten: Adelsforschung in der deutschen Historiographie.” Laboratoire de Médiévistique Occidentale de Paris, 2003.
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Historiographical survey of 20th-century German scholarship on medieval elites.
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Harries, Jill. Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome, AD 407–485. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994
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Less a traditional biography of the Gallo-Roman politician, bishop, poet, and prolific epistolographer than a study of the political context of Sidonius’s life and career and the consequences of the loss of empire for the Gallo-Roman elite.
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Les élites dans le haut Moyen Âge. 6 vols. Series Editor Régine Le Jan. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2006–2011.
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Series of multilingual collections of essays that deal with various topics and themes related to elites in the Early Middle Ages, including typology, elite spaces, and wealth.
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Mathisen, Ralph. Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul. Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.
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A study of the Gallic aristocracy’s responses‑‑intellectual and practical‑‑to the barbarian presence in 5th-century Gaul. These responses ranged from flight, to the assumption of ecclesiastical office, to the pursuit of literary studies.
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Reuter, Timothy, ed. The Medieval Nobility. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1979.
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Translates into English older, primarily German-language, studies of medieval nobility. Although its chronological coverage extends into the High Middle Ages, it includes influential studies by Karl Schmid on kin-group structure, Franz Irsigler on the sources and characteristics of Frankish noble power, and Karl Werner on the roots of the Carolingian nobility.
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Stroheker, Karl Friedrich. Der Senatorische Adel im spätantiken Gallien. Tübingen, Germany: Alma Mater, 1948.
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Foundational prososographical study of the senatorial aristocracy in late antique Gaul.
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Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Due in no small part to the deficiencies inherent in the source record, studies of early medieval women have tended to focus on political and religious elites (e.g., queens and abbesses), and the broader question of the degree of economic and/or political power available to women. McNamara and Wemple 1973 is an early, and influential, attempt to address the latter question, more recently challenged by Nelson and Rio 2013. Stafford 1983 focuses more specifically on the resources and authority available to royal women. Bitel 2002 is notable both for its comparative approach, as well as its efforts to include non-elite women. Although it can (and often does) overlap with women’s history, studies of gender, in the words of Brubaker and Smith 2004, focus more broadly on “the disparities in all societies between the social roles permitted to men and women together with the wider cultural meanings associated with masculinity and femininity” (p. 4). Smith 2000 makes a strong case for the relevance of gender to the study of the transition between Roman and post-Roman Europe. Scholars thus have examined the construction of gender in both documentary and material sources. Both Coon 1997 and Schulenburg 1998 examine changing norms of female sanctity in Late Antiquity, as constructed and articulated by hagiographers. The essays contained in Brubaker and Smith 2004 examine gender in a wide variety of cultural and situational contexts.

Bitel, Lisa M. Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400–1100. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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An introductory textbook, by a specialist in early medieval Irish history, which offers a comparative perspective on early medieval women’s history, including thematic discussions of landscape, marriage and kinship, and the religious roles of women in early medieval Europe.
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Brubaker, Leslie, and Julia M. H. Smith, eds. Gender in the Early Medieval World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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A collection of sixteen papers, including a useful introductory essay by Smith, which examine gender in a wide variety of contexts.
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Coon, Lynda. Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
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Examines eight late antique saints’ lives and their employment of biblical discourse for the defining of female sanctity. Coon argues that female ascetics, as described in “sacred fictions,” offered sure proof (to men) of the human potential for overcoming sin. Includes discussion of the lives of Monegund, Radegund, and Balthild.
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McNamara, Jo Ann, and Suzanne Wemple. “The Power of Women through the Family in Medieval Europe: 500–1100.” Feminist Studies 1.3–4 (1973): 126–141.
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In an influential essay, the authors argue that the economic power of (particularly elite) women increased during those centuries following the dissolution of Roman imperial rule in the West, which in turn magnified their social influence.
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Nelson, Janet, and Alice Rio. “Women and Laws in Early Medieval Europe.” In The Oxford Book of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe. Edited by Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras, 103–117. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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Critiques as overly optimistic the reading of legal sources by McNamara and Wemple 1973, and sees instead an “ambivalence” toward the roles and rights of women within the domestic sphere.
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Schulenburg, Jane Tibbetts. Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
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Examines fluctuating definitions and standards of female sanctity between the 6th and 11th century. Argues that beginning in the Carolingian era opportunities for women to attain personal influence (which had increased following the collapse of the Western Empire) diminished. This, in turn, limited their ability to be recognized as saints.
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Smith, Julia M. H. “Did Women Have a Transformation of the Roman World?” Gender & History 12 (2000): 552–571.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.00200Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses the relevance of gender analysis to current scholarly debates on the “transformation of the Roman World,” especially as it pertains to identity construction, labor, domestic space, property, and political ideologies.
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Stafford, Pauline. Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early Middle Ages. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1983.
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A “composite” or comparative biography of royal women in early medieval Europe, and their opportunities for exercising political power. Queens discussed include Radegund, Brunhild, and Balthild.
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Law and Society

Many narrow, technical studies of early medieval law codes and legislation have been published since the 19th century. The oft-cited essay “Lex Scripta and Verbum Regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship, from Euric to Cnut,” included in Wormald 1999, controversially, but influentially, argued that legal sources should be read less as codified legal systems than as ideological expressions of royal power. In general, it has become increasingly common for historians to subsume legal history within a broader sociopolitical context. This trend is exemplified in the three volumes produced by the so-called Bucknell Group (named after the location where the British historians who comprise the group originally assembled), that is, Davies and Fouracre 1986, Davies and Fouracre 1995, and Davies and Fouracre 2014, which privilege charter evidence in opposition to normative legal sources, and apply anthropological theory to the study of these documents. Similarly, the studies of immunity and exemption grants by Rosenwein 1999 and of formularies by Rio 2009 consciously integrate social and legal history, while Wallace-Hadrill 1962 and more recently the essays collected in Halsall 1998 constitute efforts to understand the social significance of violence in early medieval society.

Davies, Wendy, and Paul Fouracre, eds. The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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The first of three published volumes of collected essays by a group of British historians known as the “Bucknell Group.” The essays in this volume examine, from a comparative perspective, dispute settlement, privileging charter evidence rather than normative legal sources.
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Davies, Wendy, and Paul Fouracre, eds. Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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The second of three published volumes of collected essays by a group of British historians known as the “Bucknell Group.” The essays in this volume examine, from a comparative perspective, and with an emphasis on charter evidence, the significance of property for the exercise of political authority.
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Davies, Wendy, and Paul Fouracre, eds. The Languages of Gift in the Early Middle Ages. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
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The third of three published volumes of collected essays by a group of British historians known as the “Bucknell Group.” The essays in this volume examine, from a comparative perspective, the social significance of gift-giving and the language of gifting in early medieval Europe.
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Halsall, Guy, ed. Violence and Society in the Early Medieval West. Rochester, NY: Boydell, 1998.
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A collection of essays that discuss violence in a variety of social and political contexts prefaced by a helpful introduction by the editor.
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Rio, Alice. Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle Ages. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511581359Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Proposes a methodology for utilizing formularies as evidence, particularly for social history. Rio shows how earlier efforts to define “urtexts” of formularies impeded efforts to edit these texts. She argues that from an evidentiary perspective formulae are best understood as “descriptive material turned into normative form” (p. 198).
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Rosenwein, Barbara. Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.
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Examines the development of royal immunity grants and episcopal exemptions conferred upon monastic institutions. Rosenwein shows that immunities were a means by which monarchs asserted their authority and established alliances.
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Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. “The Bloodfeud of the Franks.” In The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in Frankish History. Edited by J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, 121–147. London: Methuen, 1962.
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A seminal, but in recent decades challenged, examination of extrajudicial dispute settlement in the Merovingian kingdoms. Wallace-Hadrill understands feuding as “widespread and frequent procedures to reach composition-settlement necessarily hovering on the edge of bloodshed” (p. 147).
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Wormald, Patrick. Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West: Law as Text, Image, and Experience. London: Hambledon, 1999.
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A collection of previously published essays, primarily focused on English law, but also containing “Lex Scripta and Verbum Regis: Legislation and Germanic Kingship, from Euric to Cnut,” an influential, but controversial, study, which argues that written law in the barbarian kingdoms should be understood as ideological statements.
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Barbarian Ethnicity, Policy, and Accommodation

For the entire length of its history, the Roman Empire defined both itself and its borders in opposition to “barbarians” who lived beyond the limits of imperial jurisdiction. As Wood 2013, cited under Historiography, discusses, the means by which some of these barbarians were able to establish independent polities within the borders of the former Western Empire has been the subject of scholarly debate since the Reformation era. In addition, with the more recent abandonment of racial theories of national origins, historians have sought new ways of understanding the identity formation of these barbarian groups.

Barbarian and Roman Relations

Not long ago, the British historian Guy Halsall characterized the debate over the barbarians’ effect on the Roman West as one between “movers” and “shakers,” with the former stressing the critical impact of barbarian invasions on the empire and the latter preferring to see the barbarians more as an effect than as a cause of the traumas of Late Antiquity (see Noble 2006, cited under Barbarian Identity). The most influential “shaker” indisputably has been Walter Goffart, who has argued at length (Goffart 1980 and Goffart 2006) that there was no collective Germanic impulse to destroy the Roman Empire, and that the imperial government made every effort to co-opt the barbarians for its own purposes. The latter necessitated “accommodation,” which Goffart has argued took the form of assigned tax proceeds. Not everyone has been convinced by Goffart’s positions, and both Heather 1991 and Heather 2005 and, even more rigorously, Ward-Perkins 2005 argue the “mover” perspective. Halsall 2008 himself espouses a more “moderate” shaker position. The many volumes of the Transformation of the Roman World 1997–2004 include contributions from across the spectrum of debate, although as Ward-Perkins 2005 has argued, the very title of the project is suggestive more of continuity than dramatic and violent change.

Goffart, Walter. Barbarians and Romans, AD 418–584: The Techniques of Accommodation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.
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Influential reevaluation of the means by which barbarians were “accommodated” within the Roman Empire. Goffart argues that the imperial government did not reassign to barbarians privately owned properties, but rather their tax assessment and proceeds.
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Goffart, Walter. Barbarian Tides. The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
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Goffart synthesizes his recent thinking on barbarian historiography, accommodation, and ethnogenesis, responding forcibly to the arguments of his critics.
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Halsall, Guy. Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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An introductory text, which engages directly and at length with the many debates surrounding the role of the barbarians in the transformation of the Roman world. Halsall concludes that the barbarians were not the cause of these transformations, but rather a “focal point.”
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Heather, Peter. Goths and Romans, 332–489. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.
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Heather, the author and editor of a number of books on the Goths, analyzes here the relations between the Goths and the Roman imperial government.
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Heather, Peter. The Fall of the Roman Empire. A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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Aimed at a general readership, Heather’s account of the fate of the Western Roman Empire privileges the role of the barbarians in its collapse.
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Transformation of the Roman World. 14 vols. Series Editor Ian Wood. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1997–2004.
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The multivolume product of a major research initiative sponsored by the European Science Foundation, focusing on those transformative centuries during which imperial rule in the West gave way to barbarian kingdoms. Individual volumes are thematic, covering from a comparative perspective such topics as agriculture, urbanism, communication, and identity formation.
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Ward-Perkins, Bryan. The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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A brief, polemical work, which takes issue with the trend in recent historiography to privilege continuity over catastrophe in characterizing the transformation of the Western Roman Empire during Late Antiquity.
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Barbarian Identity

Since the mid-20th century there has been a broad consensus among early medieval historians that those barbarian groups that established themselves within the borders of the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity did not constitute racially-pure tribes, whose ethnicity was defined solely on the basis of genetic kinship. Not only were barbarian armies generally multiethnic, it is now commonly accepted that ethnicity in this period was, at least in part, socially constructed. Wenskus 1961 argued influentially that barbarian group identity was, in fact, defined by an elite nucleus that preserved important traditions and beliefs, to which other group members subscribed. Wenskus’s theory was refined and applied by Wolfram 1988, which established ethnogenesis as a standard model for defining barbarian identity. Wolfram, his students, and associated scholars are frequently referred to as the “Vienna School.” Geary 2001 is, in part, an effort to popularize ethnogenesis, and to employ it for the purpose of undermining traditional nationalistic narratives. However, ethnogenesis has come under attack by a number of scholars, particularly those associated with the so-called “Toronto School” centered around Walter Goffart, for example, Gillett 2002. Although not explicitly an attack on ethnogenesis, Goffart 2005 is an effort to undermine the belief that the early written histories of barbarian peoples preserve intact ancient oral traditions. Goffart 2006, cited under Barbarian and Roman Relations, also has challenged even the use of the nomenclature “German” or “Germanic” to describe the barbarians of Late Antiquity, arguing that “Ancient Germany wholly lacked unity or a center. The myth of its existence as a collective phenomenon stems from two creative moments: Justinian’s Constantinople and 16th-century Germany” (p. 7). Others have shared Goffart’s discomfort with the notion of a collective Germanic culture or consciousness, arguing for instance (as has Ian Wood) that the so-called “barbarian law codes” of the Early Middle Ages were more reflective of Roman provincial or vulgar law than ancient Germanic custom. Murray 1983 is another important product of the Toronto School, which challenges traditional views of Germanic society as clan-based. Debates over barbarian identity also are addressed in many of the contributions to Ausenda 1995–2014, which attempt to apply anthropological models and theories to the study of barbarian peoples. Noble 2006 provides a helpful introduction to some of these debates by collecting important essays by a number of the leading disputants. Despite its putatively pejorative connotations, the label “barbarian” has continued to be utilized by most of the aforementioned authors to describe these peoples, as this was a contemporary label, whereas the terms “German” or “Germanic” imply an anachronistic collective identity.

Ausenda, Giorgio, ed. Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology. 9 vols. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 1995–2014.
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Multivolume series, whose volumes derive from conferences held at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Social Stress in San Marino. Each volume is devoted to a particular barbarian people or peoples (including the Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Visigoths, and Scandinavians), and contains both papers and transcribed discussions, which draw upon anthropological theory.
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Geary, Patrick. The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
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Written for a broad readership, Geary’s book is an effort to undermine those nationalistic myths regarding the origins of peoples that have been “projected” back onto the Early Middle Ages.
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Gillett, Andrew, ed. On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Identity in the Early Middle Ages. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2002.
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The collected essays contained herein adopt a critical approach toward ethnogenesis theory, with the majority of contributors taking issue with the methodologies associated with the Vienna school.
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Goffart, Walter. The Narrators of Barbarian History. Updated ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.
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Argues that Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon were not naive transcribers of the origins, wanderings, and deeds of barbarian peoples, but rather writers with sophisticated authorial agendas motivated by contemporary concerns.
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Murray, Alexander C. Germanic Kinship Structure. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983.
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Undermines the longstanding view of Germanic society as defined by unilineal clans and lineages, and demonstrates that early Germanic kinship was defined largely by bilateralism.
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Noble, Thomas F. X. From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms. London: Routledge, 2006.
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Useful collection of republished scholarly essays on the themes of “Barbarian Ethnicity and Identity,” “Accommodating the Barbarians,” and “Barbarians and Romans in Merovingian Gaul.”
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Wenskus, Reinhard. Stammesbildung und Verfassung: Das Werden der Frühmittelalterlichen gentes. Cologne, Germany: Böhlau, 1961.
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Introduces the paradigm of the “nucleus of tradition” that would be developed further by Herwig Wolfram and his students (the so-called “Vienna School”) as a means of understanding barbarian ethnogenesis without the assumption of racial or genetic uniformity.
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Wolfram, Herwig. History of the Goths. Translated by T. J. Dunlap. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
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A dense, learned, and fundamental study, which adopts and further develops Wenskus’s ethnogenesis model in relation to the Gothic identity. Originally published in German as Geschichte der Goten in 1979.
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Jews in Western Europe

Complicating the study of Jews in early medieval western Europe is not only the paucity of sources produced by the Jews themselves, but the uncertain evidentiary value of documents authored by antagonistic Christian polemicists. This methodological conundrum is discussed at length by both Blumenkranz 1964 and Toch 2013, which reach opposing conclusions. The diverse sources for Jewish habitation and status in Spain and Gaul are surveyed, with minimal critical commentary, by Katz 1937. Linder 1997 and Noy 2005 provide annotated texts and translations of legal documents (secular and canonical) and Jewish-authored inscriptions respectively. The Gallic inscriptions have been further discussed by Handley 2000, who reads them as evidence for an atmosphere of relative religious toleration. The best broad overviews are Blumenkranz 1960 and Bachrach 1977, both of which (the latter more forcefully) posit Jewish communities that enjoyed both tolerance and sociopolitical influence in this period.

Bachrach, Bernard S. Early Medieval Jewish Policy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977.
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A conscious effort to break from a traditionally “lachrymose” narrative of medieval Jewish history. Bachrach sees the Jews of Italy, Francia, and Iberia as constituting politically and economically influential constituencies.
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Blumenkranz, Bernhard. Juifs et Chrétiens dans le monde occidental, 430–1096. Paris: Mouton, 1960.
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An older work, but arguably still the best general introduction to the history of Jews in early medieval Europe, and one that stresses Jewish sociopolitical influence rather than victimization.
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Blumenkranz, Bernhard. “Anti-Jewish Polemics and Legislation in the Middle Ages: Literary Fiction or Reality?” Journal of Jewish Studies 15 (1964): 125–140.
DOI: 10.18647/506/JJS-1964Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Addresses, in general terms, the crucial methodological issue of whether the Jews referred to in narrative and legal sources are hermeneutical constructs or reflective of real persons and communities. Blumenkranz leans in favor of the latter proposition.
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Handley, Mark A. “‘This Stone Shall Be a Witness’ (Joshua 24.27): Jews, Christians, and Inscriptions in Early Medieval Gaul.” In Christian-Jewish Relations through the Centuries. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Brook W. R. Pearson, 239–254. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.
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Study of the slim epigraphic corpus of Jewish inscriptions from Gaul. Concludes from the fact that common workshops also produced Christian inscriptions that Jews were a tolerated minority.
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Katz, Solomon. The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1937.
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Provides a comprehensive and comparative survey of evidence for Jewish life and policy in Iberia and Gaul. Katz provides minimal analysis of this evidence, however, as well as few general conclusions.
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Linder, Amnon. The Jews in the Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997.
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An anthology of secular and canonical sources of early medieval Jewish policy. Contains both the original Latin texts and English translations. The commentary on individual prescriptions is limited.
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Noy, David. Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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Two-volume (Vol. 1: Gaul, Spain, and Italy; Vol. 2: Rome), geographically arranged, collection with translations. Each inscription receives extensive commentary and bibliography.
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Toch, Michael. The Economic History of European Jews. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013.
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A reevaluation of Jewish demography and economic activity in the late antique and early medieval Mediterranean. Toch argues that due to the polemical nature of so many of the relevant sources, one cannot assume that the Jews described in these texts reflect real persons.
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British Kingdoms

The transition between the imperial and post-imperial era in Britain is usually described in more catastrophic terms than with other former Roman provinces. Nevertheless, as Fleming 2010 emphasizes, urban decline and economic turmoil may have preceded the arrival of continental barbarians to British shores. Furthermore, both Fleming 2010 and Halsall 2013 emphasize that these continental barbarians did not transpose onto a new landscape pre-established (and distinct) ethnic identities. The individual essays collected in Bassett 1989 focus more specifically on the development of new polities in sub-Roman Britain. Davies 1982, in turn, examines the development of Welsh political, economic, social, and ecclesiastical structures, contextualizing them in relation to the local landscape and environment. Mayr-Harting 1991 and Yorke 2006 both analyze the Christianization of the British polities, and suggest (contra the Venerable Bede) that the Christianizing impulse did not have a single source in papal Rome. DeGregorio 2010 offers a broad overview of Bede’s life, writings, theology, and influence. Blair 2005 adopts the prospective of institutional history in order to reconstruct the local ecclesiastical organization that defined the Anglo-Saxon Church.

Bassett, Steven, ed. The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. London: Leicester University Press, 1989.
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A collection of thematically linked essays, primarily regional in focus, with a general introduction by Bassett. In his introduction, Bassett proposes several models for the formation of kingdoms: that is, the gradual merging of existing settlements and the forcible occupation of a region by outsiders (who initially may have arrived as mercenaries).
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Blair, John. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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Examines local ecclesiastical organization in Pre-Conquest England through a focus on the “minster,” which Blair defines as a “complex ecclesiastical settlement . . . which contain nuns, monks, priests, or laity in a variety of possible combinations and is united to a greater or lesser extent by their liturgy and devotions” (p. 3).
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Davies, Wendy. Wales in the Early Middle Ages. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1982.
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Topically organized history of Wales from the Roman period through the Norman Conquest. Davies sees geography as playing a crucial role in shaping Wales’ economic, social, and political development.
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DeGregorio, Scott, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Bede. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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A helpful multi-authored introduction, which includes short studies of Bede’s life, writings (including their political and intellectual contexts), and influence.
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Fleming, Robin. Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400–1070. London: Allen Lane, 2010.
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A much-praised survey text particularly notable for its integration of documentary and archaeological evidence, which allows the author to focus less on known political figures and events and more on the anonymous many who constituted the bulk of the population.
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Halsall, Guy. The Worlds of Arthur. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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Surveys the evidence (or, as the case may be, lack thereof) for a “historical” King Arthur, while also engaging critically with the historiography on post-Roman Britain. Suggests that Saxon migration from the continent was gradual, and that subsequent conflicts can be understood as being between competing “Romano-barbarian factions.”
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Mayr-Harting, Henry. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. 3d ed. London: Batsford, 1991.
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Introductory text, which contextualizes the Anglo-Saxon embrace of Christianity, in part by emphasizing the multiplicity of influences that contributed to the development of a uniquely Anglo-Saxon Christianity.
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Yorke, Barbara. The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 600–800. Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2006.
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Introductory survey of the Christianization of Britain (and the institutional and cultural repercussions thereof), distinguishing between its four major “peoples”: the British, Picts, Irish, and Anglo-Saxons.
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Irish Kingdoms

Ireland, unlike the other regions surveyed in this bibliography, was never part of the Roman Empire. However, a number of the works cited below emphasize connections between the island and the rest of Europe. Ó Cróinín 2005 provides the most comprehensive overview of early medieval Irish history. Byrne 1973 is the classic study of the institutions of monarchy, while Charles-Edwards 2000 is particularly successful for integrating Irish history into a broader European context. Hughes 1972 offers analysis and commentary on the documentary and material sources that survive from early medieval Ireland.

Byrne, F. J. Irish Kings and High-Kings. London: Batsford, 1973.
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Influential study of early medieval Irish kingship, with discussion of both general characteristics and of specific regional lines. Observes that while kings were organized into hierarchical federations, the high-kingship of Tara had no political reality prior to the strengthening of the Uí Néill dynasty’s influence in the 9th century.
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Charles-Edwards, T. M. Early Christian Ireland. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511495588Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important survey of early medieval Irish history, with particular attention paid to religious and ecclesiastical themes. Charles-Edwards includes significant discussions of Columbanus’s continental career as well as the debates over Easter computus.
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Hughes, Kathleen. Early Christian Ireland: Introduction to the Sources. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972.
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Includes introductory discussions of types and genres of material and documentary sources for early medieval Irish history, including secular and ecclesiastical literature, legal documents, coins, and architecture.
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Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí, ed. A New History of Ireland 1: Prehistoric and Early Ireland. Oxford: Clarendon, 2005.
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Multiauthored history of Ireland through the 12th century. The topical chapters include essays on law, literature, environment, settlement, politics, and the arts.
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Vandal Kingdom

Similar to the historiographies devoted to other contemporary barbarian peoples, the scholarship on the Vandals has long been preoccupied with the question of sociopolitical continuity following the retraction of Roman imperial rule. Courtois 1955, long the basic study of the Vandal Kingdom, maintains that the Vandals pursued no conscious de-Romanization agenda. A more recent broad survey, Merrills and Miles 2010, similarly finds evidence for sociopolitical continuities, as do many of the contributors to Merrills 2004. Ennabli 1997 and Leone 2007 focus specifically on changes in urban topography from Late Antiquity through the Arab conquests. Conant 2012 takes a novel approach to the issue of continuity, by focusing on Roman identity before, during, and after the Vandal epoch. Mandouze 1982, cited under Reference Works, provides valuable prosopographical information on individual Christians in late antique Africa up through AD 533.

Conant, Jonathan. Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139048101Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Relying in part on a prosopographical database of over Nineteen hundred persons, Conant explores how Roman identity was defined and exploited, particularly by elites, in the Vandal and Byzantine eras.
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Courtois, Christian. Les Vandales et l’Afrique. Paris: Arts et métiers graphiques, 1955.
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The seminal study; challenged in some of its particulars since publication, but still much cited by more recent scholars. Merrills and Miles 2010 contextualizes its composition and approach to Vandal history.
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Ennabli, Liliane. Carthage: Une métropole chrétienne du IVe à la fin du VIIe siècle. Paris: CNRS Editions, 1997.
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A study of the documentary and material evidence pertaining to the Christian topography of Carthage (including the identification of over thirty religious sites), and its development from the Late Roman through the Byzantine era.
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Leone, Anna. Changing Townscapes in North Africa from Late Antiquity to the Arab Conquest. Munera 28. Bari, Italy: Edipuglia, 2007.
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Examines urban transformation (and Christianization) in three North African provinces: Zeugitana, Byzacena, and Tripolitana.
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Merrills, Andrew, ed. Vandals, Romans and Berbers: New Perspectives on Late Antique Africa. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004.
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Contains short studies of North African identities, religion, and literature in the Vandal era. Notable for its emphasis on cultural and intellectual history.
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Merrills, Andrew, and Richard Miles. The Vandals. Oxford: Wiley, 2010.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444318074Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An effort to define the current state of the question regarding Vandal North Africa, with very useful discussion of historiography.
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Visigothic Kingdom

Although the historiography of the Visigothic Kingdom is comparatively less extensive than that devoted to the Frankish Kingdom, Ferreiro 1988 and its continuations establish unequivocally the range and enormity of scholarship that has been produced. There are several useful English-language introductions to Visigothic history. Roger Collins has authored no less than three surveys of early medieval Iberian history, with two volumes, Collins 1989 and Collins 2004, surveying the establishment and ultimate destruction of the Visigothic Kingdom. While older works, Thompson 1969 and King 1972 offer useful insights on administration and law. Stocking 2000 analyzes the politico-religious value of consensus, and its application in the Visigothic Kingdom. James 1980 and Ferreiro 1999 are both edited volumes whose contents address a wide variety of topics, such as identity formation, religious diversity in Visigothic Iberia, and economic conditions within the kingdom.

Collins, Roger. The Arab Conquest of Spain: 710–797. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
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Provides not only an overview of the establishment and consolidation of Muslim rule in Iberia, but also an analysis of the repercussions of the conquest on Christian communities both inside and external to Al-Andalus.
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Collins, Roger. Visigothic Spain 409–711. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
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Part 1 provides a clear political narrative of Visigothic history. Part 2 adopts a thematic approach, with discussions of intellectual culture, material culture, settlement, law, and ethnicity.
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Ferreiro, Alberto. The Visigoths in Gaul and Spain: A.D. 418–711: A Bibliography. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1988
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Topically organized and remarkable in its breadth, Ferreiro’s bibliography is an immensely useful research tool. Periodic updates have been published since the original volume, in 2006, 2008, and 2011 respectively.
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Ferreiro, Alberto, ed. The Visigoths: Studies in Culture and Society. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1999.
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A collection of essays, which apply both historical and archaeological perspectives to the study of the Visigoths and early medieval Iberia.
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James, Edward, ed. Visigothic Spain: New Approaches. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980.
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An edited collection, which includes among its contents Jacques Fontaine’s frequently cited study of Sisebut’s Life of Desiderius.
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King, P. D. Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
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A study of Visigothic law (primarily in the form of King Ervig’s recension of 681), and its relevance for the political, ecclesiastical, and social history of the kingdom.
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Stocking, Rachel L. Bishops, Councils, and Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom, 589–633. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
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Discusses the socio-religious ideal of Christian consensus as reflected in the acts of the Catholic church councils of Visigothic Spain.
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Thompson, E. A. The Goths in Spain. Oxford: Clarendon, 1969.
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An older, but still useful, general study, of the Visigoths in Spain (as opposed to Spain in the Visigothic period), with a particular focus on the relations between Goths and Romans within the contexts of society, politics, and religion.
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Ostrogothic, Lombard, and Papal Italy

The political fragmentation of post-Roman Italy is reflected in the historiography, with only a few English-language monographs, for example, Wickham 1981 and Christie 2006, attempting to survey the entire history of the peninsula between the 5th and 8th centuries. Additionally, Pietri, et al. 1999–2000, cited under Reference Works, provides prosopographical information on Italian Christians c. 313–604. Most publications, however, have focused on individual polities. On the Ostrogothic regime, Moorhead 1992 offers a detailed study of Theodoric’s rule, while Amory 1997 focuses more on the definition of group identity in that kingdom. Bjornlie 2013 is an effort to understand the authorial program underlying the Variae, the collected royal correspondence composed by Cassiodorus that constitutes the most significant source for the political history of the Ostrogothic realm. Papal Italy is the subject of Noble 1984, which is complemented by Markus 1997, which concentrates solely on the pontificate of Pope Gregory I (the Great). Christie 1999 surveys Lombard culture and political history.

Amory, Patrick. People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523069Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
With particular attention paid to prosopographical data, Amory argues that Gothic identity in Italy was a relatively short-lived political construct.
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Bjornlie, M. Shane. Politics and Tradition between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople: A Study of Cassiodorus and the Variae, 527–554. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
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Argues that the Variae, as compiled in the 540s by Cassiodorus, constituted an apologetic (even polemical) work aimed at an audience of imperial bureaucrats.
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Christie, Neil. The Lombards. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
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An introduction to the Lombards with particular attention paid to archaeological evidence.
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Christie, Neil. From Constantine to Charlemagne: An Archaeology of Italy, AD 300–800. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006.
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Archaeologist Christie focuses upon four major themes in this lengthy book: “Church and Society,” “Urban Evolutions,” “Defense and Power,” and “Rural Settlement and Patterns of Change.” Emphasizes that the period under examination was characterized by significant change, while nevertheless stressing the “adaptation and resilience” of the Italian population.
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Markus, R. A. Gregory the Great and His World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139171236Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Provides both a historical contextualization of Gregory’s career, as well as an introduction to his theological perspective.
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Moorhead, John. Theoderic in Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
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A study of Theodoric’s rule in Italy; only the first chapter covers the years prior to his arrival. Moorhead stresses Theodoric’s political and military achievements, as well as the Roman character of the Ostrogothic polity under his rule.
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Noble, Thomas F. X. The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680–825. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984.
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Argues that an independent papal state, the Republic of St. Peter, took cohesive form prior to Charlemagne’s Italian conquests (i.e., beginning in the late 7th century), and retained its autonomy into the Carolingian era.
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Wickham, Chris. Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Authority, 400–1000. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1981.
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The best English-language introductory text for the history of Italy in the Early Middle Ages, which encompasses the Late Roman, Ostrogothic, Byzantine, and Lombard regimes.
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Frankish Kingdom

The Kingdom of the Franks (which, in the Merovingian era, was constituted most of the time by several sub-kingdoms and duchies) was both the longest surviving continental barbarian polity, as well as the most comprehensively studied by modern scholars. Scholarly interest in the Franks has been stimulated, at least in part, by their relevance for the national histories of several modern European states. Due to the inherent biases and limitations of the available source material, the political and religious conditions of the Frankish Kingdom have received the greatest attention, although there have been significant studies of social conditions and relations, for example, Halsall 2010, cited under Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

Source Criticism

Particularly since the publication of Goffart 2005, first published in 1988, cited under Barbarian Identity, scholars have been increasingly conscious of the sophistication of early medieval historians, as well as the authorial agendas underlying their narratives. Not surprisingly, Gregory of Tours, whose Decem Libri Historiarum (Ten Books of Histories) is the most detailed source for 6th-century Gallic history, has received the bulk of scholarly attention. Weidemann 1982 provides a Gregorian encyclopedia, breaking down topically the vast array of data contained in the bishop’s literary corpus, while Heinzelmann 2001 takes the opposite approach by identifying a unifying theological program underlying Gregory’s writings. Mitchell and Wood 2002 collects essays on a wide variety of topics related to Gregory’s life and corpus. Murray 2008 is the most recent effort to date the composition of the Historiae. The literary and political contexts of the poems of Gregory’s contemporary and friend Venantius Fortunatus are explored by George 1992. Compared to Gregory’s historical writings, the terser chronicle sources for 7th- and 8th-century Gallic history have received comparatively less study. Collins 2007 and Gerberding 1987 examine questions of authorial identity and agenda for Fredegar’s Chronica and the Liber Historiae Francorum respectively.

Collins, Roger. Die Fredegar-Chroniken. Hannover, Germany: Hahn, 2007.
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The most comprehensive introduction to Fredegar’s Chronica, and the debates surrounding its composition. Collins demonstrates the necessity of distinguishing between the Merovingian chronicle, compiled around 660, and the 8th-century Carolingian revision, that is, the Historia vel Gesta Francorum.
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George, Judith. Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
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Contextualizes the poetic corpus of the 6th-century poet Venantius Fortunatus, paying particular attention to those poems addressed to Frankish royalty, nobility, or prominent ecclesiastics.
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Gerberding, Richard. The Rise of the Carolingians and the Liber Historiae Francorum. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
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Asserts the historical value of the heretofore undervalued Liber Historiae Francorum whose composition Gerberding credits to an 8th-century “Merovingian legitimist” from Neustria (albeit one receptive to the Pippinids), who was associated with Saint-Médard in Soissons.
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Heinzelmann, Martin. Gregory of Tours: History and Society in the Sixth Century. Translated by Christopher Carroll. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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Originally published in German as Gregor von Tours (538–594). Zehn Bücher Geschichte: Historiographie und Gesellschaftskonzept im 6. Jahrhundert in 1994, this is a stimulating effort to identify the theological perspective underlying the contents and structure of Gregory’s Histories. Heinzelmann understands Gregory to be essentially an eschatological thinker, who prioritized cooperation between the Frankish monarchy and episcopate in the governance of the Frankish Kingdom.
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Mitchell, Kathleen, and Ian Wood, eds. The World of Gregory of Tours. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
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A collection of essays by an international roster of scholars, who explore various aspects of Gregory’s literary corpus. Topics include Gregory’s discussions of regions and peoples outside of Gaul, his treatment of military matters, and his narrative style and techniques.
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Murray, Alexander C. “Chronology and the Composition of the Histories of Gregory of Tours.” Journal of Late Antiquity 1 (2008): 157–196.
DOI: 10.1353/jla.0.0004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that Gregory’s Decem Libri Historiarum were composed during those years that King Childebert II controlled Tours, 585–594 CE.
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Weidemann, Margarete. Kulturgeschichte der Merowingerzeit nach den Werken Gregors von Tours. Mainz, Germany: Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 1982.
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A massive and indispensable encyclopedic survey of Gregory of Tours’ literary corpus, including useful prosopographical information.
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Politics and War

A prevalent theme of Frankish political history is the dichotomy between institutional continuity on the one hand, and political turbulence and regular military activity on the other. Wood 1994, while also including discussions of Frankish law, culture, and social organization, is the clearest and most comprehensive introduction to the complex political events of the Merovingian era. The reign of Clovis I, whose military victories assured Frankish political preeminence in Gaul, unsurprisingly has been much studied. Daly 1994 offers a good introduction to the contemporary sources for Clovis’s career, while stressing the extent to which this “barbarian” king’s rule reflected Roman imperial traditions. In turn, the essays collected in Meier and Patzold 2014 situate Clovis’s reign in a broader post-Roman political context. The transitional period between Merovingian and Carolingian rule of Francia similarly has received considerable attention in recent decades, with historians emphasizing the extent to which the “victors” rewrote the history of this period. Jarnut, et al. 1994, Fouracre 2000, and Becher and Jarnut 2004 contextualize events surrounding the rise of the Pippinid family and their eventual deposition of the Merovingians, emphasizing continuity in opposition to dramatic change. Both Bachrach 1972 and Murray 1994, in their examinations of specific military and political institutions, identify Roman antecedents for Frankish administration. Although relatively short, and focused solely on two paired case-studies, Nelson 1986, cited under Women, Gender, and Sexuality, remains the most important and insightful study of Merovingian queenship.

Bachrach, Bernard. Merovingian Military Organization, 481–751. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972.
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A chronological study of Merovingian military history, which concludes, in the author’s words, that military organization in Frankish Gaul “recalls Romania and not Germania” (p. 128).
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Becher, Matthias, and Jörg Jarnut, eds. Der Dynastiewechsel von 751: Vorgeschichte, Legitimationsstrategien und Erinnerung. Münster, Germany: Scriptorium, 2004.
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A multilingual collection of essays that deal with issues related to the coronation of Pippin III as Frankish king, and the deposing of the Merovingian dynasty.
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Daly, William M. “Clovis: How Barbaric, How Pagan?” Speculum 69.3 (1994): 619–664.
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Reexamines the sources for the reign of Clovis I, prioritizing those actually contemporary with that king’s reign, as opposed to the more detailed (but decidedly non-contemporary) narrative of Gregory of Tours. Daly argues that these sources do not reveal Clovis to be so much a “barbarian warrior-chieftain” as a “Romanized German king” (pp. 662–623).
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Fouracre, Paul. The Age of Charles Martel. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2000.
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In a study of the career and times of Charles Martel, Fouracre questions a number of the key elements of the traditional narrative of Charles’s career, including the long-term significance of the Battle of Poitiers, and his reputation as the secularizer par excellence of ecclesiastical property.
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Jarnut, Jörg, Ulrich Nonn, and Michael Richter, eds. Karl Martell in seiner Zeit. Sigmaringen, Germany: Thorbecke, 1994.
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A multilingual (but primarily German language) collection of essays that attempt to contextualize and reevaluate the career of the Pippinid mayor Charles Martel.
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Meier, Mischa, and Steffen Patzold, eds. Chlodwigs Welt: Organisation von Herrschaft um 500. Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner, 2014.
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A collection of German- and English-language essays focusing on political history in the era of Clovis, with a particular emphasis on Gaul.
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Murray, Alexander C. “Immunity, Nobility, and the Edict of Paris.” Speculum 69.1 (1994): 18–39.
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One of several interrelated technical studies by the author on Merovingian legal institutions and public order. Murray glosses the reference to judicial immunities in the Edict of Paris (614), and argues that these royal exemptions were not reflective of ancient Germanic custom.
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Wood, Ian. The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450– 751. London: Longman, 1994.
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Wood’s survey text, still the best available in English, combines chronological and topical coverage in an examination of the regnum Francorum under the Merovingian monarchy.
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Religious Culture

There is no single comprehensive and systematic overview of Gallic ecclesiastical or religious history; Wallace-Hadrill 1983 remains the best introduction. The processes by which the Gallic population and culture became Christianized have been of particular interest to scholars. Both Van Dam 1985 and Klingshirn 1994 emphasize that Christianization occurred within the context of individual communities, rather than as a collective or “national” phenomenon. Gauthier, et al. 1986–, in turn, examines Christianization through the development of ecclesiastical landscapes, populated by basilicas, shrines, and monasteries, throughout the individual provinces and civitates of Gaul. Hen 1995 argues on the basis of liturgical evidence that the Christianization of Gaul was, for all intents and purpose, complete by the Merovingian era. Regarding those clerics and monks who led Christianization efforts, Heinzelmann 1976 emphasizes the aristocratic heritage of many Gallic bishops, while Patzold 2010 warns against excessive generalization. Prinz 1965 examines the blending and transformation of monastic traditions within Gaul during the course of the Merovingian period, providing the best overview of Gallic monastic history. Prosopographical information on individual Gallic Christians up through the early Merovingian era can be found in Pietri and Heijmans 2013, cited under Reference Works.

Gauthier, Nancy, J.-C. Picard, and Noël Duval, eds. Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule, des origines au milieu du VIIIe siècle. 15 vols. Paris: De Boccard, 1986–.
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Organized by ecclesiastical province, each volume surveys succinctly, but comprehensively, the documentary and archaeological evidence related to the development of Christianized landscapes within individual civitates.
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Heinzelmann, Martin. Bischofsherrschaft in Gallien. Munich: Artemis, 1976.
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An analysis of 5th- and 6th-century episcopal epitaphs, which provides evidence for the aristocratic domination of the Gallic episcopate, including the establishment of episcopal “dynasties.”
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Hen, Yitzhak. Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul A.D. 481–751. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1995.
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Argues that Merovingian-era Gaul was thoroughly Christianized, basing his conclusion to large degree on a detailed study of liturgical texts and traditions, which he categorizes into temporal, sanctoral, and personal cycles.
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Klingshirn, William. Caesarius of Arles: The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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A study of the early-6th-century bishop, during whose tenure Arles went from Visigothic to Ostrogothic to Frankish rule. Klingshirn devotes particular attention to the relationship between Caesarius and that community he sought to Christianize.
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Patzold, Steffen. “Zur Sozialstruktur des Episkopats und zur Ausbildung bischöflicher Herrschaft in Gallien zwischen Spätantike und Frühmittelalter.” In Völker, Reiche und Namen im frühen Mittelalter. Edited by Matthias Becher and Stefanie Dick, 121–140. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2010.
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Offers a corrective to the tendency of historians to generalize the Gallic episcopate as constituted entirely by aristocrats of senatorial descent.
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Prinz, Friedrich. Frühes Mönchtum im Frankenreich. Vienna: Oldenbourg, 1965.
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While some of its conclusions and classifications have been challenged in recent decades, Prinz’s book remains the fundamental study of monasticism in the Frankish Kingdom.
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Van Dam, Raymond. Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
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Wide-ranging study of local communities and elites, which addresses, among other topics, the relations between local and central authorities, Christianization, and the social significance of relic cults.
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Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. The Frankish Church. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.
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While not entirely comprehensive in its coverage, due in part to its origins as a series of lectures, Wallace-Hadrill’s book remains the best overview of the Frankish Church under the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties.
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Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Reflecting the limitations of the documentary record, modern historical studies of Frankish women have tended to privilege elites, both secular and ecclesiastical. Wemple 1985 remains the most comprehensive survey, although more recent publications have challenged some of its assumptions. Adopting the approach of two paired case-studies, Nelson 1986 is the most important and insightful study of Merovingian queenship. Réal 2001 examines in detail familial relationships, privileging hagiographical evidence. Reflecting broader historiographical trends, a number of studies have appeared in the last twenty years that look at the construction of gender identities in the regnum Francorum. Halsall 2010, for example, examines this process through linked studies of mortuary practices. Kitchen 1998 and Gradowicz-Pancer 2002, however, question respectively whether gender distinctions were historically significant in defining sanctity and in motivating female violence in this period.

Gradowicz-Pancer, Nina. “De-gendering Female Violence: Merovingian Female Honour as an ‘Exchange of Violence’.” Early Medieval Europe 11.1 (2002): 1–18.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-0254.00098Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that female violence in Merovingian Gaul should be understood in relation to a non-gender-specific code of honor.
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Halsall, Guy. Cemeteries and Society in Merovingian Gaul. Selected Studies in History and Archaeology, 1992–2009. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.
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Collects previously published and unpublished studies of Merovingian mortuary archaeology with additional commentary. Four of the studies address the construction of gendered identities. Halsall identifies 600 CE as a significant turning point, relating the increase in weapon burials among masculine graves to a growing association between Frankish identity and free status.
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Kitchen, John. Saints’ Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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Compares differing definitions and treatment of sanctity in the hagiographical writings of Venantius Fortunatus, Gregory of Tours, and Baudonivia. Kitchen concludes: “The present search for a distinctiveness that is determined purely on the basis of gender is undoubtedly a misguided approach to the study of the Merovingian Vitae” (p. 159).
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Nelson, Janet. “Queens as Jezebels: Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History.” In Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe. Edited by Janet Nelson, 1–48. London: Hambledon, 1986.
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A seminal comparative case-study of the sources of political power available to Merovingian queens. Nelson concludes that both Brunhild and Balthild were the subjects of vicious criticism not because of their femininity, but rather because of their political policies and actions.
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Réal, Isabelle. Vies de Saints, vie de famille: représentation et système de la parenté dans le Royaume mérovingien (481–751) d’après les sources hagiographiques. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2001.
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Study of Frankish familial relationships, including matrimonial, as reflected in hagiographical literature.
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Wemple, Suzanne. Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500–900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.
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While a number of its arguments have been challenged in recent decades (e.g., the treatment of royal marital practices), Wemple’s monograph remains the most comprehensive survey of women’s history in the Frankish Kingdom. She argues that women in the Merovingian era enjoyed “unprecedented” opportunities to acquire social and economic power.
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