Review article: Continuity, culture and

the state in late antique and early

medieval Iberia

Rachel
Original
Review
L.
article
Articles
Stocking
Blackwell
Oxford,
Early
EMED

0963-9462
XXX
2007
Medieval
The
UK
Publishing
Author.
Europe
Journal
Ltd
Compilation Blackwell Publishing Ltd

R L. S

Fragmentos del Leviatn. La articulacin poltica del espacio

Zamorano en la alta edad media. By Iaki Martn Viso. Cuadernos
de investigacin 20. Zamora: Instituto de Estudios Zamoranos Florin
de Ocampo. 2000. 179 pp. + 20 b/w gures. EUR 9.02. ISBN 84
96100 02 2.
La gographie du pouvoir dans lEspagne visigothique. By Cline
Martin. Histoire et civilisations. Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. 2003. 407 pp. + 14 b/w gures. EUR 23.50. ISBN 2 859 815 5.
Hispania in Late Antiquity. Edited and Translated by Kim Bowes and
Michael Kulikowski. The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World
24. Leiden: Brill. 2005. xii + 645 pp. + 93 b/w gures. 156.00, $223.00.
ISBN 90 04 14391 2.
Visigothic Spain, 409711. By Roger Collins. History of Spain.
Oxford: Blackwell. 2004. vii + 263 pp. + 3 b/w gures. 55.00, $68.95
(hardback); 24.99, $39.95 (paperback). ISBN 0631181857 (hardback);
ISBN 1405149663 (paperback).
Until the 1970s, most studies of late antique and early medieval Iberia
focused on a monolithic entity constructed by Iberian historians concerned about the nature and origins of their own nations and identities.
The unied, centralized, Catholic Visigothic state dominated historical
narratives for decades, dening categories and methods of analysis,
questions addressed, and the basic shape of the period. While a statecentred historiography tied to national concerns was not unusual in
the twentieth century, the Iberian narratives that were generated like
the trajectory of modern Iberian history were distinct, setting both
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the history and the historians apart.1 Most obviously, the Muslim invasion in 711 created a disjuncture that had implications for understanding not only medieval Iberia but also the nature of modern Hispanidad.
The kingdoms end raised questions about its beginnings as well, carving out a Visigothic period starting with another moment of apparent
disjuncture, the end of Roman Spain, usually dated to 409. 2 This double
disjuncture complicated evaluations of Iberian continuity with both the
ancient and medieval worlds. Ultimately, the investigation of the Visigothic
states inadequacies and medieval continuities helped to undermine its
overarching historiographical dominance. In the mid-twentieth century
historians identied two areas of particular weakness, and attributed to
them profound signicance in the unfolding of Spanish national history:
the incipient privatization of power in noble hands at the expense of
the states public authority (what is now identied as protofeudalism),
and an inherent regional particularism militating against attempts at
unication.3 In the early seventies, Abilio Barbero and Marcelo Vigil
brought those two concepts together, tying institutional feudalization
to regionalized social and economic difference in parts of the northern
peninsula.4 After Francos death in 1975, the oodgates of change were
opened in all elds of Iberian historiography. Over the last thirty years,
new generations of scholars have questioned traditional narratives of
race, nationality, and religious purity, turning increasingly to regional
studies and archaeological research. This historiographical revolution
has raised new questions about the dominance of the seventh-century
1

For discussions of traditional historiography, see Collins, pp. 18; Martin, pp. 1318; Bowes
and Kulikowski, Introduction, pp. 113. A more extended discussion is found in P. Linehan,
History and Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford, 1993), pp. 194. For one Iberian perspective, see J.M. Herrera Prez, Los Visigodos y el problema de Espaa, Jornadas Internacionales
4, Los Visigodos y su mundo (Madrid, 1998), pp. 17784.
For a recent reconsideration of the effects of the fth-century invasions in Iberia, see M.
Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and its Cities (Baltimore, 2004), pp. 151214.
For protofeudalism see, for example, C. Snchez Albornoz, En torno a los orgenes del feudalismo (Mendoza, 1942), and El ejrcito visigodo: su protofeudalizacin, Cuadernos de Historia
de Espaa, 434 (1967), pp. 573; L. Garca Moreno, El n del reino visigodo de Toledo.
Decadencia y catstrofe. Una contribucin a su crtica (Madrid, 1975) and more recently, El
estado protofeudal visigodo: precedent y modelo para la Europa carolingia, in J. Fontaine
and Christine Pellistrandi (eds), LEurope hritire de lEspagne wisigothique (Madrid, 1992),
pp. 1743. On inherent Spanish particularism, see R. Gibert, El reino visigodo y el particularismo espaol, Estudios visigodos 1 (Madrid, 1956), pp. 1547. For a discussion of the inuence of this article, see Martin, pp. 824.
A. Barbero and M. Vigil, essays collected in Sobre los orgenes sociales de la Reconquista
(Barcelona, 1974) and La formacin del feudalismo en la pennsula ibrica (Barcelona, 1978);
more recently, see A. Barbero, Conguracin de feudalismo en la pennsula ibrica, in A.
Barbero (ed.), La sociedad visigoda y su entorno histrico (Madrid, 1992), pp. 21928. Although
some of their central premises have been disproven, the inuence of these authors is still
important. See D. Prez Snchez, Las transformaciones de la antigedad tarda en la
pennsula ibrica: Iglesia y scalidad en la sociedad visigoda, Studia Histrica. Historia Antigua 17 (1999), pp. 299318, at pp. 3001; and Martn Viso, pp. 1415.

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state, and is leading many to reconsider traditional chronological

paradigms.5
In the 1990s, Iberian scholars participated in a number of collaborative efforts, particularly the Transformation of the Roman World
project, helping break down the traditional isolation of Iberian history
and historiography, as well.6 The cross-fertilization with scholars from
other countries has not been completely reciprocal, however. There are
very few non-Iberian nationals specializing in the period, and there
have been very few book-length treatments of early medieval Iberia
published outside the peninsula in the last ve years. This lack of
specialized interest may arise, in part, out of some of the developments
outlined above. Regional studies, the upsurge in archaeological investigation, and the reframing of chronologies and the questioning of the
Visigothic state have encouraged centrifugal tendencies in the eld,
making synthesis difcult to achieve. The lack of a unied object of
analysis may discourage outsiders from participation. More of a
problem is that some of the few who do contribute construct their
arguments partly in response to real and/or imagined Spanish historiographical straw men, without fully engaging with recent Iberian scholarship or the new issues and perspectives it has raised. While critical
debate with traditional national historiographies is essential, this stance
can overemphasize barriers and polarities, obscuring some of the new
avenues opening up in a uid and changing eld.
The books considered here illustrate some of the problems and
possibilities involved in the new collaborations, methodologies and
perspectives, particularly in their application to reconsiderations of the
5

Bowes and Kulikowski, Introduction, pp. 49; Collins, pp. 34; G. Ripoll Lpez and
I. Velzquez, La Hispania visigoda. Del rey Atalfo a Don Rodrigo (Madrid, 1995), pp. 1011.
For general discussions of recent archaeological research and interpretation, see Bowes
and Kulikowski, Introduction, pp. 1923; M. Kulikowski, Cities and Government in Late
Antique Hispania, in Bowes and Kulikowski, pp. 526; Collins, pp. 174222; Martin, pp. 256;
A. Chavarra Arnau, Villas in Hispania During the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, in Bowes
and Kulikowski, pp. 5212; Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, passim; Ripoll Lpez and
Velzquez, La Hispania, pp. 89. Of course, the state still gures prominently in Iberian
scholarship, and seventh-century periodizations continue to shape many treatments. See,
for example, Prez Snchez, Las transformaciones; P. Daz and M. Valverde Castro, The
Theoretical Strength and Practical Weakness of the Visigothic Monarchy of Toledo, in
F. Theuws and J. Nelson (eds), Rituals of Power: From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages
(Leiden, 2000), pp. 5993; M. Valverde Castro, Ideologa, simbolismo y ejercicio del poder real
en la monarqua visigoda: un proceso de cambio (Salamanca, 2000); L. Garca Moreno, Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Visigothic Law, in G. Halsall (ed.), Violence and Society
in the Early Medieval West (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 4659; Amancio Isla Frez, El ofcium
palatinum visigodo. En torno regio y poder aristocrtico, Hispania 62:3 (2002), pp. 82347.
The project was co-coordinated by the prominent late antique scholar Javier Arce, with many
Iberian participants in various areas. Two other recent collaborative volumes published in
English have focused on Visigothic subjects: A. Ferreiro (ed.), The Visigoths: Studies in Culture
and Society (Leiden, 1998) and P. Heather (ed.), The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the
Seventh Century (Woodbridge, 1999).

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Visigothic state and/or Iberian continuity and discontinuity. Iaki

Martn Viso considers relationships between Iberian central and local
powers from a regional perspective, from the imperial period to the
twelfth century. Cline Martin and Roger Collins offer Visigothic statecentred analyses within more traditional chronological parameters;
Collins also presents a report on new archaeological and textual research.
Kim Bowes and Michael Kulikowski have gathered articles from both
Iberian and Anglophone specialists to challenge traditional paradigms
and seventh century-centered periodizations, focusing instead on late
antique continuities from the fourth to the sixth centuries and emphasizing the marriage of textual and material evidence. 7
Martn Viso analyses the dialectical relationship between local elites
and the central power in what is now the province of Zamora. The state
whether Visigothic, Asturian or Leonese/Castillian is not a primary
protagonist in his story; the localities and their transformations take the
centre stage. At the same time, Martn Viso also seeks to overcome
simple localismo, presenting his analysis as a model not only for the
Iberian peninsula, but also for all of early medieval Europe. 8 In avoiding
the perspective of the centre, Martn Viso views textual evidence very
critically, and relies heavily on settlement archaeology. Arguing for
long-term continuity of occupation, he creates a typology of local communities and identies the logic of occupation for each, including the
mechanisms through which local elites exercised power. 9 Heterogeneity
in local social structures and modes of production created differences
in the positions of local aristocrats, which in turn led to a variety of
relationships with the central power and thus differing levels of central
control. In those communities where the interests of local elites coincided with those of the centre, collaboration upon which the state
depended outweighed resistence.10
Given the lack of local sources, much of this argumentation is
hypothetical.11 Martn Viso turns to social and archaeological theory
to ll evidential holes. His depiction of continuity draws equally on the
notion of the perennial and adaptable nature of the human occupation
of space,12 and on the concept of a lengthy and variegated transition

7
8
9
10
11

12

Bowes and Kulikowski, Introduction, p. 24.

Martn Viso, p. 17.
Martn Viso, pp. 2332.
Martn Viso, pp. 327.
Especially for the fth, sixth, and seventh centuries when continued occupation of many sites
is debated, Martn Viso, pp. 267.
See D. Pumain, and S. Van der Leuw, La durabilit des systmes spatiaux, in F. DurandDastes (ed.), Des oppida aux metropoles. Archologues et gographes en valle du Rhone (Paris,
1998), pp. 1344.

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from ancient to feudal modes of production and political structures. 13

Although Martn Viso locates his work within these broader discourses,
however, his most immediate historiographical reference points, are,
of course, Iberian. While acknowledging the aws in some of their
basic propositions, he places himself within a community of scholars
working on feudalization and drawing on precedents set by Barbero
and Vigil.14 His draws data from recent Iberian archaeological and
toponymic studies, contributing to a number of issues debated within
those elds.15 His synthesis of that material with textual evidence is a
feature of many recent Iberian studies of this period. 16 Although the
textually oriented historian may encounter obstacles in the evidential
holes, the focus on settlement patterns, and the abstract language of
spatial and social theory, this effort to examine political relations
from a perspective other than that of the seventh-century Visigothic
state is an exciting window into current developments in Iberian
historiography.
Cline Martin analyses the same basic issue as Martn Viso, and
builds upon some of the same methodological and theoretical foundations, but to differing effects. Limiting her scope to the years from 555
to 711, but looking at the entire peninsula, she too draws on concepts
of spatial analysis to integrate textual and archaeological evidence,
thus identifying noyaux de peuplement and arranging them into a
hierarchical taxonomy of spatial organization. 17 She then examines how
local leaders wielded power in those spaces, and how they interacted
with the central government.18 Yet while she and Martn Viso would
seem to agree that collaboration between centre and locality was a
prominent characteristic during the Visigothic period, it is there that
their similarities end. Although Martin considers variety and change in
local communities, she depicts the seventh-century state as transcending
virtually all forms of local variation outside of the Gallic province of
13

14
15

16

17
18

Martn Viso, p. 14. See also J. Haldon, The State and the Tributary Mode of Production
(London, 1993); and C. Wickham, The Other Transition: From the Ancient World to
Feudalism, Past and Present 103 (1984), pp. 336.
Martn Viso, pp. 1415.
Including, for instance, the evolution, social role and abandonment of castros and villas
(passim); the signicance of ceramic and visigothic material evidence (pp. 345); and the
repopulation campaigns of the ninth and tenth centuries (pp. 67104).
See, for example, C. Godoy Fernndez, Arqueologa y liturgia. Iglesias hispnicas (ss. IVVII)
(Barcelona, 1995); Ripoll Lpez and Velzquezs La Hispania visigoda is a beautifully illustrated popular example of this trend. For an Iberian discussion of some of the issues involved,
from a primarily archaeological perspective, see J.M. Gurt i Esparraguera, G. Ripoll Lpez
and C. Godoy Fernndez, Topografa de la antigedad tarda hispnica. Reexiones para una
propuesta de trabajo, Antiquite Tardive 2 (1994), pp. 16180.
Martin, pp. 3261.
Martin, pp. 99140.

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Narbonensis,19 achieving a level of coherence and unity of purpose that

constituted the basis of a future nation. 20
Martin gives pre-eminence to written evidence, 21 analysing the titles,
duties, hierarchy and jurisdictions of various state agents through a
literal, functional reading of laws and canons. 22 She then turns to ideology, reading the sources from a symbolic point of view in order to
recreate the mystical geography that paralleled the institutional structure of the state.23 Martins symbolic readings are intriguing and often
convincing, but her reconstruction of the administrative system and
its fundamental coherence is less so. For Martin, long-term Iberian
formalisme indicates the practical role played by theory in Visigothic
relations of power.24 This role signies a relatively straightforward relationship between individual laws and administrative practice, and also
supports Martins tendency to assert the realization of ideological constructs.25 In other words, despite a keen eye for interpreting late antique
symbolic language, Martin, unlike Martn Viso approaches these overwhelmingly normative, and thus homogenizing sources from the perspective of their authors, i.e., the Visigothic centre, and ultimately she
accepts them as revealing seventh-century reality.
Martins state-oriented perspective arises partly out of her vision of
chronology and continuity.26 For Martin, analysing continuity begins with
the survival of the Roman empires two-level political structure, where
local powers coexisted harmoniously with the pre-eminent central governmental apparatus. Relations between the two levels are key to understanding continuity or discontinuity in Visigothic political geography:
if harmony was maintained with the central power remaining dominant, then continuity existed; discontinuity would consist of a growing
19

20
21
22
23
24
25

26

Martin, pp. 8298. She sees Basque particularism during this period as rooted in the poverty
of the region, rather than any differentiated regional identity or culture.
Martin, p. 366.
Martin, p. 26.
Martin, pp. 143203.
Martin, pp. 32170.
Martin, p. 26.
Martin recognizes the complexities caused by the continuing currency of Roman terminology
in early medieval usage, and points out instances of anachronism in authors like Isidore of Seville
(see, for example, p. 150). However, her general posture is to assume une certaine consonance
entre le monde dcrit par les constructions idologique et le monde o celles-ci furent labores
(p. 26), and to identify specic functional denitions in an admittedly uid vocabulary.
Martin, pp. 1516. She locates herself within a scholarship of late antique continuity traced
backwards through Peter Brown and H.I. Marrou to Henri Pirenne. In Visigothic studies,
she identies a line of primarily literary and religious specialists focusing on continuity,
including Jacques Fontaine, J.N. Hillgarth, and the Spanish historians M.C. Daz y Daz and
Jose Orlandis, who see late Roman models at work in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia. Her
emphasis on continuity reected in administrative structures and language would also appear
to align her work with the arguments of Jean Durliat and Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier,
although the kingdoms end in 711 obviates the very long-term continuities envisioned by
those historians.

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imbalance at the states expense.27 This dichotomous denition places

Martin in opposition to analyses focusing on regional difference or
feudalization, even if such an analysis identies other avenues of continuity.28 Her argumentation on these points is complex and erudite,
demonstrating a solid engagement with recent Iberian studies on a
variety of topics. In key places, however, she formulates her arguments
primarily against historians of an earlier generation. This allows her to
emphasize, for example, the concerns about modern separatist movements that lay behind earlier historians treatments of Spanish regional
variety as she formulates her argument for the overarching coherence
of the Visigothic kingdom. 29 She describes many factors contributing
to regional differentiation,30 but argues that none of these generated
consciously separatist movements outside of Narbonensis. While the
conclusion may be valid, the suggestion that a late antique absence of
conscious separatism indicates overarching state-centred coherence
seems almost as strained as the argument that geographical variation
indicates inherent Iberian particularism in everlasting resistence to
unication. Nor does it allow much space for alternative understandings of the meaning of heterogeneity. Similarly, her debate with the
concept of protofeudalism is framed with reference to German and
Spanish authors of the 60s and 70s, whom she counters by asserting the
full integration of local elites into the central government and the public nature of Visigothic oaths of delity. 31 Again, these are reasonable
arguments, and the discussions of earlier historiographical foundations
are useful, but the lack of full engagement with more recent historians
who use concepts of feudalization in more nuanced ways leaves one
wondering if there is any middle ground. 32
27
28

29

30
31
32

Martin, p. 17.
See, for example, p. 14, where Barbero and Vigils recognition of the Visigothic state as an
inheritance from Rome (or, apparently, their premise of long-term continuity in indigenous
social structures) does not complicate the issue for Martin, since their overall analysis
identies feudalization and regional difference as key aspects of the kingdom, thus making it
intrinsically medieval.
According to Martin, p. 83, Le theme du rgionalisme rencontre en effet des chos
particulirement sonores dans la ralit contemporaine de lEspagne. She cites Gibert, El
reino visigodo, as the fundamental work in this scholarly tendency. See above, n. 3.
Martin, pp. 8694.
On local elites, see Martin, pp. 184203; on oaths, see pp. 35361.
See, for example, Prez Snchez, Las transformaciones; Daz and Valverde, The Theoretical
Strength; J.M. Mnguez Fernndez, Las sociedades feudales, 1. Antecedentes, formacin y expansin (siglos VIXIII) (Madrid, 1994); S. Castellanos, Poder social, aristocracias y hombre santo
en la Hispania visigoda. La Vita Aemiliani de Braulio de Zaragoza (Logroo, 1998); P.C. Daz,
Formas econmicas y sociales del monacato visigodo (Salamanca, 1987), and City and Territory
in Hispania in Late Antiquity, in G.P. Brogiolo, N. Gauthier and N. Christie (eds), Towns
and their Territories between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 2000). More
recently, see S. Castellanos, The Political Nature of Taxation in Visigothic Spain, EME 12
(2003), pp. 20128.

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Martins focus on late antique continuity and her transcendent state

seem to obviate her need to explain the kingdoms fall. 33 Martn Visos
emphasis on long-term local continuities means that he is more concerned with the fact of the fall than with the reasons for it. 34 That event,
on the other hand, plays a primary role in the political narrative section
of Roger Collinss Visigothic Spain. As in previous works, Collins poses
his analysis against models of Visigothic decay and demoralization, 35
depicting the later seventh-century monarchy as relatively stable, caught
in 711 at a moment of imbalance that made the Arab conquest possible.36 His narrative proceeds from Alaric to the last kings, tracing the
concentration of political power in the hands of a small, wealthy, inner
circle of noble families. He locates the origins of the political system in
fth-century processes of ethnogenesis, which encouraged a kingship
based on military leadership, the loyalty in battle of a relatively small
top cadre, and the possession of an identity-dening royal treasure. 37 As
in the Visigothic defeat by the Franks in 507, the Arab conquest was
due to the kings death in battle, the destruction of the top nobility,
the loss of the capital and treasure, and the inability of the alienated
regional nobility to reproduce a functioning centralized monarchy. 38
Although Collins proposes that the central oligarchy engaged in
military alliances with these regional nobles, local communities and
their relationship with the central power do not otherwise gure in his
analysis.39 At the same time, his tight focus on top-level power struggles
limits his consideration of the states administrative structure, not to
mention its ideological constructions. 40 In other words, in this political
narrative, Collins inspects the state largely in isolation from the longterm local structures so fundamental to Martn Visos analysis, and
from the Roman administrative and ideological heritage that Martin
sees as essential. Consequently, as the full title indicates, his presentation follows more traditional chronological outlines: he presents the
33

34

35

36
37
38
39
40

She considers the issue briey in her conclusion, suggesting that in addition to other structural factors, the church may have begun to disengage from its participation in the institutional and ideological functioning of the state. See Martin, pp. 3746.
See Martn Viso, p. 39, where in one sentence he locates the reasons in internal disputes and
social contradictions, with reference to authors describing protofeudalization.
Collins, pp. 2, 140, 253; see also Collins, Mrida and Toledo: 550585, in E. James (ed.),
Visigothic Spain: New Approaches (Oxford, 1980), pp. 189219, at p. 189; and The Arab Conquest of Spain (Oxford, 1989), pp. 69.
Collins, pp. 115 and 140.
Collins, pp. 3840.
Collins, pp. 1423.
See, for example, Collins, pp. 85 and 114.
His primary institutional concern is with royal succession and scal powers. See, for example,
pp. 8191, on reforms under Chindaswinth. See pp. 22339 for a useful discussion of
Visigothic law. He nds Roman continuities here, generally, but stresses the practical
nature of individual laws, nding ideological meaning in the promulgation of entire codes.

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barbarian invasion of Iberia in 409 as a turning point, 41 and he makes

no indication of any continuity past the narrative-dening Arab conquest in 711.42
Another factor contributing to the isolation of Collinss state is the
books division into two parts: A Political History, and Society and
Culture. The second part looks at current research in literate culture,
the archaeology of cemeteries and churches, rural and urban settlement
archaeology, and law and ethnic identity, providing many points of
contact with Iberian scholarship. As a whole, however, the book presents
an uneven assessment of the state of the eld that in some ways mirrors
Collinss retreat from synthetic analysis. In his introduction, Collins
gives particular emphasis, and a generally positive evaluation, to recent
Iberian developments in archaeology and textual editing. His presentation of other elds of Iberian research, however, are troublingly dismissive.
For instance, he characterizes the current acceptance of protofeudalism
as a symptom of modern Spanish aspirations for Europeanization, without giving any explanation of the concept. He goes on to deride the
prevalence of spatial analysis as another linguistic horror spawned
by the current desire of Spanish historians to prove themselves good
Europeans, again without explaining how the language is used. 43 While
there may be plenty of difculties with these concepts and the way
some historians have used them, this kind of historiographical disdain
is unrevealing and somewhat forbidding, especially in a book meant
to be accessible to students and the general public. Moreover, in not
engaging with those concepts, Collins closes any windows they might
offer onto integrating social and cultural with political developments,
or archaeological with textual evidence.
Thus, Martn Viso, Martin and Collins agree on the importance of
archaeological research, but their differing approaches to integrating
textual and material evidence illustrate the uidity in the eld that is
also so evident in their differing understandings of continuity and
centralization. The collection of articles in Kim Bowes and Michael
Kulikowskis Hispania is a full-on demonstration of that uidity designed
to expose Anglophone audiences to new scholarship on the fourth, fth
41
42

43

Collins, pp. 1115.

The books periodization is partly a function of the series of which it is a part. This volume
falls between one on Roman Spain and Collinss Arab Conquest. In that work (pp. 78),
Collins questions the scholarly iron curtain between the Visigothic and Arab periods. In
Visigothic Spain, however, the two disjunctures seem fundamental to his political narrative, although he acknowledges some periodization complexities by suggesting (p. 63) that
Leovigilds wars of unication in the 570s and 80s may mark the real caesura between the
Roman and Visigothic worlds.
Collins, pp. 45.

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Rachel L. Stocking

and early sixth centuries. Individually, the eleven authors frame their
analyses in response to various previous paradigms. As a group, they
challenge the traditional focus on the seventh century and the Visigothic state, while countering long-held assumptions about fundamental
ruptures with ancient Rome. According to the introduction, the books
unifying alternative paradigm is the insistence that a dialogue between
text and artifact is the only means of fully grasping a complex and
shifting late antique world.44 The authors offer an array of approaches
to this dialogue. For instance, Paul Reynolds, and Carmen FernndezOchoa and Angel Morillo focus on the archaeological, offering technical surveys of evidence of Iberian participation in Mediterranean
trade patterns and urban fortications, respectively. 45 Neil McLynn
and Victoria Escribano both rely heavily on textual sources to discuss
late fourth-century Christian elites.46 Kulikowsis discussion of Iberian
urbanism and Bowess interpretation of Christian villa culture both
urge that material evidence be considered independently from texts;
they each divide their articles into separate sections, accordingly. 47 Most
of the Iberian authors present some form of synthesis; two of the most
successful are Alexandra Chavarra Arnaus archaeologically inclined
look at fourth- and fth-century villas, and Pedro Castillo Maldonados
more textually oriented discussion of Iberian saints cults. 48 Although
there is no sustained discussion of the theory or methodology of
synthesis versus separation in the dialogue between text and artifact,
the collections diversity conveys the dynamic effects of the issue on
developments in the eld.49
The effect of the focus on engaging previous paradigms is more
mixed, however. On one hand, some of the paradigmatic challenges
44
45

46

47

48

49

Bowes and Kulikowski, pp. 245.

Fernndez-Ochoa and Morillo, Walls in the Urban Landscape of Late Roman Spain:
Defense and Imperial Strategy, pp. 299341; Reynolds, Hispania in the Later Roman
Mediterranean: Ceramics and Trade, pp. 369486.
McLynn, Genere Hispanus: Theodosius, Spain and Nicene Orthodoxy, pp. 77120;
Escribano, Heresy and Orthodoxy in Fourth-Century Hispania: Arianism and Priscillianism, pp. 12150.
Kulikowski, Cities and Government, pp. 3170; Bowes, Une coterie espagnole pieuse:
Christian Archaeology and Christian Communities in Fourth- and Fifth-century Hispania,
pp. 189258.
Chavarra Arnau, Villas in Hispania; Castillo Maldonado, Angelorum participes: The Cult
of the Saints in Late Antique Spain, pp. 15188.
The Introduction, pp. 913, and Kulikowski, Cities and Government, pp. 4953, raise some
basic issues about the deleterious effects of past practices. Bowes, p. 191, is particularly adamant about the value of archaeology as a discursive element in its own right. For other
commentaries on this issue see, for example, Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain, pp. xvi, 678,
857, 20916; S. Gutirrez Lloret, Eastern Spain in the Sixth Century in the Light of
Archaeology, in R. Hodges and W. Bowden (eds), The Sixth Century: Production, Distribution, and Demand (Leiden, 1998), pp. 16184, at pp. 1613.

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produce divergent analyses that demonstrate the value of collaboration. Castillo Maldonados interpretation of similarities between saints
cults in Iberia and in other Mediterranean areas, for instance, is aimed
at countering long-standing interpretations of Iberian Christianity as
timelessly unique. Meanwhile, Kim Bowes frames her discussion of
fourth- and fth-century Christian villa culture as a response to recent
Spanish scholarship that she believes has overemphasized similarities
between late antique Iberia and other regions. 50 In addition, Bowess
argument is primarily based on the interpretation of nine Christian
villas, with which she creates a peninsular model for a unique elite
Christian identity and power structure. Yet Chavarra Arnaus look at
the larger Iberian villa culture during that period describes a multitude
of regionally differentiated villas, among which Christian symbols are
not commonly found.51 These multiple perspectives bring out late
antique complexities without demanding too much of the evidence in
support of new paradigms.
On the other hand, although the editors disclaim any single governing orthodoxy,52 the idea of Roman continuity is clearly central to the
project. There are difculties here, and the focus on challenging paradigms may, in fact, muddy the picture at times. As Michael Kulikowski
points out, there is a particularly broad Iberian evidential gap between
the mid-fth and mid-sixth centuries. In arguing fundamental continuity in Iberian political geography and urban life, he criticizes previous
paradigms that have bridged that gap by reading the seventh-century
sources backwards, superimposing seventh-century institutions onto the
fth century, and thus identifying radical changes from the Roman world.53
Instead, he proposes that the only way to accurately assess the rise of the
Spanish Visigothic kingdom under Leovigild, and to explicate the history
of the intervening years, is to work forward from imperial arrangements.54
Rather than presuming a radical transformation in the political geography,
we should posit substantial continuity with Roman political organization.55 Yet other authors in this collection present visions of the
fth century that do involve major transformations some of them

50
51
52
53
54
55

Bowes, p. 191.
Chavarra Arnau, p. 543.
Bowes and Kulikowski, Introduction, p. 24.
Kulikowski, Cities and Government, p. 49.
Kulikowski, Cities and Government, p. 48.
Kulikowski, Cities and Government, p. 49. This perspective, he says, has not been applied
to the later sixth- and seventh-century sources, which are more often read in the retrospective
light of Asturian and high medieval feudalism. Martin, pp. 1516, on the other hand,
believes that studies emphasizing Roman continuity have come to dominate the eld. See
above, n. 26.

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political.56 If there is anything that the last twenty years of debate in

late antique and early medieval history and archaeology have shown, it
is that continuity (not to mention discontinuity) with the ancient world
is a slippery concept.57 Even if we conne our denition to political
organization and urbanism, it seems unlikely that Roman continuity
can ll this Iberian evidential gap or account for the transformations,
radical or not. This excellent collection of articles makes clear some of
the positive consequences of freeing the earlier period from the bonds
of the seventh-century state, and many of the discussions of periodization
and paradigms provide nuanced guidance through complex historiographical territory. Still, one hopes that establishing continuity with ancient
Mediterranean culture and the Roman state doesnt come at the expense
of even further isolating the later sixth- and seventh-century period.
Clearly, the study of late antique and early medieval Iberia is a eld in
transition, investigating a period of transition. As such, it is part and parcel
of the larger late antique and early medieval historical community, confronts
many of the same issues, and will benet from the same new approaches
that have been developing in the last twenty years. Still, it would be
ahistorical to think that the distinctive aspects of Iberias history and
historiographical traditions havent had lasting effects on the eld, even
in a period of increasing scholarly collaboration. One could argue, for
instance, that cultural history, with its chains of signicance, multi-layered
contextualizations, and human contingency and agency, has yet to make
much headway in the scholarship.58 There just arent a lot of people in current
Visigothic history. Culture and mentality enter the picture, of course, as is
56

57

58

P. Daz and L. Menndez-Bueyes, The Cantabrian Basin in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries:
From Imperial Province to Periphery, pp. 26598, propose that major disturbances after 409
encouraged the re-politicization of Cantabrian indigenous social structures and ethnic identities,
and the retreat of that area into a peripheral world. F. Lpez Snchez, Coinage, Iconography
and the Changing Political Geography of Fifth-Century Hispania, pp. 487518, proposes a
major geostrategic shift in the peninsula from the importance of the Ebro Valley in the Roman
empire to the emergence of the southern peninsula as a centre, which resulted from imperial
power struggles in the late fourth and early fth centuries. Reynolds, Hispania in the Later Roman
Mediterranean, p. 439, envisages major changes in the interior as a result of the early fthcentury barbarian invasions; Chavarra Arnau, p. 552, minimizes those effects, but acknowledges the need for explanations for changes in villa occupation after the mid-fth century.
See, for example, B. Ward-Perkins, Urban Continuity?, in N. Christie and S.T. Loseby
(eds), Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
(Altershot, 1996), pp. 417; C. Wickham, The Fall of Rome Will Not Take Place, in B.
Rosenwein and L. Little (eds), Debating the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1998), pp. 4557; J. Nelson,
Rituals of Power: By Way of Conclusion, in Nelson and Theuws (eds), Rituals of Power,
pp. 47785; R. Van Dam, The Pirenne Thesis and Fifth-Century Gaul, in J. Drinkwater
and H. Elton (eds), Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity? (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 32133.
For discussions of the value of this approach in late antique and early medieval studies, with particular
reference to archaeology see, for example, F. Theuws, Introduction, in Nelson and Theuws, Rituals
of Power, pp. 213; H. Williams, Review Article: Rethinking Early Medieval Mortuary Archaeology,
EME 13 (2005), pp. 195217; P. Geary, The Uses of Archaeological Sources for Religious and
Cultural History, in idem, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1994), pp. 3045.

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illustrated by Martins abstract symbolic readings of legal texts, or by treatments of literary culture and religious belief as traditionally conceived. 59
Moreover, as illustrated in many of the works discussed here, scholars
now use archaeology to look not only at the material organization of
communities, but also at the expression and organization of ideology,
power and religious symbolism in architecture and space. 60 Yet we see
relatively little of human communities and individuals in action as the
creators, controllers, receivers, or disputers of meaning and authority. The
problem of sources, of course, in many ways determines this situation
the evidential gap between the mid-fth and mid-sixth centuries is
followed by a seventh-century outpouring of normative sources that dwarfs
the tiny selection of narrative histories, saints Lives, or other depictions
of individual people in action in their communities. 61 In the study of late
antique and early medieval Iberia, however, it may also be that historians
dependence on paradigms and models to frame debates and dene
questions connes conceptions of culture more than in other elds.62
59

60

61

62

For symbolic and ideological readings, see also S. Castellanos, The Signicance of Social
Unanimity in a Visigothic Hagiography: Keys to an Ideological Screen, Journal of Early
Christian Studies 11:3 (2003), pp. 387419; and Valverde Castro, Ideologa, simbolismo, among
many others. Ideology and literary culture are central to many French analyses, beginning
with the works of J. Fontaine, most recently, Isidore de Sville. Gense et originalit de la
culture hispanique au temps des Wisigoths (Turnhout, 2001); and his students, including S.
Teillet, Des Goths la nation gothique (Paris, 1984); M. Reydellet, La royaut dans la littrature
latine de Sidoine Apollinare Isidore de Sville (Rome, 1981); P. Cazier, Isidore de Sville et la
naissance de lEspagne catholique (Paris, 1984). See also J.N. Hillgarth, Coins and Chronicles:
Propaganda in Sixth-Century Spain and the Byzantine Background, Historia 15 (1966),
pp. 483508, and Historiography in Visigothic Spain, Settimane 17 (Spoleto, 1970), pp. 261
311, both reprinted in Visigothic Spain, Byzantium, and the Irish (London, 1985).
See, for example, Godoy Fernndez, Arqueologa y liturgia; Gurt i Esparraguera, Ripoll Lpez
and Godoy Fernndez, Topografa; Chavarra Arnau, Villas in Hispania; G. Ripoll Lpez
and J. Gurt I Esparraguera (eds), Sedes regia (ann. 400 800) (Barcelona, 2000).
For a discussion of the relationship between the normative sources emanating from the
kingdoms centre and life in local communities, see R. Stocking, Bishops, Councils, and
Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom, 589 633 (Ann Arbor, 2000), pp. 1216.
For example, in scholars treatment of ethnic and religious identity. Collins, pp. 17486 and
23946, is overly critical in his assessment of current Spanish scholarship on ethnic identity,
but some historians tracing changes in ethnicity do rely on models of relatively homogeneous
and dichotomized cultural groups and mechanical processes of acculturation; for example,
Ripoll Lpez and Velzquez, La Hispania visigoda, pp. 1627 and 76102. Others present
culture and identity in terms of the retention of unaltered survivals; for example, L. Garca
Moreno, Gothic Survivals in the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse and Toledo, Francia 21:1
(1994), pp. 115. Some considerations of religious identity also tend towards essentializing
conceptions of culture, particularly in regards to the position of Jews in the kingdom: for
example, A. Riesco Terrero, El problema judo en la mente de tres importantes personajes del
siglo VII: un papa, un obispo espaol y un rey visigodo, Espacio, tiempo y forma, Serie II,
Historia antiqua 6 (1993), pp. 585603; L. Garca Moreno, Los Judios de la Espaa Antigua. Del
primer encuentro al primer repudio (Madrid, 1993), passim; Ripoll Lpez and Velzquez, La
Hispania visigoda, pp. 4852. See R. Gonzlez-Salinero, Catholic Anti-Judaism in Visigothic
Spain, in Ferreiro (ed.), The Visigoths, pp. 123501. See also Gonzlez Salinero, Las conversiones forzosas de los judios en el reino Visigodo (Rome, 2000) and W. Drews, The Unknown
Neighbor: The Jew in the Thought of Isidore of Seville (Leiden, 2006).

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While those tools of analysis can help bridge evidential gaps and bring
analytical order to a complex and shifting world, they can also place
overwhelming explanatory weight on the few historical people hiding
in the inadequate source base, and restrict interpretations that might
bring them out in less rigidly constructed ways. 63
The relative rigidity of the eld is not a characteristic found only in
works by Iberian scholars. As we have seen, some non-Iberians dene
their own approaches largely in response to traditional Iberian historiography, constructing alternative paradigms that can also place too
much burden on far too little evidence, thereby leaving little room for
human inconsistency and culture. While it is essential that Iberianists
from outside Iberia be aware of the traditions informing the historical
debates they enter, those previous paradigms should not be given more
lasting weight than they actually have. Iberian historians should be under
no greater obligation than non-Iberians to demonstrate their independence from outmoded or politically based concepts and constructs. Multiple
perspectives can bring growth to the eld, but that growth should
include increasing perspectival consciousness on everyones part. Maybe
if we loosen the constraints of our constructs and critiques a bit so that
we can engage alternative visions and absorb what they have to offer,
perhaps we can set some of those historical people free from their
evidential and analytical prisons, or at least make the eld a little more
inviting to new participants and their differing perspectives.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale

63

There are signs that Iberian approaches to cultural history are changing, including in some
of the works considered here. See also S. Castellanos, Poder social; and his latest work, which
I have not yet been able to consult, La hagiografa visigoda. Dominio social y proyeccin cultural
(Logroo, 2004).

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