Going Beyond the Linguistic Turn?: An Essay on the Philosophy of History

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

This post contains a undergraduate essay answering the question, ‘Have recent movements in historical thought and practice carried history as a discipline beyond the ‘linguistic turn’?’. Written for a philosophy of history module, it covers recent movements related to neurohistory and material culture and how they have moved historical thought beyond the ‘linguistic turn’. Nevertheless, I also argue they have not altered the everyday practicalities encountered by the historian. It is my belief that the full potential of the ‘linguistic turn’ has still not been fully realised and if I were to write the essay again I would probably emphasise this more.

Recent movements in historical thought have carried history as a discipline beyond the ‘linguistic turn’. However, they have not altered the practice of history. I will show this in three sections, the first highlights how new approaches to material culture and science have changed historical thought. The second argues that although these movements have changed how we think about the past, they have not altered the everyday problems and practicalities of the historian raised in the ‘linguistic turn’. I define historical thought, as an understanding of how the past operates, in this context covering agency and causality. By the practice of history, I refer to the processes of research and writing that produce the monograph, the primary communicative device for the historical discipline. In this discussion, the ‘linguistic turn’ is understood as a movement from the 1970s onwards, advanced by scholars like White, which emphasised the role of language and narrative in shaping historical accounts. Nevertheless, in the final section, I will examine the implications of my argument and why it suggests we should abandon the idea of linear progression in the discipline between different ‘turns’.

A recent movement to carry historical thought within the discipline beyond the ‘linguistic turn’ can be found in material culture studies. Actor-network theory (ANT) has been the main catalyst in this change, as it shows historians cannot ignore the role objects have played in past societies. Latour suggests as objects modify states of human behaviour, it is wrong to ignore their role in societies, as ‘no science of the social can even begin, if the question of who and what participates in the action is not first of all thoroughly explored.’[1] This is illustrated by the analogies Latour uses, it is impossible to hit a nail without a hammer or fetch provisions without a basket.[2] However, The ‘material turn’ has limitations. ANT, the most influential approach in historical thought, does not claim objects cause actions, despite their agency.[3] Unlike its rivals, such as Object-oriented-ontology (OOO).[4] Nevertheless, ANT has still seen a shift in the discipline from the ‘linguistic turn’ when thinking about past objects and their agency.

This is reinforced by recent historical studies. Mcshane has shown how objects have often signified emotions of love towards the state, such as through seventeenth century pans, stating ‘God Save King Charles’ or courtship lockets containing images of Charles II and Catharine of Braganza.[5] Meanwhile, Price has shown that books in the past had uses other than reading, like buying and displaying.[6] These examples show how recent approaches to material culture have moved historical thought moved beyond the ‘linguistic turn’, ending the prioritisation of humans and by showing objects must also be understood as actants within historic societies.

Recent movements in scientific thought have also changed how the discipline thinks about past societies, questioning the role of agency and causality in human actions. The first shift emerged from popular scientific literature on biology and human behaviour. Pinker suggests scientific research proves all human thoughts and feelings are manifestations of the brain.[7] Culture impacts humans due to the brain’s mental algorithms.[8] This suggests for historians, the causality of human behaviour in past societies was biological, therefore questioning human agency and free will. The impact of evolutionary psychologists, like Pinker, within the historical discipline was limited. Their work was a reaction to the post-war movements that emphasised culture’s role in society, which Pinker terms under the Standard Social Science Model. Believing this was a backlash against the racial pseudosciences of modernity, writers like Pinker themselves reacted by overemphasising biology’s role in behaviour.[9] This is shown by Pinker’s struggle to incorporate moral issues into his argument.[10] Therefore, this popular literature only partially moved views of causality and agency in the discipline beyond the ‘linguistic turn’, but allowed later changes by encouraging discussion of biology’s role in the past.

Dupré, writing after Pinker, provided a view of science more palatable for historians, taking thought further beyond the ‘linguistic turn’. He argues humans are both shaped by their structure, their biological inclinations to act, and the context to which these are exposed.[11] Nuanced interpretations like this have allowed historians to incorporate biology into the past better than Pinker’s thesis allows. Smail has connected the dopamine reward and stress relief systems within the brain to cultural and psychotropic stimulants throughout history, suggesting they have affected human behaviour through balancing pleasure with stress.[12] Therefore, the causality of human actions in the past can be linked to biology without being detached from culture. Recent movements in science have therefore moved historical thought away from the ‘linguistic turn’; firstly, allowing biology’s role to be discussed again and secondly by showing it has partially impacted agency and causality in past societies.

Recent movements in science and material culture have impacted historians’ thoughts on causality and agency in past societies, but they have not taken the practice of history beyond the ‘linguistic turn’. The research process for material goods still encounters issues raised by the ‘linguistic turn’. Many approaches to materiality still rely on textual sources. Price, was right in noticing that books have been neglected as material objects, but she still uses written ‘it-narratives’, like The History of an Old Pocket Bible (1812) to explore different uses of books.[13] Therefore, while historians may now understand the importance of objects, this does not mean they have moved past using textual sources or the ‘linguistic turn’ to understand them.

 Secondly, even when using material sources directly, historians still encounter issues of subjectivity raised by the ‘linguistic turn’. Davidson shows this in her study of nineteenth century non-conformist graves in London. She describes her emotional reactions, such as grumpiness due to difficulties in making connections between graves and her team’s reaction when opening a baby’s coffin; curiosity, poignancy and disgust.[14] The ‘material turn’ has therefore not answered the criticisms raised by the ‘linguistic turn’ regarding the historian’s ability to use sources objectively in research. Many of these issues can even be traced further back than the ‘linguistic turn’ to the debates between Elton and Carr in the 1960s over objectivity.[15]

Finally, the ‘material turn’ has also not moved beyond the ‘linguistic turn’ on the researcher’s practice and the environment they encounter objects in. Derrida and Steedman describe ‘Archive Fever’, as how an archive creates a desire to possess a moment, resulting in fear of leaving something unnoticed or untranscribed.[16] The ‘material turn’ risks an illusionary return to certainty, suggesting the researcher has the physical presence of past actants available, unlike texts which only offer traces of actants. However, many objects are still encountered in similar environments to written sources. For example, the V&A Textiles and Fashion Collection currently holds over 75,000 objects in a archival setting.[17] The material researcher is therefore still influenced by where they encounter their sources and the ‘fever’ they get for leaving an object unnoticed or untranscribed. This again suggests research, in practicing history, has not went beyond the ‘linguistic turn’.

Furthermore, recent movements have not influenced the practice of writing in the historical discipline, this is especially true when using science. The issues of narrative in historical accounts raised during the ‘linguistic turn’ have still not been addressed. Smail’s thesis on neurohistory may be correct, but by putting this into written form he constructs a grand narrative. This causes generalisation, for example he states the medieval church was a cultural stimulant in the diaclectic between the dopamine and stress relief systems.[18] However, this presumes the church offered similar stimulants in different geographic and temporal settings. The medieval church was not this homogenous; Theodoric the Great’s tolerance towards Catholicism and Arianism cannot be compared to Gregory of Tours’ negative portrayal of the Arian Aglian,‘a man of low intelligence.’[19] Smail confesses that neurohistory must inevitably be large-scale, but it does not detract from the generalisations he uses to construct a narrative.[20]  Therefore, recent movements in science have not answered  issues raised during the ‘linguistic turn’ about writing and the practice of history.

Additionally, these recent movements have not went beyond the ‘linguistic turn’ by ignoring the role of metaphor in writing history. Even before the new movements, White showed the impossibility of claiming scientific texts are free of the linguistic tools used in historical writing. He shows how Darwin, writing about evolution, transformed related particulars into an image of orderliness, using the metaphor of beings belonging to ‘families’ linked by genealogy. Darwin attempted to represent reality, but made his argument coherent, in contrast to his Vitalist opponents, by using this metaphor.[21] Consequentially, recent movements in science have still not addressed how metaphors are used in the writing and practice of history, therefore not going fully beyond the ‘linguistic turn’.

I have established recent movements in historical thought have moved beyond the ‘linguistic turn’, but the practice of history has not. Consequentially, I will now show why this suggests we need to question whether we should be moving beyond the ‘linguistic turn’. The essay question presumes a view of the historical discipline, like Kuhn’s paradigms of science. In which, a cycle of tradition goes through confusion and anomaly before moving towards another secure tradition.[22] There are several reasons to abandon this linear view of the discipline. Firstly, as shown, it is inaccurate. There is no evidence to suggest that the discipline is moving towards a secure tradition, the ‘linguistic’ turn is still relevant to the practice of history, while recent movements in science and material thought are also contributing to the discipline. We therefore need to abandon paradigms or turns as concepts as they do not represent the discipline.

Secondly, we need to abandon this view of the discipline moving between traditions, as it implies the latest conceived turn is more authoritative than the last. This has political implications, as it could allow one disciplinary approach to monopolise the past. White has shown how Marxist and bourgeoise approaches to history fundamentally limit political thinking by imposing authority on the past.[23] The turns examined here have similar potential. Pinker is monopolising the past when irrefutably defending the mind’s unity with nature against the so-called ‘academic left and the religious and cultural right.’[24] Abandoning a linear view of the discipline developing, would prevent historical thought and practice from being used like this, showing how the concept of secure traditions is fiction.

I have shown that we need to abandon the linear view of the historical discipline in the essay title, so how might we do this? The first step would involve historicising different movements. Rorty’s concept of a Liberal Ironist, as someone who recognises their current vocabulary and beliefs are contingent creations would be useful for this.[25] The ‘linguistic turn’ would be recognised as a product of the post-war era, whereas new movements in science and material culture would themselves be shown as reactionary desires for certainty. As historical products, these turns would be no more valuable than each other, while all still offering useful ideas for the discipline. Multimedia may be pivotal in doing this, technologies are making it difficult to think of authoritative ideas such as ‘turns’ or paradigms. For example, the internet is a continuous flow of ideas, between potentially unlimited authors. [26] Technology, alongside, Rorty’s idea of a Liberal Ironist, allows the abandonment of concepts such as ‘turns’, by showing the contingency of any disciplinary tradition.

This essay has shown that although recent movements in scientific and material thought have changed how the discipline thinks about the past, they have not taken the practice of history beyond the ‘linguistic turn’. I then highlighted why we need to abandon this linear view of the historical discipline and how we might do this. By unsettling the view of progression between different turns, I have hopefully opened doors for future research.  For example, could approaches to the material book also be applied to the monograph? Therefore, borrowing from the ‘linguistic’ and ‘material’ turns. Nevertheless, I have revealed the untenability of viewing the historical discipline as simply moving beyond the ‘linguistic turn’ towards these new material and scientific movements.

Bibliography:

Carr, Edward H. What Is History?: The George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge, January – March 1961.  London: Penguin, 1961.

Davidson, Hilary. “Grave Emotions: Textiles and Clothing from Nineteenth-Century London Cemeteries.” TEXTILE 14, no. 2 (2016): 226-43.

Downes, Stephanie, Sally Holloway, and Sarah Randles. “A Feeling for Things, Past and Present.” In Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History, edited by Stephanie Holloway Downes, Sally and Sarah Randles, 8-26. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Dupré, John A. Darwin’s Legacy: What Evolution Means Today.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Elton, Geoffrey R. The Practice of History. Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1967.

Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum translated by Lewis Thorpe in The History of the Franks. London: Penguin, 1974.

Excerptum Valesiana II translated by Bill Thayer. Accessed 28 Nov 2018, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Excerpta_Valesiana/2*.html.

Hollinger, David A. “T. S. Kuhn’s Theory of Science and Its Implications for History.” The American Historical Review 78, no. 2 (1973): 370-93.

Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

McShane, Angela. “Subjects and Objects: Material Expressions of Love and Loyalty in Seventeenth-Century England.” Journal of British Studies 48, no. 4 (2009): 871-86.

Pinker, Steven. “The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine.” The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 21 (April 20 and 21, 1999): 179-210.

Price, Leah. “From The History of a Book to a “History of the Book”.” Representations 108, no. 1 (2009): 120-38.

Rigney, Anne. “When the Monograph is No Longer the Medium: Historical Narrative in The Online Age.” History and Theory 49, no. 4 (2010): 100-17.

Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Smail, Daniel L. “An Essay on Neurohistory.” In Emerging Disciplines: Shaping New Fields of Scholarly Inquiry in and Beyond the Humanities, edited by Melissa Bailar, 111-22. Houston: Connexions, 2010.

Steedman, Carolyn. “Something She Called a Fever: Michelet, Derrida, and Dust.” The American Historical Review 106, no. 4 (2001): 1159-80.

Victoria and Albert Museum. “The V and A Textiles and Fashion Collection”, 2016. Accessed 28 Nov, 2018, http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/the-v-and-a-textiles-and-fashion-collection/.

White, Hayden. “Fictions of Factual Representation.” In Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, 121-34. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.

———. “The Politics of Historical Interpretation: Discipline and De-Sublimation.” Critical Inquiry 9, no. 1 (1982): 113-37.

[1] Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 71-72.

[2] Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, 71.

[3] Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, 72.

[4] Stephanie Downes, Sally Holloway, and Sarah Randles, “A Feeling for Things, Past and Present,” in Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History, ed. Stephanie Holloway Downes, Sally and Sarah Randles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 8.

[5] Angela McShane, “Subjects and Objects: Material Expressions of Love and Loyalty in Seventeenth-Century England,” Journal of British Studies 48, no. 4 (2009): 875.

[6] Leah Price, “From The History of a Book to a “History of the Book”,” Representations 108, no. 1 (2009): 210.

[7] Steven Pinker, “The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine,” The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 21 (April 20 and 21, 1999): 183.

[8] Pinker, “The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine,” 187.

[9] Pinker, “The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine,” 193.

[10] Pinker, “The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine,” 194-203.

[11] John A. Dupré, Darwin’s Legacy: What Evolution Means Today (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 79.

[12] Daniel L. Smail, “An Essay on Neurohistory,” in Emerging Disciplines: Shaping New Fields of Scholarly Inquiry in and Beyond the Humanities, ed. Melissa Bailar (Houston: Connexions, 2010), 114-15.

[13] Price, “From The History of a Book to a “History of the Book”,” 124.

[14] Hilary Davidson, “Grave Emotions: Textiles and Clothing from Nineteenth-Century London Cemeteries,” TEXTILE 14, no. 2 (2016): 231, 39.

[15] Edward H. Carr, What Is History?: The George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge, January – March 1961 (London: Penguin, 1961), 1-24; Geoffrey R. Elton, The Practice of History (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1967), 51-66.

[16] Carolyn Steedman, “Something She Called a Fever: Michelet, Derrida, and Dust,” The American Historical Review 106, no. 4 (2001): 1160-63.

[17] “The V and A Textiles and Fashion Collection” Victoria and Albert Museum, 2016. Accessed 28 Nov, 2018, http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/the-v-and-a-textiles-and-fashion-collection/.

[18] Smail, “An Essay on Neurohistory,” 118.

[19]Excerptum Valesiana II:60 translated by Bill Thayer. Accessed 28 Nov 2018, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Excerpta_Valesiana/2*.html; Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum V.43 translated by Lewis Thorpein The History of the Franks (London: Penguin, 1974), 307-312.

[20] Smail, “An Essay on Neurohistory,” 116.

[21]Hayden White, “Fictions of Factual Representation,” in Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 133.

[22] David A. Hollinger, “T. S. Kuhn’s Theory of Science and Its Implications for History,” The American Historical Review 78, no. 2 (1973): 374.

[23] Hayden White, “The Politics of Historical Interpretation: Discipline and De-Sublimation,” Critical Inquiry 9, no. 1 (1982): 129.

[24] Pinker, “The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine,” 189.

[25] Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 73.

[26] Anne Rigney, “When the Monograph is No Longer the Medium: Historical Narrative in The Online Age,” History and Theory 49, no. 4 (2010): 116.

Reading J.L Austin’s ‘How to Do Things with Words’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

This post will discuss my experience of reading J.L Austin’s ‘How to Do Things with Words’, a collection of lectures on utterances published in 1955. The post aims to start a series where I will discuss works, without formally reviewing them. By doing this, I hope to clarify my understanding of the works and formulate opinions on them.

Austin starts by making a distinction between constative and performative statements. A constative statement is a descriptive sentence that is either true or false. Whereas, a performative statement is an utterance is a that does an action, such as ‘I name this ship’ or ‘I do’ in a wedding ceremony. Austin suggests the former has been the focus of analytic philosophy. By discussing the idea of performatives he hopes to undermine the idea that ‘a ‘statement’ can only be to ‘describe’ some state of affairs, or to ‘state some fact’. There are also questions, exclamations and commands among many other sentences and not just logical propositions.

The second trait that defines a performative statement is that it is either happy or unhappy, instead of being true or false. Austin lists a number of conditions necessary for performatives to be happy, such as that there must be an accepted conventional procedure in which it can be used and that the individual participants must intend to carry out the result of it. These only form a few conditions Austin commentates on. Performatives can also fail due to what Austin calls infelicities. Infelicities fall into two categories, misfires and abuses. A misfire is when an act is purported but void, whereas an abuse is act professed but which is hollow.

Austin goes into some detail about the types of misfires and abuses through which a performative can fail. An example of a misfire could revolve around the example of a game played at party, where someone says ‘I pick George’. If the response is ‘I’m not playing’ then the utterance would be unhappy because there is no convention that you can pick people who are not playing or because George is an inappropriate object for picking. A further example might include an the words ‘I will’ in a marriage ceremony being void if the other partner says ‘I will not’. As abuses centre around an act being hollow, an examples might include saying ‘I advise you’, when you do not believe your advice is wrong or saying ‘I declare war’ when you do not intend to fight.

Following these sections, Austin dedicates a large amount of space to trying to find a list of performative verbs. However, while doing this, he realises the constative and performative distinction, intially made in his first lecture, breaks down to a degree. In these sections, Austin introduces a large amount of ambiguity and hesitation and in fact even gives up on his effort to find a list at one point. It is easy to see why a thinker like Jacques Derrida took an interest in Austin (such as in Limited Inc.) when he discusses these difficulties and the ways in which communication can fail.

The best examples to illustrate this breakdown in the differences between constatives and performatives are found towards the end of Austin’s lectures. Constatives can be seen to have many of the same potential failings as performatives. For example, they might suitable in some contexts, but not in others. As Austin suggests, saying ‘France is hexagonal’ may be suitable for a top-level general, but it would not be correct for a geographer. Likewise, saying ‘Lord Raglan won the battle of Alma’ may be fine for a schoolbook, but it would not be suitable for a piece of historical research. Constatives, like performatives, can therefore be suitable in some contexts, but not in others.

Austin also introduces more concepts during his lectures. Most notably, distinctions between locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts. The former refers to saying something. Whereas, an illocutionary acts include ‘utterances which have a certain (conventional) force’, they do something. Perlocutionary acts are the actual responses to saying something. Furthermore, Austin comments on how the distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts is not always clear. Austin also categorises illocutionary acts into different groups. According to him ‘the verdictive is an excercise of judgement, the exercitive is an an assertion of influence or excercising of power, the commissive is an assuming of an obligation or declaring of an intention, the behabitive is the adopting of an attitude, and the expositive is the clarifying of reasons, arguments, and communications.’ These five groups of illocutionary acts can also overlap to a degree, bringing the theme of ambiguity present in Austin’s work back to the forefront again.

To conclude, J.L Austin’s ‘How to Do Things with Words’ is an interesting read, especially when one focuses on the themes of ambiguity and communicative difficulty prevalent in the work. For a historian like myself, I believe it could be interesting to apply some of the ideas in it to past documents. Austin’s ideas have been used in literary criticism and it could be fascinating to see what insights they could bring to the historical discipline.

The Syrians of Merovingian Gaul

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

This post contains an undergraduate essay on the Syrians of Merovingian Gaul. In particular, it looks at those mentioned in Gregory of Tours’ writings. Based on feedback, I would probably now alter the argument a bit. Nevertheless, I found it interesting to tackle a subject that has barely been covered in the historiography.

The Syrians in Gregory of Tours’ Histories have not been adequately addressed. Apart from several scattered references, they have received no attention in scholarship.[1] This essay explains the community’s presence in Gaul by arguing the Syrians in the Histories originated from Syria, having migrated due to continuous upheaval in that region from the second quarter of the sixth century onwards. I will do this in three sections examining the different types of evidence available for understanding the Syrians. The first examines direct references to the Syrian community within Gaul. The second identifies how this evidence links to references to the region of Syria within Merovingian sources. The final section addresses any contextual or indirect evidence which aids our understanding. This endeavour inevitably relies on conjecture, due to the paucity and complexity of the evidence available. Nevertheless, my efforts are not in vain and it will become clear studying the Syrians of Gaul is not only possible, but also increases our knowledge of Merovingian society.

The Syrian Community in Gaul

In this section, I will examine the references to Syrians in Gregory of Tours’ Histories. These form the only evidence available for the community in the late sixth century. I analyse these separate to references on the region of Syria, to avoid approaching the evidence with the presumption the ‘Syrians’ automatically come from there.

The earliest reference to the Syrians is Book VII, Chapter 31.[2] Several insights are offered by this passage. In it, the ‘pretender’ Gundovald arrives in Bordeaux where he has Bishop Bertram’s support. Upon arrival, Gundovald hears a certain king ‘in Eastern parts’ has obtained Saint Sergius’s thumb.[3] As a result, he queries about this saint’s relics and finds out a Syrian, named Eufronius, holds the thumb. The first detail identifiable here is Eufronius’ association with ‘Eastern parts.’ The passage does not outright state he is from Syria, but it nevertheless draws a link to the Eastern Mediterranean. This will be reinforced, when I examine the relic and its relation to Gregory’s Miracula later.

Further details emerge later. Mummolus, supporting Gundovald, tries to steal the relic and breaks it, causing Eufronius to cry. After this, the Syrian, Gundovald and Mummolus pray to reveal the scattered fragments. However, the latter most still steals one.[4] Eufronius’ depiction is overwhelmingly positive, with his veneration of the relic and despair at its damage emblematic of Gregory’s idea of piety. Arguably, this is because the Syrian is not this passage’s focus and he is simply a foil showing Gundovald’s faults. However, Mummolus receives more criticism than Gundovald in this passage and as shown by Wood, Gregory’s attitude to the alleged pretender is not simplistic.[5] Gregory is therefore genuine in his portrayal of the Syrian’s piety. This suggests Eufronius was integrated into Gallic society; Gregory does not treat him differently to other pious ‘role models’ throughout his Histories.

Finally, there are indications Eufronius had been living in Bordeaux for a significant time. Gregory notes during a previous fire in Bordeaux, Eufronius’ house was untouched.[6] Furthermore, when Gundovald and Mummolus harass him, he complains ‘I am an old man.’[7] Therefore, this passage suggests a Syrian had been living in Gaul for a lengthy period. However, no specifics are given. Eufronius could have been living in Gaul for years, decades or his entire life, we cannot tell from the Histories. Likewise, there is no indication whether he was a first generation migrant or a descendant of previous Syrians living in Gaul. Nevertheless, the duration of Eufronius’ time in Gaul is an important detail.

The second passage in the Histories about the Syrians concerns Guntram’s entry into Orleans in Book VIII, Chapter 1.[8] The Burgundian King, now the most powerful ruler in Gaul, receives a celebratory welcome. Syrians are in the diverse crowd chanting upon his arrival. According to Gregory, ‘the speech of the Syrians contrasted sharply with that of those using Gallo-Roman and again with that of the Jews, as they each sang his praises.’[9] However, there are numerous problems when using this passage.

Firstly, as Goffart suggests, it does not show the existence of a language barrier between Syrians and other members of Gallic society.[10] Using multiple languages is a topoi associated with the Roman tradition of adventus; a ceremony of entering the city following military triumph. Gregory deliberately mentions multiple languages here to emphasise festivity, it is not representative of reality. Gregory, despite his protestations, was evidently well educated. The problem of separating literary technique from reality applies as much to the Syrians as to the entire Histories. [11]

Secondly, a recurring theme, there is simply not much we can say about the Syrians from the evidence available. Most of this passage is concerned with Guntram’s triumph and his negative response to the Jewish community. For Gregory, the Syrians here are only relevant due to their importance for the adventus topoi. Overall, he is indifferent. We could invite comparisons between the Jews and Syrians based on this passage. However, this is risky. For example, it does not show Gregory is inherently more hostile towards Jews than Syrians. Gregory’s attitude towards the Jews here is different to his apathetic reaction to the murder of Armentarius or his implication they have poor theological understanding during Avitus’ conversions.[12] If we can draw any comparison, it is Gregory’s attitude towards different communities depends a passage’s individual context.

The final passage on the Syrian community is Book X, Chapter 26. This is about the election of Eusebius, a ‘Syrian by race’ to the Bishopric of Paris, following Bishop Ragnemod’s death.[13] Brennan has used this passage as an example of social mobility, stating it shows how even foreigners could gain an important cathedral.[14] It may be representative of social mobility, but there is no reason to believe Eusebius would have been seen as a ‘outsider’. Gaul was a diverse society; the passage reflects the Syrians’ integration rather than the Gallic aristocracy being penetrated by foreigners.

This is supported by Gregory’s reaction to Eusebius’ alleged bribery and his replacement of Ragnemod’s household with more Syrians. Gregory does not treat the Syrians in this passage different to other corrupt ecclesiasts, there is no indication he believes their ‘foreignness’ makes them more susceptible to crime. In fact, his treatment of the Syrians is less damning than his commentary on some ‘standard’ Gallic clergymen. For example, when Transobadus holds a feast to aid his attempts at succession to the Bishorpic of Rodez, a priest who began a ‘shameful’ attack on the former Bishop Dalmatius was poisoned.[15] Gregory may be partially negative towards Eusebius, but there is no reason to suggest this is because he is Syrian, especially when considered alongside his treatment of Eufronius.

A smaller point can be made from the passages discussed. The Syrians mentioned were from Bordeaux, Paris and Orleans. They were found in the north and the south and were not concentrated in a single geographic area. Therefore, the Syrian community was integrated across all Gaul.

So far, I have summarised the evidence available for Syrians in the Histories. However, an additional piece of evidence needs to be considered. Salvian, writing in the fifth century, states ‘crowds of Syrian merchants have occupied the greater part of nearly all cities.’[16] Does this suggest the Syrians had been living in Gaul for over a century? Not necessarily, the reference needs analysing within the passages’ ethnographic context. Salvian also writes ‘Let us compare the pursuits, morals and vices of the barbarians with ours’, before suggesting ‘The Franks are treacherous’ and ‘The Saxons are savage’.[17] The passage is full of classical ethnographic tropes and it is difficult to separate reality from textual purpose, when using it to understand how long the Syrian community had existed in Gaul.

This section has introduced numerous points originating from direct evidence for the Syrians of Gaul. A summary is necessary, as these points will be developed in relation to other forms of evidence throughout the essay. Firstly, the Syrians were well integrated into Gallic society. Secondly, Gregory was either disinterested towards them or altered his view depending on the context. Finally, the Syrians mentioned had been living in Gaul for a while, but the evidence is not specific.

The Region of Syria in Gallic Sources

I have discussed the evidence available for understanding the Syrian community in Gaul. I will now cover evidence for the region of Syria within Gregory’s works and other Gallic sources. By doing this, it will be possible to draw connections between the points made in the previous section and an explanation for a Syrian community existing in Gaul.

I will firstly examine Gregory’s Miracula which contain numerous references to the region of Syria, but none about Syrians living in Gaul. The most important account is Saint Sergius’ in The Glory of the Martyrs.[18] It mostly contains standard Holy Man tropes, but when compared to the account of Eufronius in the Histories it gains significance; creating a link between the ‘Syrians’ of Gaul and Syria itself. Sergius is associated with Syria, so Eufronius obtaining his finger-bone shows in Gregory’s mind the Syrians and Syria were conceived together.[19] The translation of relics from East to West was not unheard of, as shown by Radegund’s acquisition of the pieces of the True Cross.[20] Likewise, Eufronius acquiring a relic of Sergius does not necessarily mean he came from the same area as him. Nevertheless, this link, if tenuous, is the most convincing piece of evidence for the ‘Syrians’ originating from Syria.

However, while the Miracula allow us to draw a link between the Syrians and Syria, they cannot tell us when or how they migrated to Gaul. A number of saints from Syria, stretching back as far as the fourth century, are mentioned in Gregory’s Miracula. However, examining them is problematic. Firstly, the relevant passages are ambiguous. Gregory writes ‘The martyr Phocas came from the same region as these martyrs [Cosmas and Damianus]. Phocas is buried in Syria’.[21] It is implied Phocas is from Syria, but Gregory never outrightly states it. It is irrelevant to his pedagogical aims. This problem is encountered again when he writes ‘Domitius is another martyr from this region’.[22] It is likely these saints are from Syria, but Gregory leaves room for interpretation.

A further problem is none of the saints from Syria in the Miracula physically travel to Gaul. St Abraham is an exception, after escaping captivity from ‘pagans’ he decides to ‘visit western shores’ and comes to the Auvergne, establishing a monastery.[23] Yet, it is debatable if Gregory would have even thought of Abraham as Syrian. Abraham ‘was born on the river banks of the Euphrates.’[24] The Euphrates passes through the modern state of Syria. However, sixth-century Syria had different boundaries.  According to the geographer Hierocles, the river passed through Euphratexia, but this was considered separate from the Roman Provinces of Syria I and Syria II.[25] Administrative boundaries do not always reflect popular reality, but it cannot be stated with confidence Gregory thought of Abraham as a Syrian. Therefore, not a single saint from Syria covered in the Miracula travelled to Gaul. Likewise, as these saints came from the fourth or fifth century, we can conclude there is no clear evidence for Syrians existing in Gaul before the sixth century.

Critics may raise my earlier suggestion the Syrians were integrated contradicts with the idea they may not have been present in Gaul before the sixth century. This is not true. Gaul was a society containing multiple peoples, such as Jews, Bretons, Taifals and Thuringians.[26] It is unlikely assimilation into a diverse society like Gaul would have taken long. A useful parallel is found in Ostrogothic Italy, scholars like Amory and Arnold have revealed the boundaries between Goths and Romans were fluid, even though Ostrogothic control of Italy only lasted half a century.[27] In Late Antiquity, a group like the Syrians integrating into Gallic society over a few decades was entirely possible. Furthermore, I am not ruling out the possibility of a Syrian community existing in Gaul before the sixth century. I am simply stating the evidence available cannot be used to argue this.

However, the Miracula do show the context that would have allowed later ‘migrations’ to occur. In particular, the role of the Holy Man needs consideration. Brown placed the rise of the Holy Man in the context of a variety of social, economic and cultural conditions in Late Antique Syria.[28] The Holy Man rose in communities requiring a patron or mediator.[29] Corbett has shown these ideas equally apply to Gaul.[30] Revealing how religious ideas or concepts could be spread or shared across the Mediterranean. The case of the fifth-century St Symeon the Stylite is representative of this. In The Glory of the Confessors, St Symeon stands on a pillar in the region of Antioch, offering cures to the inhabitants.[31] Meanwhile, in the Histories, the sixth-century Vulfolaic the Lombard is chastised by bishops for imitating him.[32] As Gregory was writing these passages over a century after Symeon’s life, they reveal how influential ideas originating in Syria were across the Mediterranean.

However, the transmission of ideas does not necessarily equate to physical movement of people. The Miracula may be used to argue that ideas originating in Syria were important in Gaul before the sixth century, but they are not evidence for the existence of an earlier Syrian community. Nevertheless, the transmission of these ideas suggest the traditional East/West binary used to understand the Late Antique Mediterranean is faulty. As Brown suggests, treating the Eastern Mediterranean as a world apart is detrimental to scholarship [33] Likewise, Petersen has challenged a prominent misconception, ‘A rigid distinction cannot be drawn between the living Holy Man as healer in Eastern Christendom and the dead man healing from his tomb in the west.’[34] In other words, the Miracula, with their Holy Men from Syria, illustrate the cultural conditions or homogeneity which made later migrations more possible or allowed Syrians to integrate quicker. However, overall, they cannot be used as evidence for Syrians in Gaul prior to the sixth century.

I have suggested the available evidence does not indicate the existence of a Syrian community in Gaul before the sixth century. I will now examine evidence which correlates with this, by indicating the plausibility of a ‘migration’ more recent to Gregory’s writings.

Firstly, by looking at passages referring to the region of Syria in the Histories. The earliest references are in Book I and concern Ignatius and Babylas, early Bishops of Antioch.[35] However, these are representative of the Biblical themes at the beginning of the Histories and are of limited use here. Book IV, Chapter 40 is more useful. It describes how after Sigibert’s envoys return from the Emperor Tiberius, ‘the two great cities of Antioch in Egypt and Apamea in Syria were captured by the Persians and their people led off into slavery’, although it is unclear if Gregory is referring to the 540 or 572/3 conquests.[36] Whereas, Book X, Chapter 24, describes the earthquake of 589, albeit with religious undertones, which destroyed half of Antioch.[37] Syria was certainly not a safe place to live during these years. It is unsurprising then, a Bishop called Simon, decided to flee to Gaul in 591 after escaping captivity to tell Gregory about some of these events.[38]

Do these passages indicate the Syrians living in Gaul were recent refugees? Several issues need discussing. Gregory certainly shows a lack of knowledge about Syria, by suggesting Antioch is in Egypt.[39] Likewise, we are left wondering why it took Gregory almost twenty years to learn about the invasions of Syria in 572/573.  Furthermore, many of the passages described in the first section of this essay occur before Simon’s visit in 591. Nevertheless, Gregory’s ignorance does not rule out the possibility of refugees coming from Syria.  It will become clear his lack of knowledge may simply be disinterest, resulting from the fact this process had already been going on for several decades.

Other Gallic sources also illustrate why Syrians may have moved. Venantius Fortunatus is the least useful, his work may contain references to Persia, but these are only in Apostolic and ethnographic contexts.[40] Fredegar provides more information.  His statement Gregory of Antioch was godfather to the Persian Emperor Arnaulf during his alleged conversion is problematic, given the dubious content of the passage.[41] However, we can infer from Fredegar, the Romano-Persian Wars were an ongoing problem for Syria because ‘under the Emperors Maurice and Phocas a great many provinces had been devastated by Persian attacks’.[42] Nevertheless, Fredegar was writing later than Gregory. His statements could indicate why Syrians continued moving to Gaul, but they do not explain the initial presence of the Syrians in the Histories.

In this section, I have made several points. Firstly, the Syrians in the Histories are likely from the region of Syria. Secondly, there is no evidence to indicate they were in Gaul before the sixth century. Finally, Gregory and Fredegar offer clues, though not explicitly, which indicate the Syrians were relative newcomers to Gaul.

Contextual and Indirect Evidence

I will now examine a range of contextual and indirect evidence supporting the last suspicion. Concurrently, this will also strengthen the link between the ‘Syrians’ of Gaul and Syria. Firstly, several sources reinforce the conviction the Romano-Persian Wars were having a devastating impact on Syria. Menander, the Imperial historian most contemporary to Gregory, covers the years 557/558-582. This source only survives in fragments, so it is hard to get a full narrative of how the wars affected Syria, especially as we get closer to the timeframe of the Histories’ later books.[43] However, Menander still refers to the conquest of Antioch of 540, citing ‘at the beginning of this war the Romans were so averse to fighting that the Persians were able to advance to Apamea and Antioch.’[44] The events were devastating enough to still be remembered for over a decade. Procopius, although not contemporary to Gregory, provides more detail. When Persians invaded Syria in 540, some of the population of Antioch ‘departed from there with their money and fled’.[45] The inhabitants of the city ‘were visited with every form of misfortune’.[46] While we cannot presume these precise Syrians fled to Gaul, the Imperial historians allow us to identify motives for why individuals may have. Merovingian Gaul was not free of conflict, but it never experienced anything like the scale of the Romano-Persian Wars.

However, there were other incentives for Syrians to migrate to Gaul during the sixth century. The Crisis of the Three Chapters may have motivated certain clerics. I cannot give a detailed account here, however a brief introduction of the controversy is necessary.[47] In 532/533, the Emperor Justinian condemned certain writings of Theoderet of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa. This is because their reinstatement to the Church at the Council of Chalcedon (451) was seen by many as endorsing their views.[48] Their Christology was supportive of the ‘Antiochene’ school stating Christ has two distinct components, the Son of God and Son of Mary (in which the manhood is still united enough to share divine honours, without compromising the Godhead). In contrast to the view most prominent in Chalcedonian Christianity, stating the Son and Manhood were united in the Godhead.[49] Critics could raise suggesting doctrinal dispute motivated ‘migration’ contradicts my point about Mediterranean unity. However, this is not the case. The concept of the Holy Man is a vague and wider concept; the specificities of theology would not have undermined its appeal. Nonetheless, Justinian’s actions would have annoyed many Syrian clerics whose views aligned closely with the condemned writers.

How is this relevant? There are several reasons clerics in particular may have moved to Gaul as a response to these events, though the evidence is sketchy. Firstly, the Syrians described in the Histories could be dissenters to the ‘Antiochene’ view escaping to the West. There are several reasons to think this. Gregory never criticises any Syrians living in Gaul on theological grounds, in fact his description of Eufronius’ faith can only be termed positive.[50] He also has no qualms about criticising heretics, as shown by his debates with Aglian the Arian and also one of his priests over the resurrection of the body.[51] If the Syrians living in Gaul held ‘heretical’ views Gregory would certainly have highlighted them. Likewise, presumably not every cleric in Syria would have held a homogenous theological view, even if the sources available often make this appear the case.[52] Therefore, there is reason to believe the Syrians in Gaul could have been dissenters to ‘Antiochene’ theology.  Alternatively, a radical variation could look at how the response to Justinian’s condemnations in the West was not universally positive. Many thought his actions undermined the entirety of the Council of Chalcedon.[53] If the Gallic response was negative, ‘Antiochene’ Syrians could have fled to Gaul on a ‘enemy of my enemy’ basis. Finally, Wood suggests it is difficult to identify the impact of The Three Chapters Controversy in Gaul.[54] In this way, Gregory could just be ignorant of the finer points of the Syrians’ theology. However, this risks doing Gregory a disservice, his credo at the beginning of Book I makes his knowledge clear, stating ‘The Person of Son [is] One’.[55] Therefore, while the evidence allows us to hypothesise several reasons Syrians could have moved to Gaul as a response to the controversy, it is hard to argue anything specific.

Further reasons for Syrians moving to Gaul are highlighted by archaeology. Kennedy describes how the recurring appearance of the Justinianic Plague from 541 onwards correlates with settlement expansion slowing in urban and rural Syria, even if the evidence itself is incapable of telling us if the plague was the cause.[56] Foss has similarly identified decline in Antioch, listing 14 disasters that occurred in the city from 525-610, including multiple conquests, plagues, earthquakes, an infestation, a drought and a major fire.[57] Foss also states the decline in Antioch was exceptional in comparison with the rest of Syria.[58] However, we must not underestimate the potential impact of devastation in one city. Antioch was the political and ecclesiastical centre of Syria, as well as its largest city.[59] Its catastrophic time in the sixth century could have certainly motivated Syrians to flee.

This section has examined multiple reasons why Syrians may have ‘moved’ to Gaul in the sixth century. The inciting events were spread across time, starting from around the second quarter of the sixth century and continuing into the early seventh. Therefore, the Syrian migration to Gaul was continuous during this era, there was not a single mass movement. By the time Gregory was writing the Histories, there would have been enough time for some Syrians to be integrated due to the dynamism of Late Antiquity. Furthermore, while the evidence in this section can tell us why the Syrians may have wanted to move, it difficult to say why they would have chosen Gaul in particular.  As any ‘migration’ was an ongoing process, Gallic commentators may have overlooked explaining it due to its everyday nature. Nevertheless, the evidence available has severe limitations.

Conclusion   

This essay has argued the Syrians described by Gregory of Tours are mainly refugees fleeing from a series of events and transformations occurring in the region of Syria from around 525 onwards. I have done this by examining the available evidence in three sections. Firstly, by looking at the evidence referring specifically to the community in Gaul. Then by analysing references to Syria in Gallic sources and finally by looking at a range of contextual and indirect evidence. Due to the limitations of the evidence available this study inevitably raises more questions than it answers, relying on conjecture. Nevertheless, areas still could be addressed in future research. For example, further work is needed on how the Syrians so quickly integrated themselves into Gallic society. I have already proposed the idea of the Holy Man shows how Mediterranean unity could have been a factor. An examination of other ‘unifying’ factors, like literary culture, could be fruitful.[60] Nevertheless, this essay has provided a much-needed background for the Syrians of Gaul.

Bibliography

Primary Souces:

Fredegar, Chronicle in The Fourth Book of The Chronicle of Fredegar and Continuations translated by John M. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1960.

Gregory of Tours, Ten Books of Histories in The History of the Franks translatedby Lewis Thorpe.London: Penguin, 1974.

Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Confessors in Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Confessors translated by Raymond Van Dam. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988.

Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Martyrs in Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Martyrs translated by Raymond Van Dam. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988.

Gregory of Tours, The Life of the Fathers in Gregory of Tours: Life of the Fathers translated by Edward James. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1985.

Menander, History in The History of Menander the Guardsmen: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation and Historiographical Notes translated by Roger C. Blockley. Liverpool: F. Cairns, 1985.

Procopius, History of the Wars in Procopius, Volume I: Books 1-2 translated by William H. Dewey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914.

Salvian, The Governance of God in The Writings of Salvian the Presbyter translated by Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

Venantius Fortunatus, Poems in Venantius Fortunatus: Personal and Political Poems translated by Judith W. George. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995.

Secondary Sources:

Amory, Patrick. People and identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554.  Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Arnold, Jonathan J. Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World edited by Richard J.A Talbert. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Brennan, Brian. “Senators and Social Mobility in Sixth-century Gaul.” Journal of Medieval History 11, no. 2 (1985): 145-61.

Brock, Sebastian. Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity.  London: Variorum Reprints, 1984.

Brown, Peter. Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

———. “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity.” The Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80-101.

Corbett, John H. “Praesentium signorum munera: The Cult of the Saints in the World of Gregory of Tours.” Florilegium 5 (1983): 44-61.

———. “The Saint as Patron in the Work of Gregory of Tours.” Journal of Medieval History 7, no. 1 (1981): 1-13.

Foss, Clive. “Syria in Transition, AD 550-750: An Archaeological Approach.” In Late Antiquity on the Eve of Islam, edited by Averil Cameron, 171-276. Farnham: Ashgate Variorum, 2013.

Goffart, Walter. “Foreigners in the Histories of Gregory of Tours.” Florilegium 4 (1982): 80-99.

Heather, Peter. “Literacy and Power in the Migration Period.” In Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, edited by Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Kennedy, Hugh. “Antioch: From Byzantium to Islam and Back Again.” In The City in Late Antiquity, edited by John Rich, 181-98. London: Routledge, 1992.

———. “Justinianic Plague in Syria and the Archaelogical Evidence.” In Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541-750, edited by Lester K. Little, 87-98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Markus, Robert A. and Claire Sotina. “Introduction.” In The Crisis of the Oikoumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean, edited by Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt, 1-16. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.

Mathisen, Ralph W. People, Personal Expression and Social Relations in Late Antiquity. Vol. 1, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.

Moreira, Isabel. “Provisatrix Optima: St. Radegund of Poitiers’ Relic Petitions to the East.” Journal of Medieval History 19, no. 4 (1993): 285-305.

Petersen, Joan M. “Dead or Alive? The Holy Man as Healer in East and West in the Late Sixth Century.” Journal of Medieval History 9, no. 2 (1983): 91-98.

Price, Richard M. “The Three Chapters Controversy and The Council of Chalcedon.” In The Crisis of the  Oikoumene : The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean, edited by Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt, 17-37. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.

Wood, Ian. “The Franks and Papal Theology, 550-660.” In The Crisis of the  Oikoumene : The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean, edited by Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt, 223-41. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.

———. “The Secret Histories of Gregory of Tours.” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Historie 71-2 (1993).

[1] Walter Goffart, “Foreigners in the Histories of Gregory of Tours,” Florilegium 4 (1982): 86, 88.

[2] Gregory of Tours, Ten Books of Histories VII: 31 in The History of the Franks translatedby Lewis Thorpe(London: Penguin, 1974), 413-414.

[3] Gregory of Tours, Histories VII: 31 in The History of the Franks, 413.

[4] Gregory of Tours, Histories VII: 31 in The History of the Franks, 413-414.

[5] Ian Wood, “The Secret Histories of Gregory of Tours,” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Historie 71-2 (1993): 264-65.

[6] Gregory of Tours, Histories VII: 31 in The History of the Franks, 413.

[7] Gregory of Tours, Histories VII: 31 in The History of the Franks, 413.

[8] Gregory of Tours, Histories VIII:1 in The History of the Franks, 433-434.

[9] Gregory of Tours, Histories VIII:1 in The History of the Franks, 433.

[10] Goffart, “Foreigners in the Histories of Gregory of Tours,” 88.

[11] Gregory of Tours, Histories I: Preface in The History of the Franks, 67.

[12] Gregory of Tours, Histories VII:23; V:11 in The History of the Franks, 405-406; 265-267.

[13] Gregory of Tours, Histories X:26 in The History of the Franks, 586.

[14] Brian Brennan, “Senators and Social Mobility in Sixth-century Gaul,” Journal of Medieval History 11, no. 2 (1985): 151.

[15] Gregory of Tours, Histories V:46 in The History of the Franks, 312-313.

[16] Salvian, The Governance of God IV:14 in The Writings of Salvian the Presbyter translated by Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008), 115.

[17] Salvian, The Governance of God IV:14 in The Writings of Salvian, 114-115.

[18] Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Martyrs: 96 in Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Martyrs translated by Raymond Van Dam (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988), 121.

[19] Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Martyrs: 96 in Glory of the Martyrs, 121.

[20] Isabel Moreira, “Provisatrix Optima: St. Radegund of Poitiers’ Relic Petitions to the East,” Journal of Medieval History 19, no. 4 (1993).

[21] Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Martyrs: 98 in Glory of the Martyrs, 122.

[22] Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Martyrs: 99 in Glory of the Martyrs, 123.

[23] Gregory of Tours, The Life of the Fathers: III in Gregory of Tours: Life of the Fathers translated by Edward James (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1985), 18-19.

[24] Gregory of Tours, The Life of the Fathers: III in Life of the Fathers, 18.

[25] Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World ed. Rchard J.A.Talbert (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

[26] Gregory of Tours, Histories I-X: Passim in The History of the Franks, 63-604.

[27] Patrick Amory, People and identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554 (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Jonathan J. Arnold, Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 138.

[28] Peter Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” The Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 83-86. Peter Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 155-61.

[29]Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” 85-86. 6

[30] John H. Corbett, “The Saint as Patron in the Work of Gregory of Tours,” Journal of Medieval History 7, no. 1 (1981); John H. Corbett, “Praesentium signorum munera: The Cult of the Saints in the World of Gregory of Tours,” Florilegium 5 (1983).

[31] Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Confessors: 26 in Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Confessors translated by Raymond Van Dam (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988), 41.

[32] Gregory of Tours, Histories VIII: 15 in The History of the Franks, 447.

[33] Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, 171.

[34] Joan M. Petersen, “Dead or Alive? The Holy Man as Healer in East and West in the Late Sixth Century,” Journal of Medieval History 9, no. 2 (1983): 91.

[35] Gregory of Tours, Histories I:27; I:30 in The History of the Franks, 85; 86.

[36] Gregory of Tours, Histories IV:40 in The History of the Franks, 235

[37] Gregory of Tours, Histories X:24 in The History of the Franks, 583.

[38] Gregory of Tours, Histories X:24 in The History of the Franks, 582-583.

[39] Gregory of Tours, Histories: IV:40 in the History of the Franks, 235.

[40] Venantius Fortunatus, Poems 5:2, 6:5 in Venantius Fortunatus: Personal and Political Poems translated by Judith W. George (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995), 18; 46.

[41]Fredegar, Chronicle IV:9 in The Fourth Book of The Chronicle of Fredegar and Continuations translated by John M. Wallace-Hadrill (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1960), 7-9.

[42] Fredegar, Chronicle IV:63 in The Chronicle of Fredegar and Continuations, 52.

[43] Menander, History in The History of Menander the Guardsmen: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation and Historiographical Notes translated by Roger C. Blockley (Liverpool: F. Cairns, 1985).

[44] Menander, History, Fragment 26.1-3 in The History of Menander, 235.

[45] Procopius, History of the Wars II: VIII in Procopius, Volume I: Books 1-2 translated by William H. Dewey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 325.

[46] Procopius, History of the Wars II: IX in Procopius, 341-342.

[47] Robert A. Markus and Claire Sotina, “Introduction,” in The Crisis of the Oikoumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean, ed. Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007).

[48] Richard M. Price, “The Three Chapters Controversy and The Council of Chalcedon,” in The Crisis of the  Oikoumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean, ed. Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 17.

[49] Price, “The Three Chapters Controversy and The Council of Chalcedon,” 18.

[50] Gregory of Tours, Histories VII:31 in The History of the Franks, 413-416

[51] Gregory of Tours, Histories V:42; X:13 in The History of the Franks, 307-310; 560-566.

[52] Sebastian Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984), XI, 532.

[53] Price, “The Three Chapters Controversy and The Council of Chalcedon,” 18.

[54] Ian Wood, “The Franks and Papal Theology, 550-660,” in The Crisis of the  Oikoumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean, ed. Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007)

[55] Gregory of Tours, Histories I: Preface in the History of the Franks, 68.

[56] Hugh Kennedy, “Justinianic Plague in Syria and the Archaelogical Evidence,” in Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541-750, ed. Lester K. Little (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 15-20.

[57] Clive Foss, “Syria in Transition, AD 550-750: An Archaeological Approach,” in Late Antiquity on the Eve of Islam, ed. Averil Cameron (Farnham: Ashgate Variorum, 2013), 172-173.

[58] Foss, “Syria in Transition, AD 550-750: An Archaeological Approach,” 264-265.

[59] Hugh Kennedy, “Antioch: From Byzantium to Islam and Back Again,” in The City in Late Antiquity, ed. John Rich (London: Routledge, 1992), 181.

[60] Ralph W. Mathisen, People, Personal Expression and Social Relations in Late Antiquity, vol. 1 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 16; Peter Heather, “Literacy and Power in the Migration Period,” in Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, ed. Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 185.

Review: Signs and Meanings, World and Text in Ancient Christianity

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

This post will review R.A Markus’ 1996 book ‘Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity’. Based on two lectures he gave in 1995, it also contains a number of chapters that build on these. The focus throughout the book is on Late Antique semiotics and biblical hermeneutics and the extent to which these shaped contemporary writers hermeneutics of experience.

The first chapter ‘World and Text 1: Augustine’ focuses on Augustine’s biblical hermeneutics and discusses the extent to which he allows an allegorical interpretation of scripture in his different texts. It also introduces a number of key ideas that are pivotal to understanding Markus’ arguments. It discusses the difference between interpretation and exegesis and introduces the idea of textual communities. Exegesis is the activity of commentating on a text, whereas interpretation is the wider activity of interpreting experience or a worldview ‘in the light of the scriptural text.’ The latter is in contrast to interpreting a text based on one’s experience of reality. A textual community can be defined as a group with a shared language for communication. According to Markus ‘particular languages create particular communities; and special languages within these create sub-communities, or sub-cultures’. Pivotal to the rest of the book, a community may also be created through a joint understanding of the scripture and the meaning it ascribes to the world. It is through these concepts that Markus discusses how interpreting scripture can affect one’s hermeneutics of experience.

The second chapter tackles Gregory the Great and a shift that occurred in interpreting scripture and the world. For Gregory the process by which texts assigned meaning to the world ‘was telescoped into a simpler, more direct act of perception’, when compared with the Augustinian process. The chapter also covers the two authors’ differing views regarding exegesis, covering ideas like the spiritual sense of the text and allegory again. The third chapter of the book delves more into Augustine’s semiotic theory. The space dedicated to it is welcome because Augustine commentates quite heavily on signs and often alters his theory from work to work, as shown by the differences Markus notes between De Magistro and De doctrina Christiana. The chapter also discusses the role of the Hellenistic tradition, different types of signs and symbols and the role of the Interior Teacher in helping to decipher meaning. The Interior Teacher ‘is Christ dwelling in the mind’ who ‘can teach by at once displaying to the mind the reality to be known’ and provide ‘the language for its understanding’.

The next chapter, ‘Signs, Communication and Communities’ expands on some of the ideas Markus introduced earlier regarding textual communities. Furthermore, he notes Augustine’s comments on the limits of communities. Our many languages will always restrict us to moving within a limited variety of communities, therefore also restricting the boundaries of attainable meaning as well. Likewise, the fact that words in the scripture can have several meanings in the scripture means different communities can exist on different levels. One who understands the meaning of the word ‘ox’ would be a participant in a primary community of English speakers. However, one who understands its additional meaning in its scriptural context would also be a member of a secondary community. In this chapter, Markus also covers how communication is necessary for a community and further adds to his discussion on Augustine’s semiotics. The final chapter of the book is titled ‘Augustine on Magic’. This differentiates between religious and Christian miracles and how they are set apart from ‘demonic’ magic communities. It is one of the few instances in the book where Markus focuses on a community outside of a scriptural context.

Overall, ‘Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christinaity’ is a fascinating read. However, its paltry size, of 146 pages, means the reader is often left wanting and with more questions than answers. For example, Markus often refers to modern theorists, like Ricoeur and Peirce, but no comparison between them and Late Antique writers is made. Markus states that is not the point of his work and that is fair, but one cannot help think that there might be some interesting comparisons to be made between them. Furthermore, one wonders how Markus’ ideas regarding textual communities might be applied practically by historians. Could you use Augustine’s semiotics and hermeneutics to understand his and other contemporary texts or do his theories change too much to allow this? Could one read a textual description of experience and look for signs that scripture is influencing interpretation of the world? The book certainly raises a number of interesting research avenues that could be pursued.

On the other hand, ‘Signs and Meanings’ also acts as a useful primer by introducing Augustine and Gregory’s ideas regarding scriptural interpretation.The discussion surrounding the idea of textual communities is also highly nuanced, even if it could have been developed further. However, because the book is based on two lectures given by the author in 1995, the lack of expansion in certain areas is understandable.

To conclude, ‘Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity’ is an interesting and thought-provoking read, that raises many fascinating possibilities along the way.

Boethius’ Philosophy of Language

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

The Late Antique philosopher Boethius is primarily known for The Consolation of Philosophy. However, this only forms a small, if still important, part of the corpus of texts produced or translated by him. In this post, I will discuss the key aspects of his philosophy of language and signification. In particular, by focusing on his first and second commentaries on Aristotles’ Peri Hermeneias (On Interpretation).

Boethius followed a rich tradition of translation and commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias. The Peripatetic School placed it second in Aristotle’s logical works. Ammonius, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Porphry all commented on it. The latter is important because Boethius may have heavily relied on him. Although, Ebbsen suggests other possibilities; that he used many commentaries without privilege, relied on a lost source which in used Porphry or simply had one codex of Aristotle’s logical works. However, despite potentially relying on other sources, the space Boethius dedicated to a theory of language is impressive. It is this I will focus on in this post, in particular the earlier parts where he distinguishes between the different elements of signification.

Understanding Boethius’ philosophy of language firstly describes the conditions necessary for an interpretation to occur. He writes ‘when these three occur: the percussion of a tongue, the articulate sound of voice, and the mental image during the utterance, an interpretatio occurs’. Boethius dedicates far more of his commentaries discussing the last clause. However, there are still some interesting points about speech. Firstly, he distinguishes between an articulate sound that gets it meaning fully across and an inarticulate one, like a cough, which does not. Secondly, his theory is logocentric by emphasising speech over writing. Boethius states ‘the written letters signify the spoken words’ and states this again later . Therefore, he follows a long tradition of giving speech primacy over the written word.

The mental aspect is by far the most developed part of Boethius’ philosophy of language. Before a person speaks about a thing, they must first develop a understanding or conception of it. As Boethius puts it ‘the things are what we perceive in our minds and discern by our intellect, the concepts are our means of acquiring the things’. A thing, in this context, simply refers to something in reality the mind can discern, such as a object. However, Boethius suggests there are several steps the mind must go through in order to fully understand a thing. Firstly, one must have a sensual or cognitive awareness of a thing. Then an imagination of a thing arises. Next, a supervening intellect intervenes, ‘developing all those parts which had been confusedly pictured before in the imagination.’ The supervening intelligence operates on the image of a thing through the likeness of the thing in reality to the concept the mind has developed.

This process is common to all human beings and the end product can be described as a ‘mental language’. This point is key for understanding Boethius’ philosophy of language because and the way he distinguishes between language which is used in speech and language which is used in the mind. Using the example of a Roman, Greek and ‘Barbarian’, Boethius describes how all three would use different words to describe a horse. As a result, they might not understand each other vocally. However, despite this they would still share the same image in their mind. All humans share a common mental language.

Boethius’ philosophy of language therefore has several distinct features. The separation between vocal and mental languages being one of the most important. Several interesting questions could be raised based on his theory. Would it be possible to link the way Boethius prioritises different forms of language to his metaphysics? What are the implications of Boethius’ belief in all humans sharing a similar mental language? Finally, what role does writing take, when it is not just secondary to speech, but also inferior to the language of the mind? Nevertheless, Boethius’ philosophy of language, while not as developed as Augustine’s, is certainly an interesting topic.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources:

Boethius, First Commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias translated by Hans Arens in Aristotle’s Theory of Language and its Tradition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1984.

Boethius, Second Commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias translated by Hans Arens in Aristotle’s Theory of Language and its Tradition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1984.

Secondary Sources:

Cameron, Margaret. “Boethius on Understanding, Utterances and Reality.” In The Cambridge Companion to Boethius edited by John Matenbon, 85-104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Chadwick, Henry. The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology and Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University, 1981.

Ebbesen, Sten. “The Aristotleian Commentator.” In The Cambridge Companion to Boethius edited by John Matenbon, 34-55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Marenbon, John. Boethius. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Hermeneutics and Gregory of Tours’ Miracula

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

This undergraduate essay applied biblical hermeneutics to Gregory of Tours’ Miracula. This was in order to answer the question ‘what can the social historian make of either Gregory’s Histories or his books of miracles?’ A subsection of it covers the same ground as my original post on the Late Antique Holy Man. However, it mainly focuses on why we should use hermeneutics to understand Gregory’s religious writings and the problems solved by taking such an approach.

The social historian can use Gregory’s books of miracles to understand his personal experience of Late Antique Gaul. This essay will argue, using the The Life of the Fathers and The Glory of the Confessors, that previous attempts at understanding Gallic society have limitations as they have applied modern methodologies to the Miracula or have used them as empirical resources. Instead, to utilise the Miracula as a source for Gallic society we must engage with how Gregory interpreted the world and not how historians wish to view it. The first section of this essay argues for a methodology based on the biblical hermeneutical tradition, which allows us to capture Gregory’s interpretation and experience of Gallic society. The following sections build on this by testing this model against three key themes: the Holy Man, paganism and gender. While other aspects of Gallic society have also received attention, like magic and heresy, I will limit my focus to those mentioned as they best reflect the historiographical issues that arise from using Gregory’s books of miracles. Furthermore, as there is not space here to provide a comprehensive overview of Late Antique hermeneutics and because other texts do this satisfactorily, I will only mention ideas relevant to the passages analysed. Likewise, I have only used the hermeneutical theories of Augustine, Cassiodorus and Gregory the Great.

A methodology based on the biblical hermeneutical tradition benefits the social historian in several ways. It is clear from The Life of the Fathers and The Glory of the Confessors that Gregory of Tours believed God still had an active role in society; the miracles and divine interventions found within the Old and New Testaments were still everyday occurrences in Gallic society. For Gregory, ‘God deigned to increase them [miracles] daily to strengthen the faith of believers. For it was surely improper for them to disappear from memory’. While not all the Miracula contain stories contemporary to Gregory, he clearly thought the lifestyles and actions contained in them were still possible. In The Life of the Fathers, Gregory writes he hopes his text ‘encourages the minds of listeners to follow their [the saints’] example’. Therefore, Gregory believed he was writing down stories similar to those found in the Bible and while he was not claiming equivalence to the writers of the Old Testament or the Apostolic Age, he thought he was a substitution. Consequentially, it makes senses to use contemporary scriptural theories when understanding how Gregory interpreted Gallic society. Secondly, this methodology allows us to address the contradictions found in the Miracula that arise from the interaction between the realities of Frankish society and Gregory’s interpretation of them. Finally, using hermeneutics while reading Gregory allows us to gather insights into Gallic society that may have otherwise been missed.

Having proven the importance of taking a hermeneutical view of The Life of the Fathers and The Glory of the Confessors, I will now apply this model to solve several problems encountered by social historians of Merovingian Gaul. I will firstly examine the role of the Holy Man. Peter Brown attributes the rise of the Holy Man due to a variety of social, economic and cultural conditions in Late Antique Syria. The Holy Man rose in communities in a need of a mediator or patron, with his actions being carried out in the language of religion. Corbett through applying Brown’s thesis to Gaul and the Cult of St Martin, has shown this equally applies to Frankish society. Therefore, these writers have taken an anthropological approach to understanding the Holy Man. For example, possession can be explained as the process through which disruptive behaviour was communicated and the subsequent exorcism as how an individual was reintegrated into society. Viewing the Miracula through biblical hermeneutics would not disagree with the key tenets of this approach. For example, the instance where St Martin raises a tree fallen on a road in Neuillé-le-Lierre, as described in The Glory of the Confessors, can be seen in two ways. Firstly, it was an act of patronage by St Martin seen through the language of religion by those who experienced it. Secondly, Gregory, writing years later, evidently also interpreted events like these in a similar vocabulary. He notes ‘still today this tree is seen to stand up straight next to the road’. Therefore, Gregory’s hermeneutical understanding of the event, through his textual representation, was unlikely to have differed from those who directly experienced it. Consequentially, the social historian can make use of Gregory’s books of miracles by applying hermeneutics in support of current discussion surrounding the Holy Man.

However, applying biblical hermeneutics also offers new insights for the social historian using the Miracula to understand Gallic society. Translating the language of the Holy Man into that of modern anthropology has often proved problematic for scholars. Notably, when it comes to healings for illnesses and sicknesses that have no modern medical remedy. Van Dam writes he cannot state ‘all the physiological (or even sociological) explanations for all the miraculous cures that Gregory and his contemporaries recorded’. Corbett suggests that we should mostly ignore healings of physical illnesses when studying Holy Men, suggesting they only form a minority of the miracles contained in Gregory’s work. However, this is not an excuse to ignore them.

Applying hermeneutical theories to Gregory’s texts would solve this dilemma faced by the social historian. The role of allegory in scripture is emphasised by Augustine, he writes ‘when something meant figuratively is interpreted literally, it is understood in a carnal way’. Likewise, Gregory the Great suggests it is necessary to ‘point out the secret allegories’ in the Book of Job. Many illnesses found in the The Glory of the Confessors and The Life of the Fathers can be understood allegorically. This is seen when Monegundis heals a boy with serpents in his body using the green leaves of a vine. While aspects of this miracle can be understood through anthropological theories, the ailment itself cannot. Instead, the serpents are an allegory for sin or Satan. This is not mere literary embellishment though, Cassiodorus suggests ultimately a healing is a sign of God in the world. He also states that heavenly truth is often presented through parables and mysteries, as these allow humans to have a level of comprehension. The healing to the Bishop of Tours was then a genuine divine sign found within the world, but one refigured into an allegory. This did not deter from the accuracy of its representation, as it prompted the reader to a higher divine experience. The social historian can therefore use hermeneutics to solve difficulties encountered when trying to match Gregory’s view of society with modern metaphysical assumptions.

However, the social historian can also apply hermeneutics to Gregory’s books of miracles, when examining paganism. Hen has already demonstrated, using the story of Vulfolaic the Lombard, that Gregory cannot be used as evidence for a continuation of paganism. Nevertheless, Gregory still often describes the people found in these passages as pagan. When St Nicetius of Trier became stuck on a ship, he commented he was ‘the only Christian amid that multitude of pagans.’ However, it is clear these were not part of an organised religion, as they show little knowledge regarding the gods. When trapped at sea they call Jupiter, Mercury, Minerva and Venus, without considering calling Neptune, the God of the Sea. So why does Gregory paint them as fully-fledged pagans? Within the hermeneutical tradition, Augustine suggests the interpreter of scripture is ‘the defender of truth’ and so they ‘must communicate what is good and eradicate what is bad’. Truth is equated with what is good, regardless of the accuracy of this passage what matters is that Gregory is pointing towards the experience of a higher truth, that of the Christian God and his ability to stop the storm with Nicetius’ intervention. The social historian can therefore use hermeneutics to explain why Gregory departs from what we would perceive to be a more accurate statement about paganism in Gallic society.

However, the social historian can also apply hermeneutics to the Miracula to understand another moral dimension to Christian encounters with alleged pagans. Wood suggests using the labels ‘pagan’ and ‘Christian’ locks ourselves into the cultural constructs and value judgements of early medieval missionaries. This is true for empirical studies but misses what is gained by understanding the language through which Christians experienced deviation. Gregory the Great describes scripture as a ‘mirror’ in which ‘we recognise our ugliness and beauty’. Therefore, interpreting deviation was a way of reaffirming one’s orthodoxy. We can see this in how Gregory of Tours’ interpreted St Hilary’s encounter ‘in the territory of Javols’ with a crowd ‘offering libations to the lake’. Annual storms kept affecting this practice, with them only stopping when they started giving the libations to a church built by St Hilary instead. Fletcher describes this as an example of rural evangelisation through a transference of ritual. However, whether this actually happened is not Gregory’s concern, instead he is reaffirming his own values by comparing the initial ‘ugliness’ of the rustics with the ‘beauty’ of God’s intervention. The social historian can therefore apply hermeneutics to the Miracula to understand Gregory’s interpretations of society.

The social historian can also apply hermeneutics to the Miracula to understand how Gregory interprets gender. Bitel has already noted the restrictive stereotypes existing for women in Gaul. However, Gregory’s interpretation of Monegundis shows experience of gender did not always meet one’s expectations. Gregory states ‘He [God] gives us as models not only men, but also the lesser sex, who fight not feebly, but with a virile strength’. By stating that Monegundis is of the ‘lesser sex’ but also has a ‘virile strength’, Gregory of Tours initially appears to be contradicting himself. However, interpreting this passage within the hermeneutical tradition is less problematic. Gregory the Great, while discussing contradictory statements made by Solomon in the Bible, suggests when understanding scripture, we must not understand contradictions in isolation and look towards the entire meaning of the text. The necessity to subvert gender norms for Monegundis is secondary to the religious and pedagogical purposes of The Life of the Fathers. This point is supported by the fact that Monegundis’ life has structural similarities to other chapters throughout the text. The social historian can therefore apply hermeneutics to understand why Gregory departs from gender stereotypes.

This idea from hermeneutics can also be extended to cases where Gregory transgresses masculinity and femininity. St Papula in The Glory of the Confessors spent thirty years living in a monastery living as a man, for ‘no one knew of her gender’. Gregory mainly spends the passage praising her virtues, suggesting once again he is willing to subvert gender norms if it does not undermine the text’s meaning. However, at the same time the story of Papula suggests limitations to these departures from the stereotypes of Frankish society. When Papula dies she is ‘washed by other women’ rather than the men she lived around. Therefore, the social historian can use the Miracula to understand that while Gregory makes interesting departures, there are limits to his interpretations as they are always partially based on Gallic societal norms.

This essay has argued the social historian can best understand Gregory’s books of miracles by applying biblical hermeneutics to them. It has done this by examining key themes prominent in scholarship on Gallic society; the Holy Man, paganism and gender. While my argument may initially appear cynical regarding the amount of information about Gallic society we can ascertain from them, it reminds us while consulting sources that they are ultimately an interpretation of reality. Further studies could apply hermeneutics to other sources, as by collating different interpretations we would be in a better position to assess the realities of Gallic society. Nevertheless, it is now clear that the social historian can use Gregory’s Miracula to understand his personal interpretations of Late Antique Gaul.

Bibliography


Primary Sources


Augustine, On Christian Doctrine translated by Roger P.H Green in Saint Augustine: On Christian Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Cassiodorus, Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning translated by James W. Halporn and Mark Vessey in Cassiodorus: Institutions of Divine and Secular Learning and On the Soul. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004.

Gregory of Tours, The Glory of the Confessors translated by Raymond Van Dam in Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Confessors. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988.

Gregory of Tours, The Life of the Fathers translated by Edward James in Gregory of Tours: Life of the Fathers. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998.

Gregory the Great, Commentary on Job translated by Brian Kerns in Gregory the Great: Moral Reflections on Job, Volume 1, Preface and Books 1-5. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2014.

Secondary Sources


Bitel, Lisa M. Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400-1100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Brown, Peter. “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity.” The Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80-101.

Corbett, John H. “Praesentium signorum munera: The Cult of the Saints in the World of Gregory of Tours.” Florilegium 5 (1983): 44-61.

———. “The Saint as Patron in the Work of Gregory of Tours.” Journal of Medieval History 7, no. 1 (1981/01/01 1981): 1-13.

Fletcher, Richard A. The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity, 371-1386 AD. London: HarperCollins, 1997.

Hen, Yitzhak. “‘Paganism and Superstition in the Time of Gregory of Tours: Une question mal posée!’.” In The World of Gregory of Tours, edited by Kathleen Mitchell and Ian N. Wood, 229-40. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

Kitchen, John. Saints’ Lives and the Rhetoric of Gender: Male and Female in Merovingian Hagiography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Markus, Robert A. Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996.

Van Dam, Raymond. Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

Wood, Ian. “Pagan Religions and Superstitions East of the Rhine from the Fifth to the Ninth Centuries.” In After Empire : Towards an Ethnology of Europe’s Barbarians, edited by Giorgio Ausenda, 253-79. Woodbridge,: Boydell Press, 1995.

My Thoughts on the Late Antique Holy Man

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

During my third-year special subject module on sixth-century Merovingian Gaul , I encountered the Late Antique holy man. In this post, I aim to discuss some of the scholarship around this type of religious person. In particular, I will raise my personal thoughts and some of the issues that I believe still need to be addressed.

To understand the contemporary debate around the Late Antique holy man, one first needs to take into account the importance of Peter Brown’s scholarly contributions on the topic. In his 1971 article The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity, Brown noted scholars had previously provided three main explanations for the emergence of this religious and miraculous figure. Firstly, some have argued the holy man arose as the product of the oppression and conflict found in Eastern Roman society, in particular among the lower classes. Secondly, by looking at ascetic literature, others had demonstrated the feelings and emotions the holy man could arouse. Finally, the holy man could also be seen to represent the dilution of the ‘enlightened’ ideas of the elites among the masses.

Brown provided an alternative answer to the holy man. In particular, he used the context of Late Antique Syria for his explanation. Particular factors allowed the emergence of a religious figure that could act as a mediator or patron for rural settlements. For example, peasant life in Syria was seasonal and fluid; allowing news of a holy man to spread quickly. In turn, this increased his following. Meanwhile, the fact that the desert in Syria was closer to settlement, meant that holy men could live like ‘true’ hermits. In the harsher conditions of Egypt, one would have been forced to take on some of the habits of urban areas, but this was not necessarily the case in Syria. Furthermore, many villages in fourth and fifth century Syria were going through a crisis of leadership due to increased prosperity in rural life.

Within this context, rural Syrian villages were in need of a patron. As Brown puts it ‘villagers needed a hinge-man, a man who belonged to the outside world’; one who could place his know-how, cultures and values at the disposal of a settlement. The holy man could perform numerous functions, including mediating between disputes and acting as a platform to express religious anxieties. Therefore, a rough definition of the Late Antique holy man might allude to individuals who acted as a mediators or patrons for settlements through the language of religion and miracle.

While Brown puts emphasis on Syria for their origin, holy men were also found elsewhere in the Late Antique world. At this point, it is necessary to introduce another issue; were holy men different in the Western Mediterranean in contrast to the Eastern Mediterranean? One of the most common ideas is that holy men tended to be dead when performing their functions in the West, but in the East they were generally alive. For example, Corbett when applying Brown’s ideas to Merovingian Gaul almost exclusively focuses on the cults of dead saints. On the other hand, some scholars have been keen to undermine the East/West binary regarding holy men. Petersen notes ‘a rigid distinction cannot be drawn between the living holy man as healer in Eastern Christendom and the dead man healing from his tomb in the West’. Brown, himself, comments on the more general issue of seeing the East and Western Mediterranean as separate from each other; ‘nothing has done more to handicap our understanding of Mediterranean history in the medieval period than the tendency of scholars to treat Byzantium as a world apart’. Yet, when reading these, I still sense there is a sense of hesitation when trying to reduce or dismiss any differences. Petersen, for example, still states that in Gregory of Tours’ Life of the Fathers , the living holy man still takes second place. Therefore, while a range of scholarship has addressed this issue quite in depth, I feel there is a need for further discussion.

However, even if we understand that holy men, dead or alive, played an important role with regards to patronage and mediation in Late Antique communities, we are still left with another question. How did holy men perform their function? The most persuasive models take an anthropological and psychosomatic approach. By using these terms I mean several things. Brown provides a useful example, the idea of an individual being possessed is a way of understanding and communicating social disruptive behaviour through the language of religion. Van Dam has done some of the most significant work, for him ‘in Merovingian Gaul, people’s attitudes towards diseases were intimately concerned with community and individual’s values as with physical sickness and disability’. Therefore, if a person became ill, they may have or may not have a illness in reality, but they and their community certainly thought they did have one. An individual with an illness was likely excluded from society until a holy man reintegrated them through a healing.

I feel approaches like these can explain a lot, but certainly not all instances of healings or actions carried out by holy men. I will now raise some of the issues I have with models like these. Firstly, I find it problematic how easily the actual physical healings are often casually dismissed. Corbett states that many of the deeds in Gregory of Tours’ works do not have a miraculous element, while scholars like Van Dam allow room for the role of medicines and herbs contemporary to Late Antiquity. Therefore, when Monegundis in the Life of the Fathers heals a boy with poisonous snakes within him, by pressing a leaf with saliva on against his belly, I may be willing to accept that the boy may have genuinely been healed using traditional techniques (whether the use of ‘snakes’ is a just a textual metaphor used by Gregory or how the illness was genuinely experienced is another question). However, I find it more difficult to accept physical healings which do not have a known medical solution today. For example, those curing blindness or severe paralysis. Maybe, I am overthinking or burdened with presentism and the trappings of modernity, but I feel there is a still a need to address healings like these without resorting to the cynical ‘they just made it up’ attitude. Van Dam does emphasise his discussion ‘is not directly concerned with sickness and disability as physical afflictions’, but I still feel we cannot simply ignore the physical aspect of healings carried out by holy men.

Holy men also acted as mediators or patrons in other ways. Rapp has noted that Brown also developed the notion of the holy man as an exemplar or role model and as an intercessor in the heart of a community in which social ties are understood in terms of spiritual kinship. Hayward is more cynical about the impact of holy men on communities. For example. he argues that the idea of holy man as an exemplar is usually a literary topos. Texts, according to Hayward, rarely offer any idea of how an individual is supposed to imitate them. This criticism has a degree of strength, but I still personally think there is still a lot to gain by taking a more anthropological approach.The role of the holy man in Gallic and other Late Antique communities was of major importance in terms of maintaining or creating harmony. This can firstly be seen by some of the discussion above. However, I think the social role of the holy man can be expanded a bit further and perhaps even linked to Halsall’s work on the life cycle and social organisation in Merovingian Gaul. He describes grave goods as symbolic ‘texts’ through which information can be transferred, with their importance increased if a death caused a particularly break in social cohesion.. If we accept that the holy man had an important role in local communities as well, we can at least make tentative connections between the wider literature on Late Antique social organisation and the scholarship on holy men.

Several examples from Gregory of Tours’ writings can be used to support this idea. I use the term ‘rupture’ here to denote any time a community’s harmony is threatened, which is usually through a defiance of social norm or a breakage in the life cycle. In The Life of the Fathers, social tension emerges when Nicetius’ will is read out aloud in public. A priest swells with rage because Nicetius left nothing to the church in the place where he was buried. However, Nicetius appears and criticises the priest and in turn he receives a swollen throat. In this instance, a death or more precisely a will caused disharmony, but the idea of the cult of saints and its psychosomatic effect helped to resolve tension caused by these events. In the Histories, a relative of Guntram Boso’s wife dies childless (again an event which was threatening). The relative is buried with treasure and also placed in a church near Metz, the latter and its associated ‘holy man’ offers protection when servants of Boso tries to steal treasure from the burial.

However, the ability of holy men, alive or dead, to smooth tensions should not just be restricted to death. Monegundis is as ever a useful example to illustrate how social ruptures could be negotiated through the concept of the holy person. Monegundis, following the death of her children, effectively transgresses a number of boundaries. She abandons her husband, relations and friends. If someone defies social norms, Gregory is not bothered, so long as they go onto perform holy or miraculous acts. Monegundis’ acts are not as harmful to the community as they could have been because of her sanctity. Leobardus offers another case where being holy could paint over instances which otherwise would be socially disruptive. At the age of legal majority and following custom, he is betrothed, but once his parents pass away he abandons the world in order to serve God. It is critical to emphasise here that Leobardus is effectively abandoning an alliance, likely created to manage relations within a particular community. By becoming holy, an excuse is effectively created by those involved, but also by Gregory for his later purposes. This excuse helps to mend any harm that might have been done. By noting down these thoughts, I do not aim to offer a complete model with rules and regulations. Instead, I am simply stating my belief that more needs to be done to link the concept of the holy man to other factors affecting social organisation in Merovingian Gaul and the rest of the Late Antique world.

This post has summarised some of the key issues regarding holy men in Late Antiquity. However, there is still a lot of room for further discussion and I have stated some of the directions it could follow.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources:

Gregory of Tours, Histories translated by Lewis Thorpe in The History of the Franks. London: Penguin, 1974.

Gregory of Tours, The Life of the Fathers translated by Edward James in Gregory of Tours: Life of the Fathers. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1998.

Secondary Sources:

Brown, Peter. Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Brown, Peter. “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity.” The Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80-101.

Corbett, John H. “Praesentium signorum munera: The Cult of the Saints in the World of Gregory of Tours.” Florilegium 5 (1983): 44-61.

———. “The Saint as Patron in the Work of Gregory of Tours.” Journal of Medieval History 7, no. 1 (1981/01/01 1981): 1-13.

Halsall, Guy. Cemeteries and Society in Merovingian Gaul : Selected Studies in History and Archaelogy, 1992-2009. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

Hayward, Paul. “Demystifying the Role of Sanctity in Western Christendom” in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, edited by James Howard-Johnson and Paul Hayward, 115-142. Oxford: Oxford University, 1999.

Petersen, Joan M. “Dead or Alive? The Holy Man as Healer in East and West in the Late Sixth Century.” Journal of Medieval History 9, no. 2 (1983): 91-98.

Rapp, Claudia. “For next to God, you are my salvation’: Reflections on the Rise of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity” in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, edited by James Howard-Johnson and Paul Hayward, 63-82. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.


Medieval Metahistory: Applying Hayden White to Bede and Paul the Deacon

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

This post contains my first serious attempt of applying the philosophy of history to an undergraduate essay question. The title was ‘how appropriate is it to characterize the Barbarian histories you have studied as national records? Discuss using two or three examples.’ My response to this was to identify the difference between a ‘history’ and a ‘record’ and then use the ideas of Hayden White to more fully address the question. This essay was written during the Autumn of second-year, a time where I was deeply interested in the works of Hayden White. My views on his ideas have shifted a lot since then, but this essay marked an important transition for me, in terms of how I began to bring thoughts, that initially may appear semi-disparate, together.

It is inappropriate to characterise Barbarian histories as national records because there is a difference between a ‘record’ and a ‘history’. A ‘record’ is a statement of fact, like an event happening. ‘History’ goes beyond this by having interpretation and narration. My assertion is the ‘national’ element in Barbarian texts occurs on the interpretative level and it is impossible for a record by itself to have any ‘national’ meaning beyond how the historian interprets it. I argue that medieval historians similarly to modern historians went through the process outlined in Hayden White’s Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973) of turning the unprocessed historical record into a comprehensible form. This will be done by examining Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (731) and Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards (787-796). Firstly, by showing how records or factual statements in these texts by themselves cannot be termed ‘national’. I then show how the authors’ interpretation was shaped by their sources and personal circumstances, affecting how they changed records into a form with a ‘national’ point of view. Finally, I ask how do Bede and Paul give meaning to their works or how do their works become ‘national’? This argument requires us to define ‘national’, it forms a major part of it. This has never been easy for the modern scholar and it brings many presumptions. As Bede and Paul had very different ideas regarding what a nation was, I aim to keep my definition fairly flexible. However, some clarity is necessary and in the context of this discussion it refers to a perception of shared heritage based on factors like ethnicity, customs and kingship.

Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards is not a ‘national’ record it goes beyond stating facts. A passage from Book 1, Chapter XIV as proves this. Paul states ‘Meanwhile, the leaders Ibor and Aio, who had conducted the Langobards from Scandinavia and had ruled then up to this time, being dead, the Langobards unwilling to remain longer under mere chiefs (dukes) ordained a king for themselves like other nations. Therefore, Agelund the son of Aio first reigned over them.’ This passage is split into both record and interpretation. The passing of Ibor and Aio and the election of Agelund as King are facts and as such these statements are a record of events. However, Paul goes beyond this by making decisions about the events. He states that the decision to ordain a king was made because they were no longer willing to remains chiefs and wanted a king like other nations. It is with this part of the passage that Paul is making an interpretation of events and so it begins to constitute a history rather than a record. It suggests he believes kingship and nationhood are closely related. Therefore, the association with nationality only enters on the historical level of the text.

Bullough has argued that parts of Book III of Paul’s History are like the Chronicles written by Marius of Aventicum, also highlighting that the entirety of two chapters are Pope Gregory I’s letters to Queen Theudelina, King Agiulf and Archis of Benevento. This suggests that portions of Paul’s History are simply records, without interpretation. I do not argue that the History of the Lombards is structurally consistent, however it is impossible to deny it does have interpretation as shown above. The inclusion of these sources show us how Paul went through a process similar to modern historians of making sense and giving meaning to any records or events he could establish from them. When Paul’s History does change format, like in Book III, it does not become a record. He is instead showing the sources from which he derived his interpretations in the rest of the book, believing they support the conclusions he is making

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is similar to Paul’s History as it goes beyond statements that can be proven true and false by having interpretation and therefore cannot be termed a national ‘record’. This is seen in Book 1 where he describes Ethelfrid, King of the Northumbrians and his campaigns against the Irish. In this several points can be established or disproven. Whether Ethelfrid overran a greater area than any other ealdorman or King and whether he exterminated or enslaved the inhabitants. However, Bede interprets these events stating that ‘he ravaged the Britons more cruelly than all other English leaders’ and ‘of course he was ignorant of true religion’. Once again, it is when Bede tries to explain the events and therefore write history, that the text acquires ‘national’ characteristics. This is done by showing how Englishness is defined by the faith. By acting cruelly, Ethelrid is deviating from religious norms and therefore is different from other English rulers.

Some may argue comparing Bede and Paul the Deacon to the process modern historians go through, transforming record into history, is anachronistic. It is true they did not write with the empirical concerns of the historical discipline that developed in the nineteenth century. However, this is not a problem. White himself stated that before the nineteenth century that history was primarily rhetorical rather than empirical, but also noted the importance ‘truth’ still had in rhetoric. Rather the difference was in the way they treated their sources. Roger Ray has persuasively argued that Bede respected truth, but left responsibility for it to his sources. Naturally, Bede and Paul did not look at their sources through the lens of modern source criticism. However, they still went through the process that the modern historian goes through of trying to explain what the sources are telling them. Simply, Bede and Paul’s interpretations were more significantly influenced by the presumptions they brought to their sources, which often meant that their histories had ‘national’ characteristics.

Bede’s transformation of records into ‘national’ history was influenced by the sources he interpreted. Kirby argues Bede’s world view was shaped by the monasteries he was in contact with. Higham has also shown the importance of oral sources. I build on this by arguing they shaped the ‘national’ characteristics of his history. Bede’s preface lists his sources detailing the wide number of clergymen he obtained oral history from, like Bishop Daniel of the West Saxons and from the Church of Canterbury. From a wide geographic area they clearly show how Bede in Northumbria was connected to large parts of England. However, the connections were entirely through religious institutions. As shown Bede, closely connects Englishness to the ‘true’ Catholic faith. Consequently, he gained from his sources a viewpoint which emphasises the unity of England through its faith. This interpretation does not reflect reality. There were large numbers of British people living in Bernicia when the text was composed. However, this is missed because Bede’s oral sources are only Catholic and based off his religious network.

Bede consulted many written texts while writing and these likewise shaped the national characteristics of his history. Scholars have noted the influence of Church histories and the Church fathers on Bede. Markus highlighted the particular influence of Eusebius’s Universal History. These texts again presented Bede with a theme of unity through faith, linking back to the idea that this is what unites the English.

Paul the Deacon’s transformation of record into ‘national’ history was affected by the personal circumstances he wrote in. I have avoided discussing the ethnogenesis debate regarding early medieval ethnicity as I have been concerned with how Bede and Paul made national interpretations rather than if they contain evidence of ethnicity, which the debate centres on. However, when trying to understand how Paul makes a ‘national’ interpretation it becomes important. The Vienna School would look for identity forming processes in Paul. Goffart argues that Paul’s History was written within a specific literary context to encourage Grimoald III of Benevento to cultivate good relations with the Franks and this explains the national element in it. These are not contrary when explaining how Paul’s interpretation of the past had national characteristics.

Following the Carolingian conquest, not all Lombard elites were excluded from power. Paul the Deacon therefore wrote in a context where two traditions of government co-existed. Therefore, while Mckitterick and Goffart have highlighted the importance of encouraging co-existence with the Franks. I argue they do not contradict with the idea that ‘national’ identity forming processes are present in Paul. This is because he associates nationality with kingship and therefore government. Likewise, for the Vienna School the presence of these processes is still influenced by Paul’s specific context following the conquest. Therefore, when Paul is transforming records into ‘national’ history he is shaped both by the context he wrote in and current ideas in Lombard society regarding nationality.

So far, I have discussed how Bede and Paul texts only become ‘national’ on the historical level and how their sources and personal circumstances shaped them. Now, I will explain how they approach the question ‘what does their work add up to?’ or ‘what does it mean?’. White posited this could be seen by three forms of explanation: the different types of plots, arguments and ideologies found in historical works. These cannot be applied to medieval texts without adaptation, nevertheless they are still useful when trying to understand how Paul and Bede explained their national interpretations.

Bede explained making the English ‘nation’ parallel to the Catholic Church in Britain, by making the English God’s assigned people in reconciling the rest of Britain and its Celtic Christianity with the true faith. Book 1 states that Britain despite having multiple languages it is united by the fifth Latin and its search for God’s truth. Bede also uses Gildas as a source describing the chaos before the English were converted, but notes ‘God did not abandon the people, he had chosen the English’. My assertion is that we can understand how Bede explained the meaning of the national characteristics of his work by comparing them to some of White’s forms of explanation. It has a comic plot in that the British and Catholic Church are reconciled through the English. To White this plot represented a temporary reconciliation of opposing forces for which society is better. A formist argument is integrative and sees historical units as part of a greater whole. I argue Bede’s History is also integrative when regarding religion and the English are again the main cause behind this. Bede’s ideology is equivalent to White’s ideology of ‘Conservatism’ in that he views the Church at the best current state it can be, within the limitations of the Fall due to the English’s role as God’s chosen people.

Paul explained the ‘national’ characteristics of his work through exploring the relationship between the Lombards and Kingship. According to White a mechanistic argument is reductive and look for single laws that govern history. Paul’s History is like this because it ties the fate of the Lombards directly to the monarchy, the nation and king are the same. Consequently, Paul’s plot is tragic, as the Lombard monarchy is conquered by the Carolingians, but temporary reconciliation is achieved through the persistence of Lombard elites. His ideology is like Bede and is Conservative because it is unrealistic for the Lombard nation to return to its former glory and it must accept its current situation under the Carolingians.

Modern historians often separate themselves from their medieval counterparts, due to scepticism over the truthfulness of their aims. However, this essay has shown in many ways they went through a similar process. As I have shown Bede and Paul’s texts were not ‘national’ on the level of record, but when they went through the process of interpreting and making judgements about their data, they were going through similar motions to what a modern historian does. History prior to the nineteenth century was not identical to the discipline that developed thereafter. However, I do believe that by comparing the process of historical writing, we as historians do every day, to those in the past, may help us understand our medieval counterparts more and how they transformed unprocessed records into ‘national’ histories.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources:

Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica (731) translated by Leo Sherley-Price in Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Penguin: London, 1990.

Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum (787-796) translated by William D. Fulke in History of the Lombards. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974

Secondary Sources:

Bullough, Donald. “Ethnic History and the Carolingians: An Alternative Reading of Paul the Deacon.” In The Inheritance of Historiography, 350-900, edited by Christopher. J. Holdsworth and Timothy P. Wiseman, 85-106. Exeter: University of Exeter, 1986.

Cowdrey, Herbert Edward John. “Bede and the ‘English People’.” Journal of Religious History 11, no. 4 (1981): 501-23.

Gillett, Andrew. “Ethnogenesis: A Contested Model of Early Medieval Europe.” History Compass 4, no. 2 (2006): 241-60.

Goffart, Walter. A. The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon.  New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Higham, N. J. Bede as an Oral Historian. Newcastle: Bealim Signs, 2011.

Kirby, David. “Bede’s Native Sources for the Historia Ecclesiastica.”Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 48 (1966): 341-371.

Markus, Robert A. Bede and the Tradition of Ecclesiastical Historiography. Jarrow on Tyne: St Paul’s Rectory, 1975.

McKitterick, Rosamond. “Paul the Deacon and the Franks.” Early Medieval Europe 8, no. 3 (1999): 319-39.

Pohl, Walter. “Gens ipsa peribit. Kingdom and Identity After the End of Lombard Rule.” In 774, ipotesi su una transizione: Atti del seminario di Poggibonsi, 16-18 febbraio 2006, 67-78. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2008.

Ray, Roger. “Bede’s Vera Lex Historiae.” Speculum 55, no. 1 (1980): 1-21.

———. “Who Did Bede Think He Was?”. In Innovation and Tradition in the Writings of the Venerable Bede, edited by Scott DeGregorio, 11-37. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2006.

White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-century Europe.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

———. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.

New Blog, New Beginning

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

Since 2013, I have kept a blog at https://liamslookathistory.blogspot.com/. While I enjoyed running it, I now feel the time is right for a new beginning. I started it as a secondary school student and since then I have come a long way- I am starting an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of York in September. However, this also means that the credibility of the posts on my old blog is highly variable. I chose a bizarre topic for my first post on that one- the history of Antarctic politics. I also wrote about the interests I held as a teenager, the Swedish Empire and my undying support at the time for Edgar the Atheling as the true heir of Edward the Confessor. More recently, my posts began to narrow down a lot; focusing on early medieval history. In particular, over the last year it has acted as a journal for my undergraduate dissertation on network analysis and Ostrogothic Italy. By starting a new blog, I am not disowning the old one. It is a testament to my development from GCSE to the end of an undergraduate degree.

Nevertheless, now is the perfect opportunity to try something different. There are several motivations for doing this. I am currently in the process of preparing for a potential PhD application, so it will act as a sort of catalyst for developing ideas and concepts. My hope is to carry out research on sixth-century Italy, partially explaining the title for this blog.

I am not going to have any strict rules for the content on this blog. It will focus on my academic interests and will likely evolve depending on what I am researching, reading or learning about at the time. As the blog’s title suggests, there will likely be a bit of philosophy as well. Particularly, if I pursue one of my ideas. I may also upload some of my relevant undergraduate essays to act as an online portfolio for future applications, with the aim of demonstrating my ‘way of thinking’.

On a concluding note, it is possible someone could be wondering why the site logo shows Theoderic the Great, rather than say an actual philosopher like Boethius. I felt hesitant to imply that Boethius was an Ostrogoth by using his image. Despite, the fact that my network analysis of Cassiodorus’ Variae questioned the importance of ‘ethnicity’ in Ostrogothic Italy. Furthermore, I feel ‘Philosophical Ostrogoth’ represents my interests better than the more broad, but equally possible ‘Philosophical Roman’ blog title.

I hope this introductory post has given some insight into the thought processes behind starting a new blog and it has given insight into its possible content.