Walter Pohl, “Romanness: a multiple identity and its changes”, Early Medieval Europe 22/4 (2014) 406–418
In the often controversial debates about early medieval ethnicity and
identities, Romanness has received little attention. But it should, because it
is a particularly interesting case of the transformations of identity. What did
it mean to be Roman after Rome? Early medieval Roman identities could be civic,
regional, imperial, religious, cultural, legal or military; by
selfidentification or by outside ascription; they could constitute one facet in
a complex web of affiliations, or a stubbornly maintained point of reference
for the survival of a community. The ‘Byzantine’ empire, the city of Rome, the
Catholic church, an educated elite or a regional population could provide foci
of post-Roman Romanness in the west. Romans could be counted as one gens among others,
or still measured by their imperial pretences. These ambivalences about Roman
identity are not simply a result of the fall of the western empire. Numerous
recent studies have dealt with the significance of Romanness in antiquity, and
have shown that this was a paradoxical construction from the start, creating a
wide variety of ways to be Roman. At times, Romanness was also ethnicized,
although usually its political, legal and cultural definitions were in the
forefront. The present contribution sketches some ways in which the classical
multiplicity of romanitas affected its early medieval development.
