History, Frankish Identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity, 550-850 (Paperback)

Introduction; Part I. Communities of the Middle Ground in Sixth-Century Gaul: 1. Gregory of Tours and his genealogy of pastoral power in late antique Gaul; 2. Virtutes sanctorum et strages gentium: 'The deeds of the saints and the slaughters of the peoples' - the radicalisation of church history; 3. The dangers of history; 4. Continuities and discontinuities: Roman and Frankish alternatives to Gregory; 5. The politics of identity in the Merovingian kingdoms of the sixth century; Part II. Countermyths: The Search for Origins in the Merovingian Kingdoms: 6. The persistence of Gregory's vision of community: the reecriture and reconfiguration of the Histories in the seventh century; 7. Iocundus in fabolis et strenuus in consiliis: Roman trickery and Frankish mythmaking in the Chronicle of Fredegar; 8. … sicut ceterae gentes - '… like the other peoples' - the Liber historiae Francorum and the definition of the populus in the seventh and eighth century; 9. Spielraume of Frankish identity in the long seventh century; Part III. A Common Future: The Reforms of Frankish Identity under the Carolingians: 10. Gens Francorum inclita: 'the illustrious Frankish people' - the centralisation of Frankishness under the early Carolingians; 11. Correctio: the redefinition of central Frankishness; 12. Before and after 800: central and local Frankishness in the Carolingian world; 13. Before and after 829: the transformation of Frankish identity from the short to the long history of the Royal Frankish Annals; Conclusion: Frankish identity, Western ethnicity; Bibliography; Index.