Roman Barbarians

In this book Yitzhak Hen, a well-known specialist in the history of Frankish culture, presents a vigorous defence of the sophistication of ‘barbarian’ kings by emphasising the way in which many of them were concerned to patronise groups of scholars and intellectuals at their courts. This is framed as a rebuke to those who persist in seeing the post-Roman era as a cultural Dark Age, and to anyone who may be tempted to regard Charlemagne as the first medieval ruler to have conceived of assembling a learned court circle. In some respects the book may be read as a companion to Pierre Riché’s Education and Culture in the Barbarian West (1976), now 30 years old, though, by viewing his subject-matter through the lens of kings and their courts, Hen finds a rather different focus. Each of the central chapters revolves around a particular ruler or group of rulers: Theoderic the Ostrogoth, Thrasamund king of the Vandals, the Frankish kings Clothar II and Dagobert I, Visigothic Spain's King Sisebut, and, finally, the eighth-century satellites of and parallels to Charlemagne (Desiderius of Italy, Tassilo of Bavaria, Irene of Byzantium and Harun-al-Rashid). Each case-study includes clear overviews of the careers and writings of the scholars patronised by these rulers, describes the political contexts in which they operated, and reflectively summarises scholarly opinion on their main works. This is a good idea for a book. By gathering this scattered material together in one place and supplying a full bibliographical apparatus, Hen fills a gap on the scholarly shelf and provides a useful resource for those engaged in researching and teaching post-Roman rulership

Ancient history · Art · Barbarian · Literature · Middle Ages · Political science · Politics · Ruler · Throne · Classics · History · Law · Medieval History and Crusades · Medieval Literature and History · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

• Merovingian Medicine Between Practical Art and Philosophy

  Open Access•Jesse T Palmer, James T Palmer•Traditio•2023

  Add to list