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The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity

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The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Wilkinson, Ryan Hayes. 2015. The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467211 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity A dissertation presented by Ryan Hayes Wilkinson to The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2015 © 2015 Ryan Hayes Wilkinson All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Michael McCormick Ryan Hayes Wilkinson The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity Abstract In the fifth and sixth centuries CE, the Roman Empire fragmented, along with its network of political, cultural, and socio-economic connections. How did that network’s collapse reshape the social and mental horizons of communities in one part of the Roman world, now eastern France? Did new political frontiers between barbarian kingdoms redirect those communities’ external connections, and if so, how? To address these questions, this dissertation focuses on the cities of two Gallo-Roman tribal groups. The Aeduans and Lingons inhabited a strategic crossroads region in what is now Burgundy and Champagne, and between ca. 460-534 passed from Roman to barbarian rule – first under the Burgundians and then under the Merovingian Franks. Close prosopographical study of the written sources and distribution-analysis of material sources – coins and ceramics – illuminate the region’s experience of the end of Empire. An unprecedented study of the distribution of Burgundian coins found in France revises the consensus model for the movement of gold coins across the post-Roman West. The dissertation’s multiple independent types of evidence reveal and mutually corroborate previously unrecognized communication patterns in late antique eastern Gaul. During the fifth and sixth centuries, Aeduan and Lingon communication horizons contracted sharply but unevenly. To the northwest, where Burgundians and Franks faced off across a sometimes-tense border, traditional socio-economic ties withered almost completely, only to resume after the Frankish conquests of the 530s. To the south, however, throughout the fifth and sixth centuries, Aeduans and Lingons more iii easily forged long-range connections across a different but also frequently hostile political border, with the Goths. The struggles of violent kings, then, could decisively reshape communication networks, but did not always do so. To explain the importance of politics relative to other influences – social, economic, and environmental – the dissertation turns to social gravity and network analysis theories. The study culminates in a multi-scalar model for the complex and dynamic communications of late antique Gaul. That interdisciplinary approach models new methodological possibilities for explaining pre-modern communication history. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: THE LAST HORIZONS OF ROMAN GAUL .......................................................................... 1 DEBATING THE END OF CIVILIZATION .......................................................................................... 5 COMMUNICATIONS: CROSSING THE WORLD, SHAPING THE WORLD ........................................... 17 SCOPE AND METHODS ................................................................................................................ 24 ILLUMINATING THE BURGUNDIAN KINGDOM ............................................................................. 30 CHAPTER ONE: AEDUAN COMMUNICATIONS AT THE END OF ANTIQUITY ..................................... 34 BEFORE 450: AUTUN LOOKS NORTHWEST ................................................................................. 38 CA. 450-480: BROAD HORIZONS, GATHERING STORMS ............................................................. 44 CHAPTER TWO: AEDUAN COMMUNICATIONS AT THE DAWN OF THE MIDDLE AGES .................. 53 AUTUN’S SMALL WORLD ........................................................................................................... 54 THE MYSTERY OF THE THREE BISHOPS: EPISCOPAL EXILE AND THE BURGUNDIAN KINGDOM .. 62 LOOKING SOUTH: CHALON UNDER THE BURGUNDIANS ............................................................. 71 UNDER FRANKISH RULE ............................................................................................................. 77 CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................................ 84 CHAPTER THREE: LINGON COMMUNICATIONS AT THE END OF ANTIQUITY ...................................... 86 CA. 450-506: YEARS OF SILENCE, YEARS OF VIOLENCE ............................................................ 90 APRUNCULUS OF LANGRES: CONTEXTUALIZING AN EXILE ...................................................... 104 CHAPTER FOUR: LINGON COMMUNICATIONS AT THE DAWN OF THE MIDDLE AGES ................. 112 506-534: GREGORIUS ATTALUS, GREAT MAN IN A SMALL WORLD ......................................... 114 AFTER 534: A BRAVE NEW WORLD ......................................................................................... 131 CONCLUSIONS .......................................................................................................................... 139 CHAPTER FIVE: BURIED TREASURES AND HIDDEN NETWORKS ......................................................... 143 THE EVIDENCE FROM HOARDS ................................................................................................. 158 v CHAPTER SIX: SINGLE FINDS AND SMALL WORLDS ............................................................................. 173 COIN DISTRIBUTIONS IN BURGUNDIAN TERRITORY ................................................................. 175 COINS BEYOND THE BURGUNDIAN KINGDOM: DISTANCE-TRAVELED ANALYSIS .................... 184 PROVENCE AND THE SOUTH ..................................................................................................... 190 THE FRANKISH NORTH ............................................................................................................. 197 AQUITANIA AND WESTERN GAUL ............................................................................................ 205 POSTSCRIPT .............................................................................................................................. 207 TOWARD AN INTERDISCIPLINARY MODEL OF LATE ANTIQUE COMMUNICATIONS HISTORY .......................................................................................... 210 EXPLAINING COMMUNICATIONS CHANGES .............................................................................. 214 NETWORK THEORIES, CHINESE GUANXI, AND THE EXPERIENCE OF EMPIRE’S END .................. 223 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 237 vi TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1. Burgundian single coin finds…………………………………………………….......180 Figure 2. Proposed zones of circulation of Burgundian coins…………..……………………..184 Figure 3. Distance-traveled plot for "down the line" exchange……………………...………...186 Figure 4. Distance-traveled plots for single finds of Burgundian coinage………….…………187 Figure 5. Distance-traveled plot for exchange subject to central-place dynamics…………….188 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project has required support and encouragement from many individuals, to whom I am very grateful. I first thank my dissertation committee, and especially the chair, Michael McCormick. Any scholar familiar with his work should recognize here his influence and way of thinking, his zeal for interdisciplinary study of the past, and – I may hope – the model of his rigor and high standards. Emma Dench enriched my view of the Romans’ complex world. Along with her sensible counsel, her generous and good-humored encouragement has helped carry me to this point. Daniel Lord Smail’s pithy and insightful feedback has had a disproportionate influence on this project; ever since my dissertation prospectus presentation in January of 2010, his comments have helped me to see potential when I doubted it and have pointed me toward very fruitful research paths. It has been a privilege to train with these talented and generous scholars. Christopher P. Jones, Cemal Kafadar, and the lamentably late Angeliki Laiou all made substantial contributions to my own scholarly development. I also owe an ongoing debt of gratitude to my earlier instructors at the University of Arizona, including my M.A. thesis committee members: Alison Futrell, Steve Johnstone, and Walter Roberts. Their patient rigor unquestionably made possible the accomplishments that have followed. At Harvard, the Department of History and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) facilitated this work with generous financial aid. In addition to the
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