VIATORMEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES

Volume 25 (1994)

PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF

THE CENTER FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY, LOS ANGELES, LONDON 1994

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITYIN FIFrH- AND SIXTH-CENTURY BURGUNDY

•

by Patrick Amory

Traditionally, historians have split the ruling classes of the early barbarian kingdomsof western Europe into two ethnic groups, barbarian warriors grouped around the king,and Gallo-Roman senators who monopolized education and the officesof the church.But in the Burgundian kingdom of the Rhone valley (A.D. 443-534), no evidencedemonstrates that either group possessed ethnic consciousness as we understand theterm today. Moreover, little evidence points to any cultural division between thegroups. Although arguments ex silentio are undesirable, there is clearly no point inimposing an ethnic or cultural divide upon the inhabitants ofsixth-century Burgundywhen the sources fail to testify to anything like it.

On the other hand, the use of different personal names in each group might seemto support the traditional picture of a dual society. All but one of the attested countsbore Germanic names, and all but one of the bishops bore Greco-Latin names.' Doesthis division in nomenclature necessarily indicate a split in ethnic consciousness betweenRomans and Burgundians? or could it define some other kind of social grouping?

The following abbreviations appear: PLRE2 =]. R. Martindale, TheProsopography ofthe Later RomanEmpire 2: A.D. 395-527 (Cambridge 1981). Fiebiger-Schmidt = Otto Fiebiger and Ludwig Schmidt, eds.•Inschriftensammlung zer Gesobiabse derOstgermanen, Denkschriften der philosophisch-historischen Klasse60.3 (Vienna1917); and Fiebiger, ed., Neue Foige, Denkschriften 70.3 (Vienna1939). RlCG = Recuei]des inscriptions chretiennes de la Gaule 1: Premiere Belgique, ed. Nancy Gauthier (Paris 1975), and 15:Viennoise du Nord. ed. Francoise Descombes (Paris 1985). lLCV = Inscriptiones latinae christianae ueteres,ed. E. Diehl, 3 vols. (Berlin 1925-1931). MGHSSRM = MGHScriptores rerum Merovingicarum. I am verygrateful to Dr. Neil Wright for his advice on Avitus'sLatin. I received much usefulcommentand criticismfromRosamond McKitterick, PeterBrown,MariosCostambeys, and Michael Reynolds, aswellasfrom theparticipants in a Cambridge Medieval History Research Seminarwhere I first presented this paper.

IBishops: Louis Duchesne, Passes episcopaux de (ancienne Gaule, 3vols. (Paris 1894--1915): the exceptionisAlbiso ofLangres, Duchesne 2.185, the predecessor of Gregory; on the name,E. Fdrstemann, AltdeutschesNamenbuo», 3 vols. (Bonn 1900) 1.66. Counts: Subscription list to the Liberconstitutionum, ed. LudwigRudolfvonSalis, MGHLeges sect. 1, 2.1 (Hanover 1892) 34-35. Of the counts, onlythe name "Silvanus"appearsin the standard reference works to late Latinnames: liro Kajanto, TheLatin Cognomina. SocietasScientiarum fenica: Commentationes humanarumlitterarum 36.2(Helsinki 1965), and idem. Supemomina:A Study in LatinEpigraphy, Commentationes humanarum Iitterarum40.1 (Helsinki 1966). Silvanus, anextremely common Roman cognomen usedby the Celts in the firstcentury A.D.,had beenadoptedbyGothsalready in the fifth century; see Gauthier in RlCG 1.212;Wilhelm Wackernagel. Sprache und Sprachen­denkmaler derBurgunden. supplement to CarlBinding, Geschichte desburgundisch-romanischen Konig­reiobs 1 [volume 2 neverappeared] (Leipzig 1868)332.

2 PATRICK AMORY

Recent works on the ethnic identity of the barbarian groups involved in the disin­tegration of the Western Roman Empire emphasize the qifficulties of locating ethniccommunity among polyethnic confederations and mercenary armies that were con­stantly forming and re-forming before their final settlement.> These works do continueto oppose the newly settled people to the indigenous inhabitants of the Romanprovinces.' and the concept of an orally transmitted Germanic, or at least non-Roman,barbarian culture continues to thrive." .

Meanwhile, some commentators are resurrecting notions of discrete barbarian ethnicidentities. One article on the Burgundian law code, the Liber constitutionum, situ­ates the composition of the work in a world of ethnic conflict between barbarian Bur­gundians and Galle-Roman citizens who objected to rule by nonimperial authorities.'Although this argument fails to take account of the complexity of terms like Burgun­diones and Romani in the law code, and relies on the ungrounded assumption thatthe Burgundians were a pre-state "tribe" who can be analyzed anthropologically assuch," it echoes facile oppositions still found in some textbooks on the end of theRoman Empire. 7

More significant for this discussion is a long study by Horst Ebling, ]org]arnut, andGerd Kampers, which purports to identify an individual's ethnic identity from his or

2Reinhard Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung: Das Werden der/rohmittelalterlichen Gentes(Cologne 1961); HerwigWolfram, A History o/the Goths (1979), ed. 2 rev., trans. Thomas]. Dunlap (Berke­ley 1988); Ian Wood, "Ethnlcity and Ethnogenesis of the Burgundians," in Typen derEthnogenese unterbesonderer Berocksichtigung der Bayem I, ed. Herwig Wolfram and Walter Pohl (Vienna 1990) 53-64;Walter Pohl, Die Awaren (Munich 1988). See further the other essays in Ethnogenese.

3Patrick Amory, "The Meaning and Purpose of Ethnic Terminology in the Burgundian Laws," EarlyMedieval Europe 2 (1993) 2 n. 6, 8 n, 32.

4A spirited defense of a distinct Ostrogothicculture and ethnic identity: Peter Heather, GothsandRomans332-489 (Oxford 1991) 309-330. Non-Roman or Germanic culture features in all the works listed in n. 2above except Wood, notably in Wolfram 19-35, 209-211, and passim; similarly, Herwig Wolfram, "Ein­leirung oder Oberlegungen zur Origo Gentis, " in Wolfram and PohI1.23-24; Hermann Moisl, "Kinshipand Orally-Transmitted Stammestradition among the Lombards and Franks," in Die Bayem und ihreNad»bam, ed. Herwig Wolfram and Andreas Schwarcz,Denkschriften der philosophisch-historischen Klasse 179(Vienna 1985). In works on non-ethnic topics, the assumption that barbarians possessed both ethnic andcultural differences remains general, e.g, (to choose one at random), Henry Chadwick, Boethius (Oxford1981) 4: Goths did not appreciate a Romanized monarch or the trappings of Romanitas at the palace; "theirideal was of a warlike leader on horseback charging the enemy."

'David Frye, "Gundobad, the Leges Burgundionum, and the Struggle for Sovereignty in Burgundy,"Classica es medievalia 41 (1990) 199-212.

6Ibid., esp. 201-203. Opposing "tribal conceptions of law" to "Roman statutory law theory" takes noaccount of the origins of the Burgundian law codes in late Roman vulgar law, on which see Amory (n. 3above) 15-19. Frye's statement that "the Burgundians, so far as they remained a distinct people, neitherwrote nor spoke the language of the Galle-Romans' (203) is based solely on a joking remark by Sidoniusin the 470s; however, contrary to Frye's interpretation, this remark is in fact the only evidence that anyonein Burgundy spoke a Germanic tongue. It is straining a late piece of evidence to interpret as proof of eth­nic hostility Gregory of Tours's remark that Gundobad established milder laws for the Burgundians so thatthey would not oppress the Romans (209). As usual, Gregory is being unreliable on Burgundy: the royallaw code legislates for both Burgundians and Romans. In general, Frye assumes simple ethnic oppositionto explain the chronological development of the code, and ignores the inconsistency of its use ofBurgun­diones and Romani; see further Amory 8-15, 24.-26.

'E.g., Justine DavisRanders-Pehrson, Barbarians and Romans: TheBirth Struggle o/Europe, A.D. 400­700 (Norman, Okla. 1983).

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 3

her personal name." Despite a large amount of research, this piece has the fundamen­tal flaw that ethnicity cannot be identified from only one perspective, whether tradi­tions of naming or anything else. For example, the authors state that in the seventhcentury "kein Franke tragt einen romanischen Personennamen."? But who was a"Frank"? Given that the sources rarely identify individuals by such apparently eth­nic qualifiers, names are actually what most scholars use in the first place to distinguishbarbarians from Romans.w But it is exactly this correlation ofnames to ethnic iden­tity that the authors are trying to prove. Despite other problems with this article,!' thepremise is worth investigating. Naming traditions were undoubtedly of great mean­ing to medieval men and women.P

Nevertheless, a comparison of the behavior of individuals from the Latin and Ger­manic groups in Burgundy against the expectations generated by anthropologicalmodels of ethnicity and by traditional notions about "Germanic" and "Roman" cul­ture shows that names attest neither personal ethnic consciousnessnor cultural charac­teristics in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire. I contend ratherthat the Germanically-named counts and Latin-named bishops represent political con­stituencies of the Rhone valley ruling classes, and not self-conscious descent-groups­even ifeach group was composed of acrual familial descent-groups. This approach hasthe advantage of concentrating attention on what people actually did, and, by exten­sion, what they thought, rather than on the hazy evidence of labels and names of peo­ples. The behavior of the elites in the region, despite the attachment of differentpersonal names to different professions, is consistently similar, reflecting a commonprovincial culture. When neither self-consciousness nor contemporary perception ofdifference ever appears, we must begin to question the usefulness of the ethnicparadigm, and to search for an alternative.

A society divided by profession and class, rather than by ethnic differences, matchesthe picture given by the royal law code, the Liber constitutt'onum. The code uses a va­riety of incoherent ethnographic terminology that really seems to describe functional,non-ethnic groups among the king's subjects, that is, soldiers and civilians, descen­dants of settlers and descendants of the indigenous population. The incoherence of

8H. Ebling et aI., •'Nomen et gens: Untersuchungen zu den Fiihrungsschichten des Franken-,Langobarden- und Westgotenreiches im 6. und 7. Jahrhundert," Francia 8 (1980) 687-745. Their goals areambitious: "Since one can thus draw from these names certain probabilities about ethnic allegiance, ... thedivision of Romanceand Germanic names in the ruling classes impactscertain information about their gentilestructure" (721).

9Ibid.694.loToname only two examples, John Moorhead, Theoden'c in Italy (Oxford 1993) 86; Pierre Riche, Edu­

cation and Culture in the Barbarian West, trans. JohnJ. Contreni (Columbia, S.C. 1976) 63 (on Gudilaand Bedeulf). \

IIQuestionable application of statistics;e.g., Ebling et al. (n. 8 above) 721; arbitrary assignment of namesto the different barbarian gentes, e.g., Ansemundus ("Visigothic"), Aunemundus ("Frankish"), andAudemundus ("Visigothic"), all three of which names appeared very early in the Burgundian kingdom,and the last two of which were frequently confused in manuscripts anyway (on these names, see below atnn. 107-110). The examples could be multiplied.

12Karl Ferdinand Werner, "Liens de parente et noms de personne: un probleme historique et rnethodolo­gique," in Famitte et parentedans t'Occidentmedieval, Acres du coUoque de Paris (6-8 juin 1974), Col­lection de l'Ecole francaise de Rome 30 (Rome 1977).

4 .pATRICK AMORY

the terminology, and a series of laws preserving military allotments, suggest that eventhese distinctions were breaking down by the time the code was issued.v

The restrictions of the law codes and the behavior of aristocrats illuminate a polit­ical culture in which the classical opposition of Roman and barbarian had long out­lived its usefulness. The reduction ofpervasive ideological categories of ethnographyto mere instruments of rhetoric reflects the century-long strains consequent upon thecontraction of a massive transnational state into much smaller political societies.e Theirculture looks like Roman culture, but it is clearly evolving into something new. Ingrappling with the turmoil, external and internal, ofwar, economic decline, and demo­graphic change, the elites ofwhichever origin in the Rhone valley exploited and trans­formed imperial institutions such as the church, the bureaucracy, civic loyalty, andclassical rhetoric in order to ensure their own survival or to climb to new positions ofpower. 15 This new framework necessarily marginalized the old ethnographic categori­zation, and people who could trace their forebears to the mutually exclusive groupsof the fourth century no longer emphasized any difference. This lack of evidence issig­nificant: the types of source material, ecclesiastical, legal, epistolary, and epigraphic,do not change notably between the time of Valentinian I and of Sigismund. A pro­found mental shift has taken hold already by the opening of the sixth century.

It is important to emphasize that the ethnic allegiance of the lower classes remainsunknown. The scanty written sources of the fifth and sixth centuries, literary, legal,and hagiographical, record the activities only of the local elites that produced them.Other voices in post-Roman society are, unfortunately, mute. A strong sense of eth­nic difference might have existed among the coloni and slaves of fifth-century Bur­gundy, but we shall never know. One thing is certain: the federate Burgundian soldiersmust have occupied a rung at least partway up the social ladder. The adjectives"Roman" and "Burgundian" in the royal law code always refer to the upper levelsof society, the nobiles and the mediocres.w The colani and slaves, whatever theirfamilial origins, do not get ethnic adjectives. If they rose in society, they did not referto their origins, and the aristocratic sources never mention them. It seems likely that,for the lowest classes, social role and geographic location were more important defin­ing traits than ethnic identity. In the obscure rural world of the majority of the popu­lation, allegiances and groupings must often have attached to names and localities thathave completely escaped the net of aristocratic evidence.i?

MODERN AND ANClliNT CONCEPTS OF ETHNICITY

The slippery phenomenon of ethnic identity requires a working definition. An eth­nic group is a community bound together by belief in common descent and actual com­mon interests. Its membership is constantly in flux, so that, despite the apparent closed

13Amory (n. 3 above) 24-26.t40n the evolution of rhetoric, see Patrick Amory, •'Ethnic Rhetoric, Aristocratic Attitudes and Politi­

cal Allegiances in Post-Roman Gaul," Klio 76 (1994, forthcoming).HMost recently, see Ralph W. Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies/or Survival

in an Age a/Transition (Austin 1993).16Liber constitutionum (n. 1 above) 4.1,4.4,6.9.17Por one of these possible groupings, see below at n. 95.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 5

circle of its mythical common descent, recruitment and desertion are alwayspossible,through marriage, conquest, or rational choice. Ethnic difference implies some kindof cultural difference, although no specificfeature of culture, be it language, law, cus­tom, or dress, is in itself necessary. Any or none of these may be utilized to mark thegroup as different. What we need to pinpoint is consciousness of a community unitedby shared ancestry, that is, consciousness of being a "race." "Race" here means "beliefin race," of course, not the vast biological divisions of the human species. Wearesearching for the subjective principle that divides Frenchman from German, andFrenchman from]ew, not the objective one that distinguishes Caucasian from Mon­goloid.w

It is difficult to use ancient ethnographic terminology as evidence, since ethnicitywas not a concept native to antiquity, which lacked even the anthropological concept"different culture. "19 Rather, people divided the world into conceptual descent­groups, that is to say, races. Under the later Roman Empire, the concept of race, gensor natio, was peculiarly fluid, and someone could define himself equally as a Romancitizen, of African origin, of the patriaof Caesarea, and of Phoenician descent. Otherallegiancescould also enter into play, such as maternal descent, confraternity or profes­sion, military unit, or religious affiliation.

Not all these allegianceswere determined by family and ancestry, of course, but theycould all be discussed in familial terms. When the imperial political superstructurebegan to fall apart in the fifth century, people were forced to choose loyalties fromamong the new smaller communities within which they found themselves. For asenatorial bishop like Sidonius Apollinaris (ca. 434-ca. 480), this process involvedchoosing between a Gallic emperor, a Roman emperor, a Gothic king, his civitas ofClermont, and the church, successively.w Some of these loyaltiescould exist simultane­ously under the pluralistic Empire, but over the course of Sidonius's lifetime, severalof them began to exclude the others. Although the processof choosing allegiancemightnot ultimately have reshaped Sidonius's own personal identity, it clearly had to havesome effect on his children, who were growing up in a more and more restricted world.Choice of loyalty could take yet more momentous forms for the small cultivators of themassively disrupted areas of Pannonia, Moesia, and northern Italy in the 470s and 480s.Some of them seized the opportunity to join the army of Theoderic the Great, andby the time that king established himself as ruler of Italy in 493, they would havebecome known as Gorhs.s' The switch of identity from "Roman" to "barbarian,"which only one generation earlier had involved crossinga frontier, changing one's way

18This is necessary simplification of a complex and contested phenomenon. Seefurther Theories ofRaceand Ethnic Relations, ed.John Rex and DavidMason (Cambridge 1986) 170-186, 192-193, 246-263, withreferences.

19W. E. Miihlmann, "Ethnogonie und Ethnogenese: Theoretisch-ethnologische und ideologiekritischeStudie;" in Studienzur Ethnogenese, Abhandlungen der rheinisch-wesrfalischen Akademie der Wissen­schaften 72 (Opladen 1985) 18-19.

2°Sidonius isone of the rarefigures to havebenefitedfrom excellent studieson hischoice of allegiances:G. Chianea, "Lesideespolitiquesde SidoineApollinaire," Revuehistorique du droitjranyais et hrangerser. 4, 47 (1969) 353-389; H. S. Sivan, "Sidonius Apollinaris, Theodoric II, and Gothic-Roman Politicsfrom Avitusto Anthemius," Hermes 117 (1989) 85-94;]. D. Harries, "Sidonius Apollinaris, Romeandthe Barbarians: A Climateof Treason?" in Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis a/Identity?, ed. John Drinkwaterand Hugh Elton (Cambridge 1992) 298-308.

21Wolfram (n, 2 above) 300-302.

6 PATRICK AMORY

of life, and laying oneself open to the sanctions of the imperial lawsagainst treason.>had become vastly simplified, and even perhaps necessary, once the barbarians wereroutinely inside the territory of the Empire.

The question remains whether throwing in their lot with a group such as the Gothsor the Burgundians, with whom they believed they shared common interests, there­fore gave these men and women, or their immediate offspring, belief in commonancestry as well, with concommitant belief in cultural differences from other groups.This political process of ethnic group formation and evolution, called erhnogenesis,assuredly happened in early medieval Europe.s' In Burgundy, it would imprint thegens-name of the Burgundians onto the territory of the Rhone valleyby the eighth cen­tury at the latest. 24 The difficulty is to decide how far we can identify ethnogenesisamong the documented fifth- andsixth-century barbarian gentes bearing ethnographicnames in the Latin sources. For ethnic identity-as we understand it anthropologically-could reside in many different types of Mediterranean socialgrouping: city, province,clan, and so forth. The Latin language, lacking anthropological ideas, would natur­ally refer to the first two as geographicalunits, and the third as a family unit. It is there­fore only possible to identity ethnicity by analyzing individual behavior as well asethnographic names.»

Since consciousness of common descent could exist in ancient times, ethnicity is notnecessarily an anachronisticcategoryto use in analyzing the ancient world, but we mustbeware. Anthropologists would blanch at the notion of using such scanty evidence fordiscussing ethnic consciousness.

But I am not primarily interested in finding where various people situated their eth­nic identity in sixth-century Burgundy. In fact, I believe that in most cases it cannotbe found, whether it existed or not. I am merely attempting to show that ethnicity isan inadequate category for ordering the two groups that we can clearly discern in Bur­gundian society, the counts and the senators. Given the allegiance-switching and therapid political changes occurring in Europe between 450 and 530, such groups as thesources do depict are best described in other terms. For these purposes, the standardanthropological definitions of subjective ethnicity, used in several standard historiesof the barbarian groups.w and approximating the late Roman belief in gens or natio;will serve quite well as a testing-ground.

22A famousexample is the Roman merchantwho became a Hunnic warrior in the 440s; Priscus, [rag.11, lines 407-510,ed. and trans. R. C. Blockley, TheFragmentary Classicising Historians ofthe LaterRomanEmpire, 2 vols., ARCA 6 and 10 (Liverpool 1981-1983) 2.266-272. Many fourth- and flfth-century lawspenalize peoplefor consorting willingly with barbarians, e.g. CodexTheodosianus 5.7.1 (366); ibid. 9.14.3(397);Codex]ustinianus4.41.2 (455-457), implyingthat it occurred frequently.

2~See the references in n, 2 above.24Wood (n. 2 above) 53-64.2lWenskus (n. 2 above) 109-110 provides salutary warnings against usingclassicial ethnography for under.

standing barbarian ethnic identity. It is important to emphasize that even terms likeRomanus or Aftr presentproblems: to what extent did the indigenous population of the Empire, the "non-barbarians," consideritselfundifferentiated' 'Romans"?

26NotablyWenskus, Stammesbildung; Wolfram, Goths; and Pohl,DieAwaren (alln, 2 above). Mycom­mentsherearenot meant to underminethe conclusions of anyof thesescholars, and applyonlyto the Bur­gundian kingdom.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY

BACKGROUND AND SOURCES

7

A Burgundian army was installed by the late Roman generalissimo Aetius in territorysomewhere south of Geneva in 443. By the 460s, a Burgundian leader, who possiblyalready called himself rex, was governing Geneva. Within the next decade, the adja­cent provinces of the upper Rhone valleyalso lay within his control, including the citiesof Lyons and Vienne, in the shambling process typical of the dismantling of imperialrule in the West. The two most prominent Burgundian kings were Gundobad (reignedca. 474-516) and his son Sigismund (516-523). Both continued to possess Romanimperial titulature alongside their barbarian office of king. Gundobad, like many bar­barian kings, belonged to the Arian sect of Christianity. Nevertheless, he reigned withthe adviceof Catholic bishops, most notably Avitus of Vienne. Sigismund, who becameCatholic under Avitus's guidance, worked with the bishop even more closelyuntil thedeath of the latter in about 518.27

In the Rhone valley, as in the rest of Gaul, there survived the wealthy and power­ful descendants of the Roman senatorial aristocracy. Avitus, like most other Gallicbishops, came from this class. For the purposes of this article, "senatorial" means de­scent from an aristocratic Gallic family that still possessed enough pride in its past topreserve classical education, Christian piety, and a sense of exclusivity.w The mean­ing of "senator" offers fewer problems in southeastern Gaul during the opening ofthe sixth century than it does in the time and region of Gregory of Tours.29 These epis­copal dynasties were close enough in time and place to those of the late fifty-centurySidonius Apollinaris to preserve much of his ethos. If class-consciousness is primarilya subjective consideration, morever, then the preservation of this ethos was the bestclaim to the label senator. 30

27For generalbackground,Binding(n, 2 above) remainsthe best guide; seealsoIan Wood, "Avitus ofVienne: Religion and Culturein the Auvergne and the RhoneValley, 470-550," D.PhiI. diss, (Oxford 1980).

2SS0 MartinHeinzelrnann, Bischofsherrschaft in Gallien: Zur Kontinuitiit romisaber Fuhrungsschichtenvom 4. bis 7.Jahrhundert, Beihefteder Francia 5 (Munich 1976).

29'fhe debate overthe meaningof the wordgoes backto Godefroid Kurth, EtudesjTanques, 2 vols. (Paris1919) 2.97-115,and KarlFriedrich Stroheker, Dersenatomche Adel im spiitantiken Gallien (Tubingen 1948);it has beenrecently revived byFrank D. Gilliard, "The Senators of Sixth-Century Gaul," Speculum 54(1979)685-697, and BrianBrennan, "Senatorsand Social Mobility in Sixth-Century Gaul," Journal0/MedievalHistory 11 (1985) 145-161. Strohekershowedthat sixth-century aristocrats weredescended from imperialsenators. Gilliard696-697, supporting Kurth, equates "senator" with "wealthyman," "aristocrat"; bothbase their argumentsprimarilyon Gregory. Brennanstresses ethnic division and the presence of parvenus,but his argument is difficult to evaluatedue to a printing error at 152. More recently, ChristianSettipanihas reemphasized consciousness of descent from a family of the late Empire: "Ruricius 1ereveque de Limogeset ses relationsfamiliales," Francia 18.1 (1991) 195 n. 5.

3oT. S. Brown fruitfully suggests that preservation of' 'senatorialvalues" be the key to the use of theterm, sincesuch values wereprobably alsothe key to the survival of a self-conscious senatorialclass: Gen­tlemen and Officers: ImperialAdministration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy A.D. 554-800(London1984) 183-184; PatrickWormald, "The Declineof the WesternEmpire and the Survival of ItsAristocracy, " JournalofRome» Studies66 (1976)225-226. The preservation of senatorial values perhapsautomatically presumes connections, whetherrealor fabricated, with ancientRomanlines.The lateantiquefamilies of Romesimilarly claimeddescentfrom the republicanDeciior Gracchi. Once the claimsbecamegenerally accepted, their truth wasirrelevant. On the frequent earlymedieval longevity of individual familywealth and powerregardless of ethos or class consciousness, Karl FerdinandWerner, "Bedeutende Adels­familien im Reiche Karlsdes Grossen" (1965), translatedas "Important Noble Families in the Kingdomof Charlemagne," in TheMedieval Nobility, ed. and trans. TimothyReuter (Amsterdam 1978)153-173.

8 PATRICK AMORY

The sources for the Burgundian kingdom are scanty. We have Avitus's edited col­lection of poems, homilies, and letters, three written in the name of Sigismund, dat­ing from 490 to about 518. In the year 517, Avitus presided over the Council ofEpaon,which published an important collection of canon law. In the same year, Sigismundcollected much of the legislation issued by the Burgundian kings and published it asa law code, the Liber constitutionum; as we possess it today, it contains additions datingfrom the reign of Sigismund's successor Godomar. Aside from these major documents,there is a quantity of inscription and metrical burial epitaphs, some hagiography, andone private charter.

Through this sketchy and difficult evidence, we must try to understand how menand women with Germanic and Latin names conceived of themselves during theninety-year span of the Rhone valley kingdom. Ninety years is longer than the aver­age human lifetime, and the chronologicaldevelopment of mental attitudes and polit­ical circumstance must have affected how people thought about their origins. Thequestions that our evidence cannot answer must constantly remain in view. Did peo­ple with Germanic names identify themselves with the followers of the king whoappeared in the region in 443? Did people with Latin names identify themselves withthe indigenous inhabitants of the region in 443? Even if descent did determine iden­tity, how long were people's memories?

GERMANIC NAMES

Aside from the Burgundian royal family, a relatively small sample survives of peoplewith Germanic names. None of them ever describe themselves as "Burgundian." 31

Furthermore, all of them take part in activities that might traditionally be describedas "Roman": leaving inscriptions, practicing Christianity (Catholic as well as Arian),and founding churches. Rather than calling this sort of behavior' 'Roman," however,which implies that some kind of non-Roman behavior existed from which to differen­tiate it, we should merely characterize it as the general cultural environment of south­eastern Gaul and the western Alps in the early sixth century. As we shall see, little,aside from their names, differentiates these people from the senatorial aristocrats bear­ing Latin names who also served the Burgundian king.

From the instant that a Burgundian first appears on the historical stage, we seemto be viewing a man steeped in the formal hierarchy and ceremony of late antiqueMediterranean politics. The mid-fifth-century Burgundian ruler called by modern scho­lars Chilperic I appears in the sixth-century source merely as "Hilpericus, a man of theillustrious class and patrician of Gaul. ' '32 Vir inluster and patriC£us were, of course, lateRoman titles indicating office-holding, nobility, and imperial favor,33

31The kings did call themselves "rexBurgundionum": Liber constitutionum, Constitutiones extravagantes19, 20. Butthistitle indicates the royal leadership of the army. See Herwig Wolfram, Intitulatio I:LateinischeKonigs- undPurstentitel biszum Ende des8. jahrhunderts, Mitteilungen des Institutsfur osterreichischeGeschichtsforschung, Brganzungsband 21 (Graz 1967) 87-89; Amory (n. 3 above) 24-26.

32Vitapatrumiurensium 92, ed. F. Martine, Viedesperesdujura, Sources chretiennes 142 (Paris 1968):"vir inluster Galliae quondam patricius Hilpericus."

33A. H. M.Jones, TheLater Roman Empire 284-602,3 vols. (Oxford 1964) 2.528-530; T. D. Barnes,"PatriciiunderValentinian III," Phoenix: 29 (1975) 155-170; R. W. Mathisen, "Patriciansas Diplomatsin Late Antiquity," Byzantinische Zeitschrijt 79 (1986) 35-49.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 9

The appropriateness of these titlesfor Chilperic is unclear, however, sincethe sourceis a hagiography dating from the 510s, or some sixtyyears after the events relared.s­The author, moreover, was obviously havingdifficulties in describing the constitutionalarrangements of the earlierperiod, for he glosses his description of Chilperic's Romantitles with the oblique phrase, "In that time, the commonwealth had passed undera royal regime.' '35 .

In other words, the sixth-centuryauthor was a veryearlyexplicatorof the politicalarrangements by which the RomanEmpire dissolved itself into a patchwork of provin­cial kingdoms. In its very confusion of Roman and barbarian titles, the descriptionseemsaccurateenough. The events related maywellhave taken place, since the storyoccurs in different form elsewhere.es The source, the Vita patrum iarensieoz; is anunusually reliable and nonformulaic hagiography. The author consulted living wit­nesses.v Moreover, he was himselfa subjectof the subsequent Burgundian kings, writ­ing for a high-bred audience at the monasteryof Agaune, refounded by Sigismund.wHis gloss that the government waspassing under a royal regime sounds like his ownexplanation of the situation, from his vantage point under just such a regime.

Nobody wrote hagiographyfor the purpose of historical explication, however. Theauthor of the Vita patrum iurensium introduces Chilperic'stitles in a literary set-piece.In this section, Saint Lupicinus journeys to Chilperic'scourt to confront an oppressivemagnate, who is "swollen with the honor of courtly dignity."39 This same magnateattacksthe saint before the king, claimingthat he is an impostorwho, ten years previ­ously, had falsely prophesied the ruin of "this region of our fathers" and the civilitasRomani apicis.40

Lupicinus boldly replies that he had not prophesied wrongly, for lawand justice hadindeed been perverted, in the person of his adversary, the magnate himself. The saintthen continues, what could one expect when the fasces were under the control of a skin­clad judge?41 Despite this apparent insult to his rulership, the "patrician" Chilperic,charmed by the saint's sincerity, judges in his favor.v

34Martine (n. 32 above) 52-57; Ian Wood suggests512/4-515: "A Prelude to Columbanus: The MonasticAchievement in the Burgundian Territories," in Columbanus andMerovingian Monasticism, ed. H. B. Clarkeand Mary Brennan, British Archaeological Reports International Series 113 (Oxford 1981) 20 n. 10.

w'Sub condicione regia ius publicum tempore ilIo redacturn est"; Vita patrum iurensium 92. On thedifficulties of understanding Burgundian titles during the transitional period, Ian Wood, "Kings, King­doms and Consent," in Early MedievalKingship, ed. P. H. Sawyer and Ian Wood (Leeds 1977) 8-9, 20-21. On the apparent ,subsequent solidification of constitutional standing, see n. 62 below.

36Gregory ofTours, Vita patrum 1.5, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SSRM 1.2 (Hanover 1885); on the likelyindependence of Gregory, Martine (n. 32 above) 73.

37See Martine's introduction, and 81-82; F. Masai, "La Vita patrum iurensium et les debuts dumonachisme it Saint-Maurice d' Agaune," in Festschrift BernhardBischoff, ed. J. Autenrieth and F. Brun­holzl (Stuttgart 1971).

380n Agaune as an ascetic refuge for noblemen, Friedrich Prinz, Frohes Monchtum im Frankenreich(1965), ed. 2 (Darmstadt 1988}89,93; Wood (n. 34 above) 4-5, 15-18. Wood warns that the presence ofwealth does not necessarily indicate senators; but note the dedication of the Vita to an "Arrnentarius,' anaristocratic name in the family of Gregory of Tours. Moreover, the author of the Vitaitself may be Viven­tiolus of Lyons (ibid. 27-28 and n, 118), on whose senatorial background, Heinzelmann (n. 28 above)116-118.

39Vita patrum iurensium 92: "honore digniratis aulicae rumens."4°Ibid. 92-93.41Ibid. 94: "pellito sub iudice."42Ibid. 95: "rnemoratus patricius veriratis audacia delectatus."

10 PATRICK AMORY

The author of the hagiography chose to present the barbarian king in a Roman lightas part of a general reversalof expected ethnic qualities in this passage." He thereforeemphasized Chilperic's Roman titles overhis barbarian ones, if indeed the latter existedat all. The saint, in pleading for the poor man, has shown himself to be on the sideofRoman law. The words ius,fas, iudex, and fasces occur and recur in the text, evokingthe ancient equation ofRomanity and justice. The Roman magnate, on the other hand,acts like a barbarian, puffed up and corrupted by his power at court.v' The real bar­barian in the story, Chilperic, whether or not he actually wore furs, constantly acts likean impartial Roman judge, apatricius, and "a man ofsingular intelligence and remark­able integrity."45 After the saint's speech, Chilperic deliversa long discourse to prove,by numerous examples, that divine justice will out.

In manipulating his audience's literary expectations about "Roman" and "barbar­ian" behavior, the sixth-centuryauthor could not deviate too far from what was knownabout the barbarian kings of his own time, Gundobad and Sigismund. We know, com­parativelyspeaking, a fair amount about each of these kings. Like Chilperic in the story,neither one behaved like anything other than a late antique nobleman.

Gundobad, Chilperic's nephew, spent his early years mastering the convolutedpolitics of Italy in the 470s. He was already magister mil£tum per Gallias46 when hisuncle, the patrician Ricimer, called him to Rome in 472 to assassinate the emperorAnrhemius.v Ricimer died just before the new emperor, Anicius Olybrius, was raisedto the throne, and Gundobad assumed his mentor's powerful position ofpatrieius inItaly.48 Seven months later Olybrius died, and Gundobad made his own candidateemperor, the comes domestlcorum Glycerius.w Glyceriuslasted until the spring of 474,by which time Gundobad had hurried back to Burgundy, presumably to assume thekingship on the death of his father Gundioc.w

During these two years, Gundobad was operating on the center stage of imperialpolitics holding the most powerful titles in the West. Needless to say, in order to navi­gate the labyrinthine circlesof power in Ravenna, he must have been fluent in Latinand conversant with the political stratagems of the decaying empire. In murdering theGreek Anthemius, for example, Gundobad should have alienated that emperor'spowerful connections in Constantinople. 51 Nevertheless, the new patricius not only

43Frye (n. 5 above) 208-209interprets this scene as evidence for the author's resentment of barbarianrule, taking no account of hisdeliberatereversal of traditionalstereotypes.

440n pride as a peculiarly "barbarian" trait, Y. A. Dauge, Le barbare: recherches sur /a conceptionromaine de la barbarie et de la civilisation, Collection Latomus 176 (Brussels 1981) 433-434.

4Wita patrumiurensium 93: "vir singularis ingenii et praecipuae bonitatis."46PLRE2 s.n. Gundobadus 1, p. 524. Hisfatherhad held this position before him; PLRE2 s.n, Gundio-

cu~ p. 523. ;47Chronica Gal/ia a. DXI 650, ed.TheodorMommsen, MGHAA9 (= Chroniea minora1)(Berlin 1892)

664; Priscus fro 64 [= John of Antiochfro 209.1], Blockley (n. 22 above) 2.372.48Pasti Vindobonenses priores 606-608, s.a. 472, ed. Mommsen (n. 47 above) 306.49Cassiodorus, Chronicon 1295,s.a, 473, ed. Theodor Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (= Chronica minora

2)(Berlin 1894) 158; Priscusfr. 65, Blockley (n. 22above) 2.374. Presumably under Gundobad's influence,Glycerius appointedChilperic I magister militumper Gal/ias, thus belatedly recognizing the Burgundianabsorption of Lyons; Wood (n. 27 above) 4.

,oJohn Malalas, Chronographia 374-375, trans. ElizabethJeffreys et al., The Chronicle o/John Mala/as,Byzantina australiensia 4 (Melbourne 1986) 207; PLRE2 s.n. Gundobadus 1, p. 524.

'lAnthemius, descended from prefects and generals, was related to Marcian, LeoI, and the fourth-centuryusurper Procopius, SeeAlexander Demandt, "The Osmosis of LateRomanand Germanic Aristocracies,"

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 11

took power smoothly, but obtained his post from Olybrius, the emissaryof the Easternemperor Leo and the candidate of Ricimer's enemy Geiseric, king of the Vandals. 52

By the time of Olybrius's death, Gundobad had become powerful enough to set hisown candidate on the throne. By the time that Leo sent Julius Nepos to challengeGlycerins, Gundobad had vanished, and was consolidating his power in his father'skingdom. We are witnessing the actions of a man well versed in late Roman politics.

Like other barbarian leaders Gundobad was an educated man. He used Heraclius,a correspondent of Avitus, as some kind of court rhetorician, and associated withlearned senators.v He frequently discussed theology with Avitus of Vienne, who wrotehim a treatise condemning his Arianism.e Avitus also wrote for the king a long andlearned condemnation of monophysitism, as well as theological letters in response tospecific questions on other subjects.55 Their relationship reminds one of that betweenCount Boniface and Saint Augustine, nearly a century earlier. At the end of his life,Gunobad considered a secret conversion to Catholicism.56 He was a soldier, but he wascertainly not a rude barbarian warrior.

It is thus scarcely surprising that in their rule over the former Roman provinces thatcomprised Burgundy, Gundobad and Sigismund retained parts of the local Romanadrninistration.r' and made offices available to senators.v The edicts issued by bothkings and surviving in a collection redacted by Sigismund largely consist of Roman lawmodified for an empire the size of a province.w In public life in general, the Burgun­dian kings seem to have preserved the elaborate ceremonial and triumphal displaysappropriate for successors of the Roman state. GO

Similarly, Gundobad and his family continued to act as if they ruled by imperialfavor, and took care to cultivate correct relations with Constantinople. All the Burgun­dian rulers from Gundioc to Sigismund received imperial titles which they used simul­taneously with rexBurgundionum. Thus, Gundioc was magister militum; ChilpericI, magister milt'tum and patricius Galliae; Gundobad, magister milt'tum and patricius

in DasReichunddie Barbaro», ed. Evangelos K. Chrysos and Andreas Schwarcz, Veroffentlichungen desInsritursfUr osterreichische Geschichtsforschung 29 (Vienna 1989), table after 86.

120n Olybrius'sVandalsupport. PLRE2 s.n. Geisericus, p. 498.13See belowat n. 139ff. On Gundobad's educationI differfromRiche (n. 10above) 54-55, a negative

assessment limiting the king's intellectual intereststo religion.14Avitus of Vienne, Contra Amanos (= ep. 1)3A, ed. R. Peiper, MGHAA6.2 p. 2; Gregory ofTours,

Historiae 2.34, ed, BrunoKrusch and Wilhelm Levison, MGH SSRM 1.1, ed. 2 (Hanover 1951)."Avirus, Contra Eutychianam haeresim (epp. 2-3) (n. 54above) 15-29;seealso Desubitaneapaenitentia

(ep. 4) 29-32, De transituftliae regis (ep, 5) 32-33, and ep. 6, 33-35. The Contra Eutychianam baeresimwas actually commissioned by Gundobad; Wood (n. 27above) 202-207. The De subitaneapaenitentia waswritten in response to the king's querieson the efficacy of last-minutepenitenceand the doctrineof salva­tion by faith; Daniel). Nodes, "De subitanea paenitentiain the Letters of Faustusof Riez and Avirus ofVienne;" Recherches de theologie ancienne et mCdievale 55 (1988) 33-34,36.

16Ifwecan believe Gregory of Tours, an untrustworthy guideto the behavior of heretics in Gaul;Historiae2.34(n. 54above) 81-84; IanWood, "The Audience of Architecture in Post-Roman Gaul," in TheAnglo­Saxon Church, ed, L. A. S. Butler and R. K. Morris, Councilfor British Archaeology Research Report60(London 1986) 76(also citing Avitus, hom. 24);Wood(n. 2 above) 59-60; and idem, "Continuityor Calam­ity? The Constraints ofLiteraryEvidence," in Fifth Century Gaul(n. 20 above) 12-13.

17Peter Classen, Kaiserreskript und Konigsurkunde (1956; repro Thessalonica 1977) 119-122, 206.18Below at n. 134ff.19Amory (n. 3 above) 15-19.GOMichael McCormick, Eternal Victory: TriumphalRulership in LateAntiquity, Byzantium and the Early

Medieval West (Cambridge 1986)266-267.

12 PATRICK AMORY

(in Italy); Sigismund, patricius, having received militiae tituN from the emperor.v'Gundobad's official titulature, virgloriosissimus rexBurgundionum, neatly expressedthe dual civil and military powers vested in him.62

Sigismund retained his father's titular style, and tried to keep up good relations withthe emperor Anastasius. In three letters written via the pen of Avitus of Vienne, hereiterated flowery declarations of Burgundy's place under imperial rule. 63The recur­rent phrases, Patria nostra oester orbis est-' 'My country is your world," and Vesterquidem estpopulus meus-"Indeed, my people is yours,"64 seem to underline theking's desire to be accounted a citizen of the Roman Empire still, some forty years afterits supposed demise. He was maintaining a Burgundian tradition of looking towardByzantium.

But although Sigismund could describe his kingdom as part of the ancient concep­tual Roman orbis, he was aware that political realities no longer corresponded to thoseof the 400s. The royal letters to the East consciously exploit traditional connotationsof ethnographic language to convince the emperor of the king's loyalty to the emperor.In fact, the idea ofan unbroken imperium Romanum no longer matched political the­ory in the East, which was beginning to see the West as lost territory that needed tobe reclaimed." The delicacy of Avitus's rhetoric here attests knowledge of the East­West disjunction; elsewhere, he could call Anastasius merely Caesar Graecorum.66 Ofcourse, the king's letters were actually sent,67 and reflect the desire both to maintainlinks with the legitimate imperial government and to keep up a traditional alliancein the face of the intermittently hostile Frankish, Ostrogothic, and Visigothic king­doms.68 But they also document the dawning of the consciousness that the politicaluniverse was no longer Roman.

Political allegiance, in the early sixth century as in Sidonius's time, was the majorconcern of the rulers of Gaul in dealing with international politics. The' 'barbariankingdoms" .are utterly absent from Sigismund's letters to Anastasius.w The king'ssentiments combine the aristocratic language of amicitia and devo#o with the termsof panegyric.70 The point was to convince the emperor that Sigismund remained loyal

GIWood (n. 27 above) 184-185. Asthe evidence of the Vita patrumiurensium demonstrates, the patriciatecould be emphasized overthe kingship.

G2Wolfram (n. 31 above) 87-89:patricii normally received the gloriosissimate. Bythe year 501, suchmat­tersmayhave been constitutionally clearer than theyhad been in the 450sand 460s, when ChilpericI wasgradually assuming the powers of a provincial governor in Geneva.

G~Avitus, eps. 78,93, and 94. On the useof Avitus, a noted epistolary stylist, asamanuensis, compareTheoderic's useof Cassiodorus (e.g., Variac 1.1, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH AA 12), and see Wood's com­ments, "Continuity" (n. 56 above) 17.

64Avirus, ep. 93 (n. 54above) 100, lines 13, 6. On these letters, see Amory(n. 14 above).GlWalter Kaegi, Byzantium and the Decline a/Rome (Princeton 1968)3-58, 176-223; Stefan Kraut­

schick, "Zwei Aspekte desJahres 476," Historia 35 (1986) 358-371.GGAvitus, Contra Eutychianam (n. 54 above) 16, line 1.G7Avirus, ep. 94 (n. 54 above) 101-102 (Theoderic's interception of previous letters); ep. 46A, p. 76(the

king's agreement to the emperor'srequest to send the Burgundian ambassador's son to Constantinople);on the debate overthese letters, see the references in Amory (n, 3 above) 25 n, 127.

GaT. C. Lounghis, ••Ambassadors, Embassies and Administrative Changes in the Eastern RomanEmpirePriorto the Reconquisra," in Das Reich (n. 51 above) 146.

G9The Burgundiankingdom iscalled ., Gallicana"; Theoderic the Great becomes the ••rectorItaliae,' ,representing not onlyclassicizing style, but also a deliberate attempt to shift attention away fromold Romanethnic ideology and onto politicalmatters: Amory (n. 14 above)

70! follow Wood (n. 27 above) 186.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 13

to Constantinople. None of the three participants in the correspondence, Avitus, Sigis­mund, or Anastasius, seems to have been interested in the barbarian origin of the Bur­gundian rulers. Indeed, by implicitly contrasting the gentes of the Persians to the loyalpopulus of the provinciae felicium sceptrorum." Avitus exploits the heathen mean­ing of the word genst? to exalt all the inhabitants of the Christian Burgundian king­dom, whatever their ethnic origin.

Sigismund, of course, had converted to Catholicism under the aegis ofAvitus, heal­ing any residual rifts between the monarchy and the senatorial bishops." He foundedchurches, he received spiritual guidance from Pope Symmachus at Rome, with whomhe corresponded, and he established himself as a protege of the respected Avitus andof Maximus, bishop of Geneva. Although he may not have been as devout a Christianas he has sometimes been portrayed, Sigismund made a place for himself in ecclesi­astical history by refounding the important monastery of Saint-Maurice-d'Agaune inthe Valais and instituting a special liturgy there borrowed from the East, the tausperennis.t« After his death, he became the first medieval monarch to be canonized.

Other members of Sigismund's family were devout Catholics, particularly his cousinClothild, who married Clovis, king of the Franks, and who may have been influen­tial in converting him." Sigismund's aunt Theudelinda founded two churches, as didhis mother Caratene.ts Caratene was commemorated in a metrical Latin epitaph of 506as a servant of Christ and a wise counselor of her husband Gundobad; the epitaph sur­vives in a manuscript that also contains those of the senatorial bishops Avitus, Pan­tagatus, Hesychius, and Namatius.??

In sum, the Burgundian royalfamily appear in all the contemporary sourcesas quin­tessentiallate antique magnates. They exercisedpolitical power within the frameworkof the Roman imperial system, they were devout and literate Christians, they engagedin intellectual debate on the subjects of the' day. Their relations with the centers of oldRoman power, the emperor at Constantinople, and the senatorial bishops at home inthe Rhone valley, were dictated by political and religious issuesrather than ethnic ones.One word that never appears in all ofAvitus's voluminous correspondence and poetryis "Burgundian." In his writings, Gundobad and Sigismund are simply' 'rex.' '78 Theidea that his masters did not deserve servicefrom men of distinguished senatorial lin­eage seems not to have occurred to Avitus, except insofar as the difference pertained

71Avitus, ep. 93 (n, 54 above) 100.72A common usageat the time: in Avitus'spoems and homilies,gensnearlyalways means "heathen";

H. Goelzer and A. Mey, Lelatin deSaint Avit (Paris 1909) 423;]ohann Ramminger, Concordantiae in AlcimiEcdicti' Aviti carmina, Alpha Omega ReiheA104 (Hildesheim 1990)127-128, s.v, gens.

73AIthough thereislittleevidence that Gundobadpersecuted Catholics, he quarrelled withthem, probablyoverroyal confirmation of episcopal ordinationand rightsto ecclesiastical property; Wood (n. 27above)152­154. On Sigismund's relationship with his bishops, see the references in n. 161 below.

740n Sigismund's conversion and pious activity, Wood (n. 27 above)208-217.7lGregory of Tours, Historiae 2.27-30.76Wood (n. 27 above)151;another source alsodepictsCarateneaschurch-founder; Wood (n, 56above)

76.77Titulorum gallicanorum liber,ed. RudolfPeiper, MGH AA 6.2 (Berlin1883)185-188, nos. 6, 7, 9,

10, 11 respectively. On the episcopal epitaphs, see belowat n, 145.78Godefroid Kurth wronglyargued that Avitus rarely used the word "senator": Kurth (n, 29 above)

2.108-109, and 108n, 7, misquotingAvitus,hom. 6 (n. 54 above)110, lines26-27; Kurth missedep. 27,p. 58 line 10, and ep. 53, p. 82 line 2, letters not to senators in Rome.

14 PATRICK AMORY

to religion. Herehis efforts were unceasing to convert the local rulers, and he wasonce,perhaps twice, successful.

Of the nonroyal Germanic names,Hymnemodus, a courtier of Gundobad, became(Catholic) abbot at Grigny, and then the first abbot of the refounded Agaune."?According to his biographer,he was "by nation indeed barbarian, but modest in thebenevolence of his manners.' 'BO Thiscomment might have been prompted either byHymnemodus's earliersecular service at the court of the Arian Gundobad, or perhapssimply bythe desire fora neat antithesis, a commonrhetorical trope at the time.81 Moreimpressive is the advancement of an admitted' 'barbarian" from the royalcourt to anabbacy, and his orthodoxoppositionto the Arian Gundobad," probably in responseto royal attempts to take overchurch property." To judge from Avitus's dedicatoryhomily at the refounding of Agaune, Hymnemodus commanded the respect of theforemost bishop of the realm.B4

Of the Germanically named counts who subscribed to the Liber constitutionum,onlyone nameappears elsewhere in contemporary sources. Aunemundus, whose namemayoccurtwice on the subscription list,85 alsoappears on an earliergravestonefromthe Haute-Savoie, dating from 19 May 486.86 He cannot be the same person as thecomes, but the name is rare87and he may well come from the same family.

The fifth-century Aunemundus inscription marks the first appearance of a namesubsequently destinedfor renown in the region.w Although executedin crude letters,it isthoroughly Christian and employs a developed consular dating formula like the

79Vitaabbatum A~aunensium 1-7, ed. BrunoKrusch, MGH SSRM 7 (Hanover 1919)330-334; on thesixth-century date of this work(contraKrusch), Prinz (n, 38 above) 103n. 80; Wood (n, 27 above) 217­218; idem (n. 34 above) 15 and nn. 127-130. Hymnemodus'ssurviving epitaph praiseshim as "sancro­rum exemplasecutus,laudabilis vita ad laudem omnes invitans"; Fiebiger-Schmidt no. 106.

'OVita abbatum Acaunensium 1: "natione quidem barbarus, sed morum benignitate modestus" (n, 79above) 330.

"Similarly, on the samepage: "Quantumque regis minaces insidiae procedebant, tantum in Christiser­vitioacrius excellebat.' On the use of antithesisbyRuricius of Limoges, and the common use of rhetoricalfigures with disregard for reality, see H. Hagendahl, La correspondence de Ruricius, Acta UniversitatisGotoburgensis: Goteborgs Hogskolas Arsskrift 58.3(Gocebcrg 1952) 67-89. Uncivilized barbarians as topos:Dauge(n, 44 above) passim; WalterGoffart, "The Theme of TheBarbarian Invasions in LateAntique andModern Historiography," in Das Reich (n. 51 above) 96-97.

SWita abbatum Acaunensium 1 (n. 79 above) 330.s3Wood (n. 27above) 153-154.lI4Avitus, Homilia di~ta in basili~a san~torum Acaunensium [= hom. 25] (n. 54 above) 144-147: the

"piisime praesul" of 146line 5 might be Viventiolus of Lyons, but "praesul" could alsomean "abbot"at this time:J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae latinatis lexicon minus, s.v, (1976; repro Leiden 1984) 842-843.

8'Themanuscripts listan "Aunemundus" and an "Audi-" or "Aumemundus"; Liberconstitutionum I

Primaconstitutio,subscription list(n. 1above) 34, nos. 2, 8, and 12; cf. the many manuscript variantson35, none of which, however, venture beyond the nonsignificant variations "Aune/i II Aume/i" or"Aude/i. "

86RICG 15, no. 287.87See n. 112 below.s8Besides the two Aunemundi in the lawcode, therewasthe mid-seventh-century bishop of Lyons, who

exercised strong power in the region;hisfather's name, Sigo, alsooccurs in the subscriptionlist. SeeActaS. Aunemundialias Dalflniepis~opi 1, 3,.ed. P. Perrier, ASSept. 7 (Antwerp 1760)744; on the authenticbasis ofthis life, PaulFouracre, "Merovingian Historyand Merovingian Hagiography," Past and Present127 (1990) 26-27. On Aunemund ofLyons, Patrick], Geary, Before Fran~e and Germany (Oxford 1988)189.AlfredCoville tracedall theseAunemundi to a strong regionalclan:Re~herches surl'bistoire deLyondu Ve siecle au IKesieele (450-800) (Paris 1928) 376; I am grateful to Paul Fouracre for this reference.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 15

dated Burgundian edicts. The epitaph also contains the first dated example of thepopular formula vixit in pace in the region, later used on many gravestones with bothLatin and Germanic names.w

Aunemundus was not the only person with a Germanic name to leave a Latinepitaph. Quite a few survive from the Rhone valley at this period.w including a viroenerabiiis, a vir bonestus, and a Viliaric pater pauperum.91 An Aegioldus was aCatholic presbyter, and we find nuns as well, whether Catholic or Arian. 92 One inscrip­tion hints that having a "barbarian" name (like Hymnemodus) carried unfavorableArian associations, unsurprisingly, since the Arian liturgy was in the Gothic language.Baptism had expunged this nastiness, even though the man did not change his name. 93

Significantly, this hint occurs in a metrical verse epitaph, similar to those of Carateneand the senatorial bishops.P'

The only inscription to mention affiliation with a community mentions not Bur­gundians or Romans, but a smaller and otherwise utterly unattested grouping.v' A cer­tain "Ebroaccus of the Brandobrici" erected an inscription to Godomar, last of theBurgundian kings, in 527. Like that of Aunemundus, it is Christian, and well versedin consular dating formulas. The paleography is unusual, but may represent evolvinglocal forms. 96 Ebroaccus is given no explicit social standing, but he was clearly the leaderof a group of people called the Brandobrici, who had been redeemed by the king, pos­sibly from the Franks in the aftermath of the war between Sigismund and Clovis's sons(523-524).

There is nothing "Germanic" about this inscription except the linguistic origin ofthe names Ebroaccus and Brandobrici. Despite these elements, and the thanks givento the king, no "Burgundians" appear. Whoever the Brandobrici may have been-afamily, a clan, a village, a barbarian army not otherwise recorded in any source-theywere the important identity. Given the somewhat homely character of the inscription,it is perhaps safest to identify the Brandobrici as the inhabitants of a settlement.

89Descombes at RICG 15, no. 287, pp. 733-736: "Hic requiiscit bonememoriae Aunemundus, qui vixitin paceannus LXe minsis sexobiit de secu[lo] XIlIl KL iuniaspost consSymm." Like Coville, Descombesconnects Aunemunduswith the later bishop Aunemundof Lyons, whomshemisdates to the sixthcentury.

90Piebiger-Schmidt, nos. 74-75, 86, 88-89, 93-94, 96, 101-102, 103 (Eunandus, "a friend to all, hishumanity shouldbe greatly praised"), 105, 107-115, 116, 118, 124; Fiebiger, NeuePolge, nos. 21-22; Revuedespublications epigraphiques (in Revue archeologique) (1945) 161 no. 73; Annee epigraphique (1964)53 no. 141.

91Fiebiger-Schmidt nos. 90 (Manneleubus virvenerabilis), 91 (Baldarid virhonestus), 98 (Viliaric).92Fiebiger-Schmidt nos. 104 (Aegioldus), 93, 97, 123 (nuns).9lFiebiger-Schmidt no. 116: "germinebarbarico nati, sedfonterenati." Arianliturgy: Passio sancti Sigis­

mundi regis 4, ed. BrunoKrusch, MGHSSRM 2 (Hanover 1888) 335, calls Arianism "lex Gotica," whichmatches contemporary usage in Ostrogothic Italy, whence actualArianliturgical texts in Gothic survive ("lexGothorum" for the Arianchurches of Ravenna, injan-OlofTjader,ed., Dienichtliterarischen lateinischenPapyri Italiens ausderZeit 445-700 2 [Stockholm 1982] 84 line 1, no. 33; 102 line 108, no. 34). Parallelnoted by Moorhead (n. 10 above) 95 n. 139, without reference to liturgy. On the generalMediterraneancirculation and mutual influence of Gothic and Latin liturgical texts, seeM.]. Hunter, "The Gothic Bible,"in The Cambridge History oftbe Bible2, ed, G. W. H. Lampe(Cambridge 1969) 344-354. On the earlyelementsin the eighth-century Passio ;seeBinding(n. 1 above) 278-290; Justin Favrod, "Les sources et lachronologie de Marius d'Avenches," Francia 17.1 (1990) 8-9, but notethe reservations at nn, 127,182 below.

94And note yetanother metrical epitaph for a man with a Germanic nameat Fiebiger-Schmidt no. 99.9lRICG 15, no. 290.96Discussion by Descombes in RICG 15.741-743.

16 PATRICK AMORY

Becoming ransomed prisoners afterwar, often through the goodoffices of bishops, wasa common experience for inhabitants of Gaul at this time.:" Ebroaccus's behavior, inlinking himselfto the king, in being redeemed as a captive, and in setting up an in­scription, is similar to that of the Latin-named elitesof the area and in no wayevincesany kind of culturedifferent fiom theirs. This evidence may be all the more signifi­cant in possibly illuminating the lives of people farther down the social scale.

Two men with Germanic names outside the Burgundian royal familyfigure in thecorrespondence of Avitus. About one we know only that he bore a Romanhonorific."but the other, Ansemundus, seems to have moved in the highestcircles of royal powerand senatorial society. He received three letters from Avitus between 490 and 518 inLyons,99 and he had endowedchurches and monasteries in Vienne by the 540s. 100 Hewas a magnate of some sort, although his exact position and title remain obscure. Aninth-century source calls him dUX,IOI a title not otherwise recorded from the Burgun­dian kingdom. He did use the senatorial style virinluster, 102 like Chilperic I sixty yearsearlier, and during the 510s he exercised the functions of a judge, perhaps in Lyons. 103

His judicial role suggests that he bore the title comes,IM but his name does not figureamong the counts who subscribed the royal law code in 517.

Given this omission, isAnsemundus possibly the samepersonas Aunemundus, thesubscriber to theLiber constitutiontom, assome scholars havesuggested?IO' I think not."Ansemundus" and"Aunemundus" really are two different Germanic names. Nei­ther spelling iseverattestedfor the other.lOG Bothshare the common Germanicsuffix

97See, e.g., Aviius, ep. 35 (n. 54 above)65; Vita Eptadii Cervidunensis 8-9, 11-13, ed. Bruno Krusch,MGH SSRM 3 (Hanover 1896) 189-191.

98Ruclo or Rico, vir illustrissimus: Avitus, ep. 85 (p. 95).99Avitus, eps, 55, 80, and 81.lOaThe Donatio Ansemundi, usually dated to 543, is most convenientlyaccessible in J. M. Pardessus,

Dipiomata, chartae, epistolae, leges aliaque instrumenta ad res Gallo-Francicas spectantia 1 (Paris 1843).pt. 2 no. 140. This edition is not reliable; see PatrickAmory, "The Textual Transmissionof the DonatioAnsemundi," Francia 20.1 (1993) 166n. 22.

IOIAdo of Vienne, Chronicon s.a. 575, PL 123.111, referring to Ansemundus's survivingdonation of543. On the problems of Ado's authority here, see Amory (n, 100 above) n. 24.

I02Avitus, eps. 55, 80, and 81.l03Avitus, ep. 55is a plea to Ansemundusregardinga criminal. Previous to the letter, the criminal had

spokento Avitus "Lugduniposito." Atthe time of the letter, presumably, both Ansemundusand the crimi­nal remain at Lyons, whileAvitushas returned to Vienne. But their geographicallocationsare hardly obvi­ous. In eps. 80-81, Ansemundus is conspicuous for his absencefrom his native Vienne.

I040ncounts in the Burgundian kingdom, Liber constitutionum (n. 1 above) Prima constitutio 5, 13,and 14 with subscription list; Dietrich Claude, "Comes" §2, in Reallexikon dergermanischen Altertums­kunde 5 (Berlin 1984) 66.

I05Most recently, Wood (n. 27above)221; idem, "Audience" (n. 56 above)77-78. Dr. Wood informsme that he hassincequestioned identifyingthe Ansemundusof the 540snot only with the signatoryof theLiber constitutionum, but alsowith the correspondent of Avicus (d. 518), due to chronological difficulties.But if Ansemunduswere30 in 510, for example, he need be only 63 when he appears in Vienne in 543.His historyof foundations and donations by then, in addition to his already having made a will, suggestthat he was an old man by this time.

lOG" Aunemundus" is sometimes" Audimundus" or "Aumemundus" in the manuscriptof the LCsub­scription list (see n. 85above). The seventh-century epitaph of Aunemund ofLyons, "Anne[mundus) nobilisqui clare" (ILCV 1074; 1:210) is a spellingerror of the fourteenth-century copyist,as we knowfrom a con­temporary signature of the bishop (Precept of Clovis II, 22June 654; Chartae latinae antiquiores 13, ed.R Atsmaand]. Vezin [Zurich 1981], no. 558); Descombes in RICG 15.735.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 17

-munda, "protection, custody."107 But ansi- means "deity, God,"loS while auda­means "riches" or "wealth,"109 and aun- has not been explained.vv That the twonames could exist simultaneously is shown by a fortuitous comparison from the lateVisigothic court: in 683, both Ansemundus, bishop of Lodeve in Gaul, and Aude­mundus, virhllusterofficti'palatini, subscribed to the acts of the Thirteenth Councilof Toldeo.t!' Both names are about equally rare,l12 and it seems safe to assume thatin Aunemundus and Ansemundus we really are dealing with two different people, andnot a spelling error.

While we can only associate the names of the counts in the law code with the king,Ansemundus also had connections with the senatorial aristocracy. He was the affec­tionate friend of Avitus, who wrote him a long letter and two notes fiIled with floridpolitesse.i» In one characteristically fulsome piece, Avitus begged him to visit his nativetown ofVienne.w For Avitus, Ansemundus was such a good friend and devout Chris­tian that

for the contemplation of that piety, which we ate accustomed to wish for especially onfeast days, let us believe that your convenience should suffice for us for all the enjoymentof the solemnities. 115

It might be tempting to dismiss this letter as an example of the grimly overelabo­rated courtesy of the age. Interestingly, however, the people said to be lamentingAnsemundus's absence in this letter are called servuli vestri domni nostri.116 Althoughthis phrase could have been just a rhetorical description of the clergy of Vienne, itmight also refer to Ansemundus's particular relationship with the Viennese church,and specifically to a monastery in Vienne which he had founded.

For ifwe can accept Ansemundus's donation of 543, the magnate was both a greatpatron of monasteries and a devout citizen of Vienne. As Ian Wood has pointed outin reference to this document, there are few traits more characteristic of the Romanaristocracy of Gaul than church-building-!" and devotion to one's civitas,us and it isrevealing indeed that two sources portray Ansemundus in these activities. The veryact

l07Forstemann (n. 1 above) 1.1133.I08Ibid. 1.120.I09Ibid. 1.185.l10It might be a corruption of avi.. (but not ansi..):ibid. 1.207. Themanuscript evidence of the subscription

list shows that the copyists continually confusedaun.. and aud.. ; see n. 85 above.1111. A. Garda Moreno, Prosopografia del reino visigodo de Toledo (Salamanca 1974)194no. 552and

36 no. 24.lI2Forstemann (n, 1 above) 1.130 lists five Ansemundi plus several Carolingianexamples, and four

Audimundi and Aunemundi plus Carolingianexamples (1.198-199, 209). To this we can add the Aune..mundus of the inscriptionof 486, discussed above.

I13Avitus, eps. 55, 80, and 81.114Native town: "Cum peculiariumvernularumabsentandosuspenditis vota ... "; Avitus, ep. 81 (n,

54 above) 94.l1lAvirus, ep. 80 (p. 93): "pro contemplationepietatis illius,quam festis specialius optareconsuevimus,

sufficere nobis comrnoditatem vestrampro omni sollemnium iucunditate credamus."116Ibid.117Wood, "Audience" (n. 56 above)citing, e.g., Avitus, ep. 50.118Ibid., and EugenEwig, "Volksturn und Volksbewulltsein im Frankenreich des7.Jahrhunderrs," 1958,

repro in his Spiitantikes und friinkisches Gallien, 2 vols., Beiheftder Francia3 (Munich 1976-1979)1.245;Chianea (n, 20 above) 374-380.

18 PATRICK AMORY

of writing a donation (and the lost will for which it was a codicil)119 is also a distinc­tively Roman practice upheld by both the local law codes.P?

The donation, as founding charter of the convent of Saint-Andre-le-Bas inVienne.!" shows Ansemundus making a family investment in church and city. TheDonatio is addressed by himself and his wife Ansleubana to his daughter Remila, whois to be abbess of the new convent. Their family tomb is to be placed in the convent. 122

The city is constantly "our city." The local senate is composed of Ansemundus's "bro­thers." The church of Vienne is called matermea and is made Ansemundus's chiefheir. 123 Remila is said to have been raised at a convent elsewhere in Vienne, where heraunt Eubona was abbess. 124

All the imagery evokes an entwined family group of city, church, and the Anse­mundi. The aristocratic values of devotio and amicititt have found their way intoreligion. Like late Roman donations, the charter is phrased as a letter from the par­ents to Remila; while it displays little of Avitus's rhetoric, it carries similar sentiments.In founding the monastery, Ansemundus is fulfilling a votum, a theme which appearsin two of Avitus's letters to him. 125 The language has been carried over in Ansemun­dus's gift to his city, And in placing the monastery under the firm control of the bishopof Vienne, Ansemundus not only remains true to his friendship with the bishop Avi­tus, but follows the Gallo-Roman aristocratic orthodoxy of episcopal supremacy overmonastic foundations. This influential doctrine had first been laid down locally onlytwenty-six years earlier by the Council of Epaon in 517, which took place under theleadership of Avitus himse1f. 126

Ansemundus thus appears as a consummate late Roman aristocrat. No contemporarysource makes reference to his ethnic background. Indeed, one can only deduce it fromhis Germanic name. 127 Ansemundus was associated with the Burgundian king, ofcourse, as can be inferred from his secular office in Lyons.128 He and Sigismund shared

119Donatio Ansemundi(n. 100 above): "illasexceptas quasmatriecclesiae et sancto Petroper testamentumlegavimus." Note also the reference to "insrrumenta facta": the donation in hand?

120Liberconstitutionum (n. 1above) 43,60 (which, likeRomanlaw,alsoallows oralwills, although thelegislator considers the custom "barbarica"); Lexroman« Burgundionum 31, ed. Ludwig Rudolfvon Salis,MGH Leges sectio 1,2.1 (Hanover 1892).

mOr possibly St.-Andre-le-Haut; Francoise Descombes, "Vienne,' in Topograpbie chretienne descitesde /a Gaule 3:Provinces ecctesiastiques de Vienne et d'Arles, ed.]. Biarneet. aI. (Paris 1986)26-27, 30,contraC. U.J.Chevalier, Cartu/aire de /'abbaye de Saint-Andre-/e-Bas de Vienne, Collection de cartulairesdauphinois 1 (Lyons 1869) xxi-xxii. .

122Donatio Ansemundi(n. 100 above): "Domnae filiae Remilae ... monasterium quod Deo vovimus,ad sepulturamnostram inde construeres, in honoresancti Andreae apostoli.' .

mlbid.: "frarres senamnobilis Viennensis . . . urbisnostrae . . . a1tario matris Viennensis ecclesiae . . .mater nostraViennensis ecclesia inde nostraheres fiat . . . marri ecclesiae. . . . "

I24The textisunfortunately corruptat this point; ibid.: "ubi soror nostraEubonaabbatissa praeest: cuiusin institutione nutritaer ipsum.' Wasit Eubonaor Rernila whohad been "nutrita' at the other monastery?It seems morelikelyto have been RemiIa, sincethe point is that the newconventshould live by the ruleof the old.

12~Avims, eps. 80 and 81 (n. 54 above) 94, lines 1, 8-9.126Acta Concili! Bpaonensis 8, 10, 19, printed in the MGH edition of Avitus (n. 54 above) 165-175.121A muchlatersource (albeitonecontaining early material) calls him "AnsemundusBurgundio": Passio

sancti Sigismundi 10(n. 93 above) 339-if this is the sameperson. The date (526, betweenthe time of Avi­tus's letters and the time of Ansemundus'swill)suggests that it probably is.

'28Avitus, ep. 55 (n. 54 above) 83-85. Martin Heinzelmannpointsout that his stylevirin/uster impliesthat he held high office; "GallischeProsopographie (260-527)," Francia 10 (1982) 554s.n. Ansemundus.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 19

an interest with Avitus in apostle cults.129 Like the bishop of Vienne, this powerfulnobleman servedthe king, the church, and hispatria of Vienne equally.Ho The threemen moved in the same society, a world in which cultured aristocrats and militaryleadersshared power and could feel equallycomfortable. There may, of course, havebeen rifts in this world,due to conflicts of interest between churchand king, for exam­ple. 13l But so far we have seen no evidence that the resultant factions divided alongethnic lines.

In addition, the sources showus several other men and women bearing Germanicnames, movingin less exaltedspheres of society, but similarly unconcerned with being"Burgundian" and actingno differentfrompeople bearing Latinnames in the sources.These people, clergymen, virihonesti, and members of the Brandobrici, act asmem­bers of local communities and the church, and as subjects of the Burgundian kings.Theyare occasionally aware that their non-Greco-Latin namesarenot ideal in the LatinCatholic world of the MediterraneanWest, but they do not necessariy change themfor this reason. These individuals lived in a regional world formed by the politicaldemiseof the RomanEmpire, and they belongedto various class and professional divi­sions within it, but in no way did they cleave to any ethnic divisions that could belabeled "Burgundian" or "Germanic" by us or by themselves.

LATIN NAMES

Just as our information about people with Germanic names is necessarily dominatedby the Burgundianroyal family and aristocrats, the Latin sample overwhelmingly atteststhe lives and activities of the senatorialclass, most of them bishops. This is hardlysur­prising, since outside of the Liber constitutionum, the evidence is overwhelminglyecclesiastical in origin. Nonetheless, senators, whether or not they become bishops,regularly servedthe king and the royal bureaucracy. Again, what emerges is a generalregionalsimilarity within this sample-so far as ethnic consciousness, or the lackof it,goes-and generalsimilarities to what we haveseenof the behavior ofpeoplewith Ger­manic names.

Almost all the men whom we knowwith Latinnamesserved the Burgundianking.

Thismayassume toomuch continuity of late Roman hierarchical niceties after the end of the central imperialadministration.

129Eugen Ewig, "Der Petrus-und Apostelkultim spatrornischen und frankischen Gallien," 1%0, reproin hisSpiitantikes undfriinkisches Gallien (n. 118above) 2.335-336and nn. 161-162;Wood, "Audience"(n. 56 above) 75-76.

I3°Ansemundus waswealthyenough to found a nunnery, to constructa monastic church(at St-Pierre:H. Leclercq, "Vienne en Dauphine," Dictionnaire d'archeologie chrhienneet de liturgie 15 [Paris 1953)3066), to leave money to the episcopal church ofVienne, and to havesomeleft over for hisotherheirs; Dona­tio Ansemundi (n. 100above): "Consignamustibi ad hoc opus resnostras, iIIas exceptas quas rnatri eccle­siaeet sanctoPetroper testamentumlegavimus, et iIlas quasheredibusdimittimus,alias teraspotestarituaeconcedimus. "

mOne example is the obscure conflict between Gundobad and Hymnemodus; seen. 81 above. Anothersourceof tension lay in the conflicting loyalties of senators with relatives and connections far outside thesmall region ruled by the Burgundian kings, leading to suspicions about Sidonius'srelative Apollinaris;Sidonius, eps. 5.6-7, ed. and trans. W. B. Anderson, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass. 1936-1965) 2.184-194,and in the reverse direction, about Caesarius of Aries, Vita Caesatii 1.21, ed. BrunoKrusch, MGH SSRM3 (Hanover 1896)465.

20 PATRICK AMORY

If they did not act asroyal advisers in their role as bishops, they had often held secu­lar office in the royal administration before their accession to the episcopate. As Mar­rin Heinzelmann has shown, the episcopate had cometo be seenasa fitting conclusionto the cursus honorum of a senatorin sixth-century GaUI,132 and his eventualconsecra­tion could be arranged on the basis of family connections as much as ecclesiasticalachievement. 1:13

Here, briefly, is whatwe know about the careers of these men. The late fifth-centurySyagrius, scion of one of the most powerful families in Gaul,134 seems to have advisedthe king-in legalmatters, althoughhe mayjust as well haveserved as a city magistrateor provincial judge.m An Alethiusseems to have served some similar function. Hisname is preserved on a great metrical acrostic epitaph of 500 or 501 in the Haute­Savoie. He was Lugduniprocerum nobile consilium and alsogenus egregiumtttqueordine princeps. 136 He was probably a powerful senatorofLyons who advised the Bur­gundian king.m Another representative of a great Gallicfamily, Gregoryof Langres,had previously served ascount of Autun under the Burgundiankingsfor forty years. 138

These men continued to fulfill the ancient duties of their class, smoothly switch­ing allegiance asthe political circumstances required. Indeed, in the 470s, Syagrius wasfamously reported by Sidonius to have learned the barbarians' language: this is thelast recorded reference to an independent Burgundian language-although the jok­ing style of the letter makes this evidence difficult to evaluate.P? Alethius's beauti­fully inscribed epitaph, showing perfectorthography and few abbreviations, attests aworldview splendidly unaware of any change. like the Roman legal collections beingproducedin contemporary Lyons and Autun.140 In an ancient Gallic tradition, he wasburied in his countryestate far from the duties of his city. 141

l32Heinzeimann (n. 28 above) passim.133Gregory of Langres, great-great-uncle of Gregory of Tours, servedas count of Autun under the Bur­

gundian kingsfor forty years beforehe was acclaimed bishopof Langres by the people of that city; Gregoryof Tours, Vitti patrum7.1-2; the family continued to produce bishopsfor cities all over Gaul.

134PLRE2 s.n. Syagrius 3, p. 1042;]ohn Matthews, Western Aristocracies andImperial Court A.D. 364­42.5 (Oxford 1975) 75,340. Aegidius's sonSyagrius, the "rex Romanorum" at Soissons 465-486/7 (PLRE2s.n, Syagrius 2,pp. 1041-1042). mayhavebeen related to him aswelLThe name Syagrius reappears, par­ticularly in southern Gaul, over the next two centuries.

mSidonius, ep. 5.5.3: "novus BurgundionumSolon" (n. 131 above) 2.182; Martindale, PLRE2 s.n.Syagrius 3, p. 1042, assumes that he was a judge.

136The date, however, is uncertain due to mutilation of the inscription;Descombes, in RICG-15.226.It isperhapsworrying that thisepitaph contains no marks of Christianity asidefrom the presence of a (ratheruncertain)date.

I37RICG 15,no. 11.The name isassociated with manyprestigiousfiguresfrom the region, for examplethe acquaintance of Sidonius, ep. 2.7.2 (n. 131 above)1.444(tentatively identified with this Alethius byPLRE2, s.n. Alethius2, p. 55); alsothe bishop ofVaison in 527,ActaConcilii Carpentoratensis, ed. F. Maas­sen, MGHConcilia 1 (Hanover 1893) 43, possibly identical with Avitus's deacon Aletius (ep, 41 [no 54 above]69-70); and a mid-seventh-century patrician related to the familyof Willebad: Fredegar, Cbronica 4.43­44, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SSRM 2 (Hanover1888)142-143.

1;8See n. 133above. On the dutiesof comites asroyal agents,seeLiber constitutionum (n, 1 above) Primaconstitutio 13, Constitutiones extravagantes 21.11.

1l9Sidonius repeatshis (apparently treasured)pun on "barbarus" and "barbarisrnus": "in your ownpresence the barbarianisafraid to perpetrate a barbarism in hisown language" (Anderson's translation[no131 above] 2.183); similarly, ep. 4.17 (2.126-127).

1400n the legal collections, see Amory (n. 3 above)15 (with n. 71),16-17.141Descombes in RICG 15.224.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 21

Three more typical senators active near the Burgundian kings at the turn of the cen­tury were Laconius, Heraclius, .and Aredius. Laconius, a friendly correspondent ofEnnodius of Pavia, was probably a well-lettered, high-born individual. In 494, he wasable to assist Epiphanius of Milan in his plea to Gundobad to release Italian prisonersof war.142 Heraclius entertained Gundobad with songs or poetry; he also correspondedwith Avitus.143 Aredius was a virinluster who mediated between Gundobad and Clovisaround the year 500; he may have been identical to Avitus's friend and correspondentArigius, who founded churches. 144

A number of prominent senatorial bishops from the sixth century served in highsecular office earlier in their career, including service at the royal court. We are for­tunate enough to know about these because we have their stylized metrical epitaphs,which record the activities of their lives.14S These epitaphs swell with pride in lineage,in high office, and in ecclesiastical glory-but not pride in being a Roman. The epi­taphs attest every kind ofsatisfaction except that of ethnic awareness. Like the inscrip­tion of Alethius, they evince no sense whatsoever of living among the barbarians.

The epitaphs attach traditional imperial titles to positions in royal service. Thus wefind Rusticus, bishop of Lyons, who died in 501, having been in saecalaris titulipraefiguratio. He was some sort of civil servant or judge on a tribunallegtferum.146

Similarly, Sacerdos of Lyons (bishop after 541) had been apatricius and had held someother high civil office.147 Pantagatus of Vienne, born in the 480s, was a magnus oragtorand held quaesturae cingulae from the kings. 148 Hesychius of Vienne, his near­contemporary and a distant relative of Avitus, had been both quaestor and regumhabilis. 149 There were doubtless other aristocrats who held these same positions.uv

It was not necessary for senators to take bureaucratic office in order to take part inthe royal government, however. Two bishops advised the Burgundian kings directly:

142Ennodius, VitaEpifani168-170, ed. Friedrich Vogel, MGH AA 7 (Berlin1885) 374-375; the letters:Opp. 38, 86, 252 (eps. 2.5, 3.16, 5.24; pp. 37, 115, 197);PLRE2 s.n. Laconius, p. 653, suggests identify­ing him with Flavius Lacanius, virconsularis after 538.

143 Avitus, ep. 53 (n. 54 above) 82 line 7: "os saecularis eloquentiae"; eps, 95-96, pp. 102-103.144Gregory of Tours, Historiae 2.32 (n. 54 above) 78-80, though Gregory's information on Burgundy

isoften fallible. Avitus, ep. 50 (n. 54 above) 78-79. Martindale suggests the identification of the twomen,PLRE2 s.n. Arigius 2, p. 142.For an Aregius who wasalso spelledAridius, seeDuchesne (n. 1 above) 2.479.Arigius could be Germanic (Arachis): M. Schonfeld, Worterbuch deraltgermanischen Personen- und Volker­namen(Heidelberg 1911)24 s.n. Aregius; Frederic Amory (personal communication). A later source madethe sixth-century bishop Aridius of Gap "ex Francorumprogenie," despite his parents' Latin names: ASMaii 1, p. 111, on which see Kurth (n. 29 above) 1.108 with n. 2; for a similarcaseand its significance,see n. 191 below.

1450n the significance of these epitaphs, Heinzelmann (n. 28 above) 101-102, 178-179.14GIbid. 103-104, interpreting the "tribunal" as the Burgundian royalcouncil, and postulating mili­

tary service from the phrase "rnilite corde"; given late Roman chancery usage, this could refer merely tobureaucraticservice (Iones [n. 33 above] 1.104).

147Heinzelmann (n. 28 above) 130-133.148Ibid. 227.149Ibid. 227-228.I5OTwo potential candidates: Alcimus,patricius in Viviers in the early(?) sixthcentury(R. W. Mathisen,

"PLREII: SuggestedAddenda and Corrigenda," Historia 31 [1982]364-386 at 365 s.n.): his name andlocationsuggesta relativeof Avitus, Namatius, bishop of Vienne ca. 558-560 (b. 486), was, according tohisepitaph, apatricius who iuradaret, but he isgenerally placedin Ostrogothic or Frankish Provence: Hein­zelmann (n. 28 above)228-229; R. Buchner,Die Provence in merowingischerZeit, Arbeitenzur deutschenRechts- und Verfassungsgeschichte 9 (Stuttgart 1933)92.

22 PATRICK AMORY

Avitus and Gemellus ofVaison. Avitus has been discussed sufficiently; as a forthrightman, prolific writer, and metropolitan of one of the Burgundian royal capitals, heexerted much influence at court. He attempted repeatedly to convert Gundobad, andhe succeeded in converting Sigismund, which made the latter his protege in religiousmatters.

Another bishop who appears near the king is a Gemellus named in the law code,malmost certainly Gemellus ofVaison, to whom Avitus wrote a brief courtesy-note, 152

and who subscribed to the acts of the Council of Epaon. lH Gemellus, about whosefamily we know nothing, for once, is the only Latin name 154 and the only bishop toappear in the entire royallaw code. At his behest, Sigismund propounded an edict con­cerning foundlings, a perennial concern of the church. It is one of the very few appear­ances of the church, or indeed Christianity, in the entire law code.

These are the senators about whom we know the most. Any of them could have ledthe same careers identically under the late emperors; those who had been born beforethe end of imperial control in the Rhone valley had managed to switch allegiancesrather more smoothly than some of their unlucky contemporaries. m Those whosurvived the fall of the Burgundian kingdom in 534 remained prominent under theFrankish kings, and may even have continued to hold secular offices before theyassumed the bishopric.156 None of them was the least embarrassed or compromised byhis behavior; none of them has left any record of feeling different or special due tohis Roman descent. Their prominence and self-conscious pride were due to theirsenatorial descent, a more specialized category than an ethnic group.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

All the evidence examined so far depicts the elites of the Burgundian kingdom behav­ing in startlingly similar ways, regardless of the names that they bore. They held courtoffices, they founded churches, they corresponded, they left epitaphs in Latin meter.Senators took pride in helping run the government at the king's side and at the judi­cial bench; people with Germanic names could dedicate themselves to their cities anddebate theology. None of these people behaved as though he or she belonged to a self­conscious ethnic community. Indeed, the saliently cultural features of all our "Bur­gundians" are Roman-as they had to be in these long-settled regions of the Mediter­ranean hinterland. The sourcesdepict a small group of literate, devout, Christian menand women well schooled in the late antique politics of patronage, deference to thesaints, and generosity to the community. Our "Romans," on the other hand, all took

IlILiber constitutionum (n. 1 above) Consrirutiones extravagantes 20.mAvitus, ep. 60 (n. 54above) 87.IHActa Concilii Bpaonessis (n, 126above) 174.154Except for the consuls in the dating formulae. On the count Silvanus, see n. 1 above.mSuch as Apollinaris, upon whom the suspicion of the Burgundiankings fell in the 470s: Sidonius,

eps. 5.6,5.7 (n. 131 above) 2.184-194, or Arvandus, whowastried at Rome in 469 for plotting to turnGaul overto the Visigoths: Sidonius, ep. 1.7 (1.366-378).

156Suchas Pantagarus and Hesychius, whodid not assume the bishopric ofVienne until ca. 549and 552;Heinzelmann (n. 28 above) 227-228 places their service under the Burgundiankings, but there was ampletime for them also to have served in Frankish courts.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 23

intimate part in the activities of the court and administration. They were continuing,alongside their traditional literary and ecclesiastical activities, a senatorial tradition ofpublic service in the government, whether imperial or royal. If there were indeed vio­lent barbarian warriors who spoke no Latin, or exclusive senators who shunned theirmilitary rulers, we know nothing of them. If such literary stereotypes did survive, nosource enables us to connect them with the groups named in the law codes. To readethnic division into sixth-century Burgundy is to project modern concerns back intothe Dark Ages, or classical concerns forward. In the sources, no individual displays anykind of restricted ethnic consciousness or any apparent difference in behavior.

In light of this general picture, it is worth hypothesizing other, non-ethnic causesfor the singular difference of linguistic origin between the Germanic names of the lawcode and the Latin ones of the episcopal lists. The problem partly stems from the typesof evidence that survive, which privilege the documentation of senators and counts overanyone else.

One reason for the absence ofLatin names from the law code, then, is the generalabsence of bishops, with the one exception of Gemellus, mentioned in a novel. Eventhe king's mentor Avitus is absent; he was preparing a complementary set of canonlaws. Sigismund, the friend of bishops and a devout Catholic, seems to have main­tained a firm division between secular and ecclesiastical governance.157 The Liber con­stitutionum is distinctively free of religious legislation.w and the acts of the Councilof Epaon do not bear the royal name or any kind of secular validation, unlike, forexample, Clovis and the Council of Orleans in 511.159 Possibly the situation in 517,when Sigismund issued the law code, was too volatile to risk institutionalizing theCatholic hierarchy within the government, since an alternative Arian church must stillhave subsisted from the days of Gundobad. 160 Although Avitus oversawSigismund'sconversion to Catholicism and wrote three letters for the king to the emperor at Con­stantinople, the bishop of Vienne did not govern the Burgundian kingdom, nor washe the sole influence on Sigismund's activity.161 At the veryleast, Sigismund's slaughterof his son Sigeric suggests that he was not the thoroughly pious king implied by Avi­tus's letters 162 and manufactured by later hagiography after Sigismund's "mar-

mWood (n, 27 above) 221-222 has suggested the opposite, noting the probable issuance of both thesecular law code and the canons of the Council of Epaon at Easter 517.

15SOut of 109 edicts, only 5 edicts legislate for the church (14.5,70.2, 102, Constitutiones extravagantes20 and 21.13); three others mention Christian topics (8,45,52.3, along with a few formulaic utterancesin the preface: Prima constitutio 1A or B, 1B*, 2 and the introduction to the subscription list).

159Epaon was inspired by the pope, not the king; Wood (n. 27 above) 227. The Council ofLyons in 519,in contrast, was called by the king (ActaConci/ii Lugdunensis praef., 3, explicit, printed in the MGH edi­tion of Avitus [no 54 above] 175-176); Avitus was not there, having died in the interim, and the royal con­nection relates to the uncanonical marriage of a courtier; see Mathisen (n. 150 above) 384 s.n. Stephanus.

IGOActa Concilti' Epaonensis 32 (33) (n. 126 above) 172; Avitus, ep. 7; and see Wood (n. 27 above)153-154.

IGIWood demonstrates that Sigismund did have an unusually close relationship with his bishops, par­ticularly Avitus, Maximus of Geneva and Viventiolus of Lyons: their influence dominated the king's reli­gious activity and his ecclesiastical foundations: (n. 27 above) 208-227, (n. 34 above) 15-18.

IGZAvitus praised Sigismund for having given up Arianism: ep. 8 (n. 54 above) 40: "sed adhuc de regi­bus solus est, quem in bonum transisse non pudear"; eps. 31 (p. 62), 77 (p. 92), 91 (p. 99), etc. attributevarious pious virtues to him in the language of deuotio, Avitus, of course, had an interest in depicting theking in this light, and he wasable to influence him to the extent of founding churches,Whether this influencenecessarily extended to all secular affairs is another matter.

24 PATRICK AMORY

tyrdom."163 Gregory of Tours-admittedly an anti-Burgundian-certainly did not seeSigismund as the tool of his bishops. 164 Neither shouldwe. Avitusno doubt was closeto Sigismund; other people were also, and it isunfortunate that their writings do notsurvive in similar abundance.

More surprisingly, however, there was as little senatorialas ecclesiastical participa­tion in the Iiber constitutz'onum. The various senators who called themselves royaladvisers, and held high official titles inherited from the imperial bureaucracy of theRoman Empire, are absent. In light of the omission of senators' namesfrom the royallaw code, what can be made of their title of quaestor, legal adviser to the emperor?

Once more, the preponderance of aristocratic-ecclesiastical evidence may haveskewed the picture. The quaestorship, of all the high court positions under the lateEmpireand in contemporary Ostrogothic Italy, remained peculiarly open to men ofloworigins, from the curiales and cohortales. 165 Moreover, its tenure wasnot long, sothe three attested aristocratic quaestors from Burgundy may be simply a drop in thebucket.166

Both the lawschools to produce quaestors'< and the municipal and bureaucraticinstitutions to support social mobility168 still existed in Burgundy. If, as seemslikelyfrom the qualityof the Burgundian lawcodes,169 the kingscalled in experienced legal

163The Passio sancti Sigismundi (n. 93 above) does not even mention Sigismund's murder of his son.I64Gregory of Tours, Historiae 3.5-6 (n. 54above) 100-103: Sigismund's defeat by the Franks wasdivine

retributionfor his act of filicide.16ryones (n. 33 above) 1.104, 134-135, 504-505,2.549, 576, 641.FromOstrogothic Italy, note Fidelis,

quaestor in 527-528, an advocate fromMilan (PLRE2 s.n. Fide/is, p. 469); hisfather, alsoan advocate there,had "shone in the forum" (PLRE2 s.n, Anonymus 116, p. 1236): he was almostcertainlya mere curialis,or Cassiodorus would havementionedotherwise in hispraise for the family; Variac 8.19 (n, 63 above) 250.

I66PLRE2, pp. 1258-1260.167The laws clearly expected advocati to appear in the courts: Liberconstitutionum (n. 1 above)Prima

constiturio, 22, 55. On law schools, see Amory (n. 3 above) 15 n. 71.168Survival of curia: in Vienne: Avitus, hom. 6 (n. 54 above) 110,cited byMarie-Bernadette Bruguiere,

Litterature et droit dans la Gaule du Vesilcle, Publications de I'Universite desSciences sociales de Toulouse,Centre d'Histoire juridique, seriehistorique 2 (Paris 1974)242; similarly, the "nobilis senatus Viennen­sis" of theDonatio Ansemundi, almost certainly the curia. In Lyons: the inscription of Alethius,RICG15,no. 11. In Provence: the HolkhamCapitulary, Capita VII-XX coffectionis iuris Romano-Visigothici (Prag­menta Gaudenza), ed. KarlZeumer, MGH Leges sectio I, 1 (Hanover 1902)469-471; on the latter, seeBuchner(n. 150above) 25. Survival of municipal record bureaux: Ian Wood, "Disputes in LateFifth-andSixth-Century Gaul:Some Problems," in TheSettlement ofDisputesin Early Medieval Europe, ed. WendyDavies and Paul Fouracre (Cambridge 1986) 12-14; a char/anus publicusexisted in contemporary Arles,Vita Caesarii 2.39(n. 131 above) 497.Survival of defensor civitatis: Bruguiere 242; Jean Richard, "Le defensorcivitatis et la curiemunicipale dans la Bourgogne du VIIIesiecle," Memoires de la Societe pour I'Histoiredu droitet des institutions des anciens paysbourguignons, comtois et romands 21 (1960) 142-145. Exis­tence of acomplex documentary procedure forgiftsof property, monitored by the comes civitatis and requiringpalace officials and trainedscribes: Classen (n. 57 above) 121,and note the scribal colophonto the Dona­tio Ansemundi. Similarly on wills: Classen 122, and note the testamentum mentioned in the DonatioAnsemundi; on the directevolution of eighth-century Burgundianwills from Roman procedure, GeorgesChevrier, "Declin et renaissance du testament en droit bourguignon," pt. 1, Memoires de lasocietepourI'histoire du droitet des institutions desancienspaysbourguignons . . . 9 (1943)69-80, and UlrichNann,"Merowingische Testamente: Studienzum Fortleben einerromischen Urkundenform im Frankreich," Archivfur Diplomatik 18 (1972) 33-34, 93-100.

I69Hermann Nehlsen, "LexBurgundionum," in HandwiJrterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte 2 (Ber­lin 1978) 1907; idem, "Lex romanaBurgundionum," ibid. 1932-1933; GeorgesChevrier, review ofW.Roels, Onderzoek naarhet gebruik van deaangehaalde bronnen van RomeinsRechtin delex romana Bur-

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 25

assistance for the preparation and promulgation of their edicts, they probably dippedinto the still-extant pool ofmiddle-class Roman legal and administrative talent in theirprovinces.

We know a few of these lesser officials with Latin names. One was the Stephanusaccused of incest before the Council ofLyons, whose appeal wassupported by the king.The acts of the council give him no honorific, and later sources call him merely "exofficio Sigismundi," manager of the £SC. 170 Further potential examples ofmen in thisclassare Agrecius, domesticus at Vienne; Apodemius, primicerius at Die between 463and 510; Adrianus, a iudexat Chalon; and Nicasius, "who administered the common­wealth" at Avallon.r" There must have been many more than the sources preserve.Men with Germanic names who wanted nonmilitary positions must also have held civiloffice. Ansemundus, for example, was a judge in Lyons, and the virhonestus in aninscription is another possibility. '

JUSt as the names of the bishops are absent from the law code, so one should notexpect to see the names of these functionaries subscribed to the law code alongside thecounts. In a late Roman parallel, it was not the bureaucracy or the quaestors to whomthe Codex Theodosianus was presented for approval in 438, but the historic represen­tatives of the Roman state, the Senate.Ps

These fragments of evidence immediately suggest why only one Germanic nameappears among the bishops: all the bishops were senators. The poorly documented civilservice may well have been more catholic, with a small "c," than the church. The sena­tors, ofcourse, were only a tiny percentage of the free indigenous population of theRhone valley. As scholarsfrom Stroheker to Heinzelmann have demonstrated, they per­petuated their power and their wealth by monopolizing the bishoprics. 173 The Latinnames in the episcopate represent not ethnicity, but senatorial descent. Not only Ger­manic names, but unknown Latin ones are generally absent. Gemellus ofVaison is theexception, not the rule.

If bias of evidence, royal ecclesiastical policy, and senatorial monopoly of the church

gundt'onum, in Bt'blt'otheque de I':Eeole des abarses 118(1960) 207-208; it should be noted that the Lexromana Burgundt'onum may have been a private compilation.

I7°Aeta Concilii Lugdunenst's praef., 1, and explicit(n. 159above) 175-176. Latersources: VitaApol­It'naris Valentt'nenst's 2-3, ed. BrunoKrusch, MGH SSRM 3 (Hanover1896)198(copied by the Vita Avt'tt'Viennensis 2, printed in the MGH edition of Avitus[no 54above] 178-179). Mathisen (n, 150above) 380s.n, Palladiasuggests that Stephanus's wife Palladiawaselarissima, on the basis, I assume, of her name,whichbelongedto a well-known Gallicaristocratic family. For the contemporaneity of the Vit«ApQIIt'naris(contraKrusch), Heinzelmann (n. 28 above) 222 n. 227.

I71Agrecius, domestieus at Vienne, s. V-VI: Heinzelmann(n. 128above) 549s.n. Agr(o)ecius 4; PLRE2s.n, Agrecius 4, p. 39; Apodemius: Heinzelmann 556 s.n.; Adrianus: ibid. 544 s.n.: Nicasius,ftmulus . . .qut'eo tempore [sc. before 544] euram ret'publkae admt'nt'strabat: Jonas, Vita Iobannis abbatt's 11,ed. BrunoKrusch, MGHSSRG [Hanover 1905] 335; Carolingian revisers raised Nicasius to the rankof clarissimus: Hein­zelmann op. cit. 657s.n, Another nonclerical minor official from an adjoining regionwas Proculus, aera­riusat Clermontin the 520s: Gregory of Tours, Vita patrum 4.1-2; Heinzelmann op. cit. 675s.n. Proculus6.

172Gesta senatus Romant' de Theodosiano publkando and Codex Theodosianus 1.1.5, 1.1.6, ed. Theo­dor Mommsen, Theodosiani It'bri XVI e~m eonstt'tutt'onibus St'rmondt'anis, 3 vols. (Berlin 1905), 1.1.1-4,28-29.

I73Since southeasternGaul in the earlysixthcenturywascertainly the epicenterof senatorial domina­tion of the church, Peter Brown'sreservations about this thesiscarry lessweightfor the Burgundianking­dom; see Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antt'quity (Berkeley 1982)186 (with n. 71), 243-249.

26 PATRICK AMORY

explains the absence of bishops and Latin names in the law code and the infrequ~ncyof Germanic names in the episcopate, why do almost all of the counts who subscribedthe Liberconstitutionum in 517 bear Germanic names? Given that we know at leastone senatorial comes, Gregory ofLangres, and that there must have been others, theabsence of Latin counts there is startling.

I believe that the solution lies in one of the chief purposes of the law code, whichI have examined elsewhere. Sigismund produced his revised collection of Burgundianlaws above all in order to govern legal relations between the descendants of the mili­tary settlers of443 and their indigenous hosts. These arrangements were first organizedby the imperial government of Valentinian III, but apparently not committed to law.When the provinces surrounding Geneva, Vienne, and Lyons became de facto indepen­dent of Ravenna, it obviously became necessary to codify the agreements which fundedthe Burgundian army and protected the native populace. To this rump of legislation,there accrued edicts on criminal and civil issues arising from the microcosmic appli­cation of Roman public law to a region the size of a province. This production of lawsimultaneously satisfied royal aspirations to imperial grandeur, in the end producingthe rather messy collectionof 517. But the bulk of the Iiberconstitutionum, in its con­cern for inheritance, marriage, and sale of property, derives from the desire to protectthe integrity of the Burgundian sortes or allotments, the gifts which soldiers receivedin return for military service.174 Whether these allotments consisted of land or sharesof tax revenue is irrelevant for this purpose. 175 The point is that in this law code, wepossess chiefly the legislation regulating the quartering and victualling of a hereditaryarmy on provincial soil.176 What was crucial were the terms of a contract binding ona group of warriors.

The signatures of the Germanically named counts in the royal law code, then,represent the support of the army for the agreements contained in the code. Polarizedmilitary and civilian aristocracies were an inheritance from late Roman society.177 Ifweassume that we are dealing with soldiers, it is not surprising at all that they bore Ger­manic names, nor need this indicate a separate ethnic consciousness. Like the man ofthe epitaph, "Francus ego cives, miles Romanus sub armis," 178 men with Germanicnames had dominated the Roman armies in the West from the fourth century. Likehim, they had often lost all contact with any non-Roman heritage, aside from anambiguous tribal name originating from allegiance to a king, 179 or from service in anarmy,180 as much as any kind of ethnic identity. Such a tribal name could, of course,become the foundation of an evolving ethnic identity, through the charisma and

174Amory (n. 3 above) 24-26; on the lawsof allotments, seeWalter Goffart, Barbarians and RomansA.D. 418-584: The Techniques 0/Accommodation (Princeton 1980) 126-161; Jean Durliat, "Le salaire delapaixsociale danslesroyaumes barbares (Ve-Vlesiecles)," in Anerkennung undIntegration: Zu den wirt­schaftlichen Grundlagen der Volkerwanderungszeit, 400-600, ed. Herwig Wolframand AndreasSchwarcz,Denkschriften der philosophisch-historischen Klasse 193 (Vienna 1988) 49-55.

I7lLand: Wood (n. 2 above) 65-69. Tax revenues: Goffart and Durliat as in n. 174.116Amory (n. 3 above) 1-28.1170n the fifth-century Roman division betweenmilitary eliteand senators, seeDemandt (n, 51 above),

the tableafter86; PeterBrown, The War/do/Late Antiquity (London 1971) 118-120; Wormald(n, 30 above)22l.

118Cited by Geary(n. 88 above)79.119Wenskus (n. 2 above) 66-72; Wolfram (n. 4 above) 30-3l.18°Wood (n. 2 above) 62-63.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 27

propaganda attaching to a successful royal family and its military following.181 By theeighth century, the name Burgundio has become an ethnic term associated with theformer regions of the Burgundian kingdom, but it applies to everyonewho livesthere,whether they possess a Latin or a Germanic name. Although this identity was basedon territory, eighth-century men and women thought that it derived from their"racial" descent, and they propounded fantastic theories about the fate of the former"Roman" section of the population. 182

Soldiering in Burgundy as in the late Empire was a hereditary profession, 183 and sonsin late antiquity took their names from their families. 184 Similarly, the profession ofbishop ran in senatorial clans, producing a preponderance of Latin names in the evi­dence. From the analysis of the behavior of all the individuals that we know, however,nothing sugggests that a separate ethnic consciousness attached to the names of thesoldiers quartered in the Burgundian kingdom of the fifth and sixth centuries, or tothe bishops of the cities in which they lived.

Moreover, although the signatures of the counts doubtless indicate the consent ofthe army to the law code, some of these counts may have considered themselves"Romans" despite their Germanic names. In the Constitutiones extravagantes 21.11,the king orders' 'ut omnes comites, tam Burgundionum quam Romanorum, in omni­bus iudiciis iustitiam teneant.' Now it is certainly possible that more men bearingLatin names had become counts since Sigismund's promulgation of the Libercon­stitutionum, or that the requirement refers to the one count bearing a Latin name, Sil­vanus, or that there were counts such as Gregory of Langres, count of Autun for fortyyears, who simply did not happen to subscribe to the code. But it is just as plausiblethat some of the Germanically named counts were considered to be Roman, that is,that they were tax-paying consortes-the sense usually adopted by the law code.Equally, the term "Roman" could imply that they were descended from indigenous,even senatorial, families, who had chosen Germanic names for some of their children.Contemporary senatorial families in other regions of Gaul displayed comparable insou­ciance toward ethnic nomenclature in adopting the personal name "Burgundio. "185

If simlar attitudes prevailed in Burgundy, perhaps a Germanic name destined a childfor the king's service.

In his letter to his daughter RemiIa, Ansemundus addresses her as "Remilae

!·!Wolfram (n. 4 above) 23, 30-31.182Ibid. 55, 63; seefurther Ewig (n. 118 above) 256-257; idem, "DiefrlinkischenTeilungenund Teil­

reichen(511-613)," 1953, repro (n. 118 above) 1.158-159. Fate of the Romans: Passio sancsi Sigismundi1 (n. 93 above) 333 (this work is eighth-century, although believed to contain earlierelementswithin it:seen. 93 above); copiedby the Vita Il Gangulji, praef., ed. WilhelmLevison, MGHSSRM 7 (Hanover 1919)171-172.

183Jones (n. 33 above) 1.68-70, 2.738-757, 1049-1053; Durliat (n. 174 above) 54-55.184Martin Heinzelmann, "Leschangements de la denomination latineala fin de l'antiquite," in Famille

et parente (n. 12 above) 22-24; idem (n. 28 above) 13-22; Werner (n. 12 above) 25-27.!·'Heinzelmann (n. 128 above) 572 s.n, Burgundio. The evidence of the mid-fifth-century(?) family of

Latinus, Syagria, and Gontbadusis difficult to evaluate, juxtaposing as it doesa well-known senatorial namewith that of a Burgundian king; the Arianelementin the story isevenmoremysterious; ibid. 634 s.n, Latinus2. Despite Heinzelmann, ibid. 592 s.n, Domitianus, the life upon whichthis evidence isbasedreally doeslook likea late fiction concocted out of knownnamesand factsfrom fifth-century Lyons; VitaDomitiani,ASIulii 1 (Antwerp1719) 49-54. In the ninth century, AgobardofLyonsconnectedthe problemscausedby the "Gundobadi" (men who claimed the right to trial by battle from the Liberconstitutionum) with

28 PATRICK AMORY

vocabulo Eugeniae."186 She is the first recorded person in the Burgundian region toexchange a Germanic name for a Latin one, which was, significantly, the name of avirgin saint praisedby her father's friend Avitus.187Although the preponderance ofLatin names among the Rhone valley episcopacy was a function of the senatorialfamilial origins of the bishops, the choice for Remila'snew name emphasizes that theavailable Christian names were overwhelmingly biblical, Greek or Latin-not Ger­manic. Indeed, Germanic names may, aswehaveseen,havecarried unfavorable Arianconnotations. 188 It is impossible to avoid the impression that Rernila'ssecond, Greco­Latin, name either pointed her in the direction of the church, or marked her takingof monastic vows-a commonpractice in the early Middle Ages.189

If separate naming traditions had represented inherited membership in either themilitary or the senatorial aristocracy, by the 510s even these divisions of social func­tion were evidently losing meaning. The similar social and cultural behaviorof all themagnates concerned, the gradual correlation of the interests of the local royal govern­ment with the declining international interests of the senatorial aristocracy, and theapparentappearance of naming strategies to destine children for secular or ecclesiasticalcareers, all coincide with the attempts by the king to strengthen the crumbling" eth­nic" distinctions on which the finance and security of the realmdepended.190 The Bur­gundiankingdom fell to the Franks, of course, in 534, and by the early seventh centurythe "ethnic" originof nameswould haveno obvious connection to either professionor social standing.t»

In thispicture, the senators stand out not asan ethnicgroup, but as a self-consciousclass, markedby their family pride, classical education, and monopolyof the church.Theirspecial position was changing over the lifetimeof the Burgundiankingdom. Theinterestin Christian matters displayed by aristocrats with Germanic names and mem­bers of the royal family encouraged book-learning, which still included vestiges of clas­sical culturelikemetrical epitaphs. The kings thus encouraged theological debate and

the Arianreligion of the Burgundian king:perhapsan echoof thisfound its way into the VitaDomitiani.Agobard, Adversus legem Gundobddi 4-6, ed. L. vanEcker, Corpuschristianorum, continuatio mediae­ualis 52 (Turnhout 1981) 21-23.

186Dondtio Ansemundi(n, 100 above): "Domnae filiaeRemilae, vocabulo Eugeniae.... "187Avitus, Poema 6.503-515 (n. 54 above) 289-290.'""Above at n. 93.1"9St. Eugenia may have beenpopular in the area. In addition to Avitus's citation, note St. Eugendus

in the Vita patrum iurensium, and a noble Eugeniaof Marseilles, ILCV 1.179. Slightly earlier, Ereriliva,motherofTheodericthe Great, adopted thebaptismal nameEusebia; AnonymiVdlesianiparsposterior 12.58,ed. TheodorMommsen, MGH AA9 [= Chronica minora 1] (Berlin 1892). On the other hand, a numberof othernunsandclergymen in contemporary Burgundy did not botherto change theirLatin names (Fiebiger­Schmidt, nos. 92, 97, 123), one of them definitely Catholic (Fiebiger-Schmidt no. 104).

190Amory (n, 3 above) 24-26.

191In general, see Patrick].Geary, "Ethnic Identity asa Situational Construct in theEarly MiddleAges,"Mitteilungen deranthropologischen Gesellschajt in Wien 113 (1983) 15-26; idem, Aristocracy in Provence:TheRhoneBasin dt the Daum ofthe Carolingian Age (Philadelphia 1985) 101-110. The family of Aune­mund of Lyons, theseventh-century bishop, provides an interesting case. Hisfatherborethe Germanic nameSigo, the motherthe Latin namePetronia. Thehagiographer felt it necessary to specify that Aunemund was••natione tamenRomanus," thusrhetorically emphasizing that he was .,semper . . . publicis fascibus honora­tus' (Acta S.Aunemundi1 [n. 88 aboveJ); hisprotest mightillustrate the survival of a feeling that the familyshould have chosen one of its Latinnamesfor a son destinedfor civic service and the church. SeefurtherWerner (n. 12 above) 14-18, 25-32.

NAMES, ETHNIC IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY 29

favored literary scholars like Heraclius and Avitus. Simultaneously, the growing iso­lation of the senatorial classwas causing decline in their Greek letters and theologicalacumen, and making it difficult for them to keep up wide epistolary contacts in aperiod of poor communication; accusations of treason threatened friends and relativesin other barbarian kingdoms.t» The vast cultural and political arena of the senatorswas shrinking into the smaller world of regnum and civitas. By the end of the period,there is little to differentiate the family of an Avitus from the family of an Ansemun­dus, of a senatorial family from a military one.

All the evidence discussed has been, of course, transmitted through the mediumof writing, which necessarily "Romanizes" the subject. "Germanic" behavior hastraditionally been thought to focus on warfare, oral saga, and bonds of loyalty betweenclan members and between lord and man. None of this could easilyappear in a metri­cal poem of the early sixth century, or in a donation charter to a church.

Obviously, the evidence cannot prove anegative, that no one in the Rhone valleybetween 443 and 534 behaved in a manner traditionally labeled as derived from' 'Ger­manic" culture. But we can affirm that not one of the people whom we know fromthe sources is ever described as behaving in such a manner; 193 and that none of themdefined themselves primarily according to ethnic allegiance, according to descent inthe old Roman categories of gens and natio. The major allegiances were those ofpolitics, class, religion, and locality. A dual categorization based on ethnic division ordivided "Roman" and "Germanic" cultures is therefore of little use in discussing Bur­gundian society in the early sixth century, and the appearance of "Germanic" culturalfeatures in the region in ensuing centuries is best explained in other ways than froma foundation of ethnic and cultural duality.

The surviving evidence from the Burgundian kingdom points to a generally simi­lar provincial late antique culture and social consciousness among the inhabitants ofthe Rhone valley. This world need not bring only classical, or even necessarily Mediter­ranean, associations to mind. Outside the tiny cultured circle of the elite, more bizarremanifestations of cultural identity occur, notably the series of bronze figured beltbuckles associated with the region. They feature a man between two beasts, who mayor may not be identifiable with Daniel, and they are often decorated with Latin words,some of which make literal sense, many ofwhich have no grammatical meaning. Pastscholarshave seen these buckles as syncretistic, combining Christian and pagan religion,or barbarian and Roman culture. 194 It would be better to see them as the product of

192Avitus isa keyfigurein the Gallic decline of Greek and theology, despitehispretensions in theseareas:Pierre Courcelle, Leslettres grecques en occident de Macrobe aCassiodore (Paris 1948) 246-253, a situa­tion that contrasted with contemporary Italy. On Avitus's misunderstanding of monophysitism, alsoWood(n, 27 above) 201-204. On the problemsof communication, ibid. 55-61, 189-190. On treason accusations,I am preparing a separate article.

193Relying heavily on the Italian evidence and on Germanicnames, Riche (n. 10 above) 60-67 assertsthat barbarians were interestedonlyin military-oral and religious culture. The Burgundianevidence, aswehave seen, supports no such conclusion.

194Hanz Zeiss, Studienzu den Grabfunden ass dem Burgundenreich an derRhone, Sitzungsberichreder Bayerischen Akademieder Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Abteilung 7 (Munich 1938) 52­57; PierreBouffard, Necropoles burgondes de la Suisse: lesgarnitures de ceinture (Geneva 1945) 77-78;R. Moosbrugger-Leu, Diefri;hmittelalterlichen Gurtelbeschliige der Schweiz (Basel 1967) 28-29, the lastwith astonishing assumptions about areas inhabited by •'pure" Romanand Burgundianpopulations,with"Kontaktzonen" in between (200-201).

30 PATRICK AMORY

their own time and place, of a distinct local culture only partially the result of the dimi­nution of political community from a huge empire to a few provinces. Interlayered withthis far more alien world was the literary culture carried by the better-traveled upperclasses represented by the unopposed and complementary social groupings of the royalcourt and the senatorial aristocracy. In trying to understand the complexities of thissociety, the concept of an ethnic dichotomy between barbarian and Roman, or a cul­tural dichotomy between Latin and Germanic, can only be a hindrance.

Saint]ohn's CollegeCambridge CB2 1TP, England