Roman in Zeal, Barbarian in Family: Structural Romanness in Sixth-Century Merovingian Gaul and Social Performance in the Poems of Venantius Fortunatus

This paper relies on the works of Venantius Fortunatus to create microhistorical apertures into the social reality of sixth-century Merovingian Gaul. Methodologically, this paper is influenced by the approaches of Carlo Ginzburg and Natalie Zemon Davis, as it situates historical actors within their social environs, carefully reconstructing the class anxiety and pressure to acquiesce to the Gallo-Roman cultural hegemon. The paper brings a much needed personalization to Merovingian historiography. Further, it synthesizes both social and cultural approaches to the Early Middle Ages, building on the foundational works of Walter Goffart and Peter Brown in addition to scholars of Fortunatus, such as Judith George and Hope Williard. The study begins with an in-depth structural analysis of early Frankish history and their settlement in Gaul, leading to the formation of a military aristocracy which served as the foundational basis for later Merovingian monarchs. Simultaneously, Gallo-Romans were monopolizing local bishoprics. The two aristocracies merged into a singular body after Clovis's conquests in Gaul, forcing Frankish aristocrats already enveloped in the veil of Romanness to continue to appeal to a panoptic Gallo-Roman force of ecclesiastical aristocrats. Close readings of Fortunatus's panegyrics reveal the continuity of Romanitas and elite ancestry as prerequisites of ecclesiastical offices. Given that the Gallo-Romans demographically outnumbered the Franks, secular aristocrats—both royal and lay—felt the need to appeal to Gallo-Roman sensibilities. Reading secular panegyrics as carefully calculated commissions, situated within intimately reconstructed social contexts, we see how Frankish aristocrats performed an adopted Romanitas, how they went about doing that, the prerogatives for doing so, and what it offered them. The heart of the paper is a panegyrical epitaph of a young woman, Vilithuta, who the poet describes as "Roman in zeal, barbarian in family," further suggesting that through her learnedness she has overcome her nature. This poem incited the initial questions which led to this study. Ultimately, the paper finds that a necessity for Romanness was structurally ingrained in the Frankish consciousness, that secular figures mimicked the panegyrical form and topoi to self-fashion in a Roman image, that the panegyric could serve either as a form of damage control for royals or as a means of social delineation for lay aristocrats hoping to distance themselves from the unrefined, overly prideful poor in their urban midst. At each layer of the secular social strata of the Merovingian world, historical actors were attempting to prove that they could be something—someone—else who deserved their aristocratic inheritance, who could be learned in Latin eloquence, and that they could overcome the afflictions of their barbarian nature.