Erica Buchberger | University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley (original) (raw)
Books by Erica Buchberger
This book offers a new model for discussing the multi-layered nature of early medieval identities... more This book offers a new model for discussing the multi-layered nature of early medieval identities and understanding the mechanisms by which identity shifts occurred, by examining the adoption of Gothic and Frankish identity by Romans living in Visigothic Iberia and Merovingian Gaul. Distinguishing between the political, religious, and descent overtones with which the ethnonyms Goth, Frank, and Roman were used allows us to see that Romans came to identify with their new rulers politically and religiously first, choosing strategies of identification that best helped them adapt to a shifting social landscape. As these new identities strengthened, the next generations ceased to view themselves as Romans altogether, completing the shift of ethnic identity begun by their ancestors.
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Articles by Erica Buchberger
Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies
While scholarship on early medieval Europe often centers ethnicity or religion over other forms o... more While scholarship on early medieval Europe often centers ethnicity or religion over other forms of identity, they were not always the most relevant form of identification for contemporaries. In the Lives of the Fathers of Mérida (late sixth-early seventh century), ethnic and religious identity were actually deployed to construct a local identity around the space and people of the city. This article explores how the text did so by closely analyzing terms used and their context, and by applying social scientific theories of boundary construction to illuminate the strategies of identification behind it. It argues that such an approach gives historians of medieval identity a window into shifting affiliations within a locality and forces us to reconsider the salience of various layers of identity, both locally and kingdom-wide.
While the free eprints last: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/BVG37H6UAQHM7AWUBT3T/full?target=10.1080/17546559.2024.2422027
After that, please see my institutional repository: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB
Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 2023
In the late ninth century, a series of chronicles from the Christian kingdom of Asturias staked a... more In the late ninth century, a series of chronicles from the Christian kingdom of Asturias staked a claim on Visigothic identity, and thus ancestral legitimacy to rule in Iberia, for Asturias and its kings. Connecting Pelayo, the first king of the Asturian kingdom, to the last Visigothic kings and crafting his image as an ideal Goth and Christian was essential to this process. Informed by scholarship on "borderlands" and boundary-making, this article demonstrates how the chroniclers renegotiated the parameters of Gothic identity to impose the idea of a strict border between legitimate and illegitimate, good Catholic and heretic, and loyalty and disloyalty. In doing so, they provided Pelayo with a layered and flexible Gothic-Christian-Asturian identity.
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Early Medieval Europe, 2016
Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to the broader discussion of strategies of identification... more Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to the broader discussion of strategies of identification and of Romanness by exploring the changing meaning of Roman, barbarian, and Frankish identity in the writings of Venantius Fortunatus. A close examination of the cultural, ethnic and political nuances of these terms in Fortunatus's works highlights the ways he used the resources available to him within his social context to promote Roman identity as still prestigious and as compatible with a barbarian-ruled society. (Wiinner of the Wiley-Blackwell Essay Prize, 2016).
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Book Chapters by Erica Buchberger
Rome and Byzantium in the Visigothic Kingdom, 2023
This paper examines the ways Isidore of Seville appropriated Roman ethnic terms, origin stories, ... more This paper examines the ways Isidore of Seville appropriated Roman ethnic terms, origin stories, and models of triumphant victory and strategically altered them to better reflect the Hispania he experienced and wanted to build: one ruled by Catholic Goths destined to unite the peoples under their rule in faith. It begins by demonstrating the normalization of gens as a descriptor for a people united politically or religiously, not just by purported kinship. It then shows how he refashioned existing origin stories to give the Goths greater antiquity—and thus legitimacy and status—while neutralizing any negative connotations previous authors had envisioned. It finishes with examples of Isidore’s broader tale of the Goths’ progression from barbaric outsiders to worthy insiders destined for Hispania.
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Origin Legends in Early Medieval Western Europe, 2022
The key author of origin legends in early medieval Spain is Isidore of Seville. In his Etymologie... more The key author of origin legends in early medieval Spain is Isidore of Seville. In his Etymologies, History of the Goths, and Chronicles, Isidore drew on classical, Biblical, and late antique sources and also etymology to craft a suitable origin for the ruling Visigoths. His challenge was to make a people that in Roman times was considered violent, uncouth barbarians into a suitable civilized heir to Rome’s power in post-Roman Spain. This chapter begins by explaining Isidore’s goals and challenges. It then explores in turn the Getae and Scythians of Herodotus and Pliny, who served as eschatologically neutral ancestors; the prophet Ezekiel’s Gog and Magog, who provided a useful genealogical connection to a son of Noah but also a potentially problematic prophecy; and Ambrose of Milan and Jerome, whose own interpretations of these sources Isidore expanded on. It finishes with a surprising reappearance of Gog in the ninth century.
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Inclusion and Exclusion in Mediterranean Christianities, 400-800, ed. Yaniv Fox and Erica Buchberger (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019).
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania: Propuestas teóricas y cultura material en los siglos V-VIII, 2015
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Edited volumes by Erica Buchberger
Brepols, 2019
The fifth to the ninth centuries were a formative period around the Mediterranean, in which new f... more The fifth to the ninth centuries were a formative period around the Mediterranean, in which new forces were redefining traditional social divisions. This volume will look at these centuries through the lens of inclusion and exclusion as social forces at work on the self, the community, and society as a whole. For late antique and early medieval societies, inclusion and exclusion were the means of redrawing the boundaries of cultural and political discourse, and ultimately, of deciding how resources — material, spiritual, and intellectual — were allocated.
This is the first of two volumes to explore inclusion and exclusion as processes affecting Mediterranean communities. Contributions to the present volume look at how distinctions were fostered through both space and text, along ethnic and religious lines, and at the level of both ecumenical councils and individual friendships. By examining a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, from historiography and political partisanship to private religious worship and the performance of the feast, the chapters of this volume illustrate the exceptional range of ways that late antique and early medieval people negotiated their place in a changing world, and brought a new one into being
Teaching Documents by Erica Buchberger
Instructions for both the traditional paper and an unessay project on El Cid for HIST 3347: Histo... more Instructions for both the traditional paper and an unessay project on El Cid for HIST 3347: History of Spain
Plan for a course I hope to teach in AY 2024-2025 Course Description: Categories like race, ethn... more Plan for a course I hope to teach in AY 2024-2025
Course Description: Categories like race, ethnicity, and religion into which humanity divides itself are not unchanging constants but social constructions that vary across time and place. Medieval Europeans understood these categories differently than we do (particularly in conflating race and religion), and often differently from each other, but the process of drawing and renegotiating boundaries and the reasons they did so are familiar.
This course will explore how medieval Europeans in various settings thought about their identities and when and why they emphasized particular ones. We will look at religious and ethnic conflict, multicultural spaces, and intersectional overlap, but also instances when such differences did not matter. Doing so will illuminate the choices medieval people made to activate—or not—specific identities in specific circumstances and the ways these choices altered the racial, ethnic, and religious categories themselves.
I created this assignment to help students learn to brainstorm and outline based on primary sourc... more I created this assignment to help students learn to brainstorm and outline based on primary sources they'd read.
Medieval Iberia is a battleground for many modern interests, from Spanish nationalists wanting to... more Medieval Iberia is a battleground for many modern interests, from Spanish nationalists wanting to prove theirs is a Christian country by destiny to opponents of the "Clash of Civilizations" narrative depicting Muslim Spain as an interfaith utopia. This course will examine the complex history of the multiple kingdoms and faiths in Iberia from the fall of Rome to 1492 and the ways historiography has often served-and continues to serve-non-historical ends. Among the topics we will explore are Gothic nationalism, religious tolerance, martyrdom, women as royal power players, Reconquest ideology, and whether there was an Islamic conquest (really!-Spoilers: the answer is yes.)
Talks by Erica Buchberger
Presented at Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, College of Charleston, November 2017
A Session at the Fiftieth International Congress on Medieval Studies, 10:00 am, Saturday, Ma... more A Session at the Fiftieth International Congress on Medieval Studies,
10:00 am,
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Bernhard 204
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, Michigan
The papers to be presented represent a cross-section of western intellectual and religious life in the seventh century and how questions of identity were framed and understood in the period. We look forward to an interesting session and an exciting discussion following these four papers:
Pagan Forefathers and Christian Identities in Seventh-Century Irish Hagiography
Katja Ritari, Helsingin Yliopisto
Aldhelm and Anglo-Saxon Identity
Michael Moises Garcia, Independent Scholar
“Numquam Tu, Romane”: The Life of Eligius on Roman Identity in Seventh-Century Francia
Erica Buchberger, College of Charleston
“Render unto Caesar”: The Saint and the World in Seventh-Century Gaul
Nancy M. Thompson, California State University–East Bay
Session organised by Thomas J. MacMaster, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
This book offers a new model for discussing the multi-layered nature of early medieval identities... more This book offers a new model for discussing the multi-layered nature of early medieval identities and understanding the mechanisms by which identity shifts occurred, by examining the adoption of Gothic and Frankish identity by Romans living in Visigothic Iberia and Merovingian Gaul. Distinguishing between the political, religious, and descent overtones with which the ethnonyms Goth, Frank, and Roman were used allows us to see that Romans came to identify with their new rulers politically and religiously first, choosing strategies of identification that best helped them adapt to a shifting social landscape. As these new identities strengthened, the next generations ceased to view themselves as Romans altogether, completing the shift of ethnic identity begun by their ancestors.
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies
While scholarship on early medieval Europe often centers ethnicity or religion over other forms o... more While scholarship on early medieval Europe often centers ethnicity or religion over other forms of identity, they were not always the most relevant form of identification for contemporaries. In the Lives of the Fathers of Mérida (late sixth-early seventh century), ethnic and religious identity were actually deployed to construct a local identity around the space and people of the city. This article explores how the text did so by closely analyzing terms used and their context, and by applying social scientific theories of boundary construction to illuminate the strategies of identification behind it. It argues that such an approach gives historians of medieval identity a window into shifting affiliations within a locality and forces us to reconsider the salience of various layers of identity, both locally and kingdom-wide.
While the free eprints last: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/BVG37H6UAQHM7AWUBT3T/full?target=10.1080/17546559.2024.2422027
After that, please see my institutional repository: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB
Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 2023
In the late ninth century, a series of chronicles from the Christian kingdom of Asturias staked a... more In the late ninth century, a series of chronicles from the Christian kingdom of Asturias staked a claim on Visigothic identity, and thus ancestral legitimacy to rule in Iberia, for Asturias and its kings. Connecting Pelayo, the first king of the Asturian kingdom, to the last Visigothic kings and crafting his image as an ideal Goth and Christian was essential to this process. Informed by scholarship on "borderlands" and boundary-making, this article demonstrates how the chroniclers renegotiated the parameters of Gothic identity to impose the idea of a strict border between legitimate and illegitimate, good Catholic and heretic, and loyalty and disloyalty. In doing so, they provided Pelayo with a layered and flexible Gothic-Christian-Asturian identity.
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Early Medieval Europe, 2016
Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to the broader discussion of strategies of identification... more Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to the broader discussion of strategies of identification and of Romanness by exploring the changing meaning of Roman, barbarian, and Frankish identity in the writings of Venantius Fortunatus. A close examination of the cultural, ethnic and political nuances of these terms in Fortunatus's works highlights the ways he used the resources available to him within his social context to promote Roman identity as still prestigious and as compatible with a barbarian-ruled society. (Wiinner of the Wiley-Blackwell Essay Prize, 2016).
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Rome and Byzantium in the Visigothic Kingdom, 2023
This paper examines the ways Isidore of Seville appropriated Roman ethnic terms, origin stories, ... more This paper examines the ways Isidore of Seville appropriated Roman ethnic terms, origin stories, and models of triumphant victory and strategically altered them to better reflect the Hispania he experienced and wanted to build: one ruled by Catholic Goths destined to unite the peoples under their rule in faith. It begins by demonstrating the normalization of gens as a descriptor for a people united politically or religiously, not just by purported kinship. It then shows how he refashioned existing origin stories to give the Goths greater antiquity—and thus legitimacy and status—while neutralizing any negative connotations previous authors had envisioned. It finishes with examples of Isidore’s broader tale of the Goths’ progression from barbaric outsiders to worthy insiders destined for Hispania.
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Origin Legends in Early Medieval Western Europe, 2022
The key author of origin legends in early medieval Spain is Isidore of Seville. In his Etymologie... more The key author of origin legends in early medieval Spain is Isidore of Seville. In his Etymologies, History of the Goths, and Chronicles, Isidore drew on classical, Biblical, and late antique sources and also etymology to craft a suitable origin for the ruling Visigoths. His challenge was to make a people that in Roman times was considered violent, uncouth barbarians into a suitable civilized heir to Rome’s power in post-Roman Spain. This chapter begins by explaining Isidore’s goals and challenges. It then explores in turn the Getae and Scythians of Herodotus and Pliny, who served as eschatologically neutral ancestors; the prophet Ezekiel’s Gog and Magog, who provided a useful genealogical connection to a son of Noah but also a potentially problematic prophecy; and Ambrose of Milan and Jerome, whose own interpretations of these sources Isidore expanded on. It finishes with a surprising reappearance of Gog in the ninth century.
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Inclusion and Exclusion in Mediterranean Christianities, 400-800, ed. Yaniv Fox and Erica Buchberger (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019).
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Identidad y etnicidad en Hispania: Propuestas teóricas y cultura material en los siglos V-VIII, 2015
Find at: https://tinyurl.com/ScholarWorksEMB (active link under "Files" above)
Brepols, 2019
The fifth to the ninth centuries were a formative period around the Mediterranean, in which new f... more The fifth to the ninth centuries were a formative period around the Mediterranean, in which new forces were redefining traditional social divisions. This volume will look at these centuries through the lens of inclusion and exclusion as social forces at work on the self, the community, and society as a whole. For late antique and early medieval societies, inclusion and exclusion were the means of redrawing the boundaries of cultural and political discourse, and ultimately, of deciding how resources — material, spiritual, and intellectual — were allocated.
This is the first of two volumes to explore inclusion and exclusion as processes affecting Mediterranean communities. Contributions to the present volume look at how distinctions were fostered through both space and text, along ethnic and religious lines, and at the level of both ecumenical councils and individual friendships. By examining a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, from historiography and political partisanship to private religious worship and the performance of the feast, the chapters of this volume illustrate the exceptional range of ways that late antique and early medieval people negotiated their place in a changing world, and brought a new one into being
Instructions for both the traditional paper and an unessay project on El Cid for HIST 3347: Histo... more Instructions for both the traditional paper and an unessay project on El Cid for HIST 3347: History of Spain
Plan for a course I hope to teach in AY 2024-2025 Course Description: Categories like race, ethn... more Plan for a course I hope to teach in AY 2024-2025
Course Description: Categories like race, ethnicity, and religion into which humanity divides itself are not unchanging constants but social constructions that vary across time and place. Medieval Europeans understood these categories differently than we do (particularly in conflating race and religion), and often differently from each other, but the process of drawing and renegotiating boundaries and the reasons they did so are familiar.
This course will explore how medieval Europeans in various settings thought about their identities and when and why they emphasized particular ones. We will look at religious and ethnic conflict, multicultural spaces, and intersectional overlap, but also instances when such differences did not matter. Doing so will illuminate the choices medieval people made to activate—or not—specific identities in specific circumstances and the ways these choices altered the racial, ethnic, and religious categories themselves.
I created this assignment to help students learn to brainstorm and outline based on primary sourc... more I created this assignment to help students learn to brainstorm and outline based on primary sources they'd read.
Medieval Iberia is a battleground for many modern interests, from Spanish nationalists wanting to... more Medieval Iberia is a battleground for many modern interests, from Spanish nationalists wanting to prove theirs is a Christian country by destiny to opponents of the "Clash of Civilizations" narrative depicting Muslim Spain as an interfaith utopia. This course will examine the complex history of the multiple kingdoms and faiths in Iberia from the fall of Rome to 1492 and the ways historiography has often served-and continues to serve-non-historical ends. Among the topics we will explore are Gothic nationalism, religious tolerance, martyrdom, women as royal power players, Reconquest ideology, and whether there was an Islamic conquest (really!-Spoilers: the answer is yes.)
Presented at Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, College of Charleston, November 2017
A Session at the Fiftieth International Congress on Medieval Studies, 10:00 am, Saturday, Ma... more A Session at the Fiftieth International Congress on Medieval Studies,
10:00 am,
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Bernhard 204
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, Michigan
The papers to be presented represent a cross-section of western intellectual and religious life in the seventh century and how questions of identity were framed and understood in the period. We look forward to an interesting session and an exciting discussion following these four papers:
Pagan Forefathers and Christian Identities in Seventh-Century Irish Hagiography
Katja Ritari, Helsingin Yliopisto
Aldhelm and Anglo-Saxon Identity
Michael Moises Garcia, Independent Scholar
“Numquam Tu, Romane”: The Life of Eligius on Roman Identity in Seventh-Century Francia
Erica Buchberger, College of Charleston
“Render unto Caesar”: The Saint and the World in Seventh-Century Gaul
Nancy M. Thompson, California State University–East Bay
Session organised by Thomas J. MacMaster, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
Given at the Earlier Middle Ages Seminar, Institute for Historical Research, London in October 20... more Given at the Earlier Middle Ages Seminar, Institute for Historical Research, London in October 2012, and at the Medieval History Seminar, All Souls College, University of Oxford in November 2012.
This paper will examine the role Gothic identity played in Spanish society before and after the A... more This paper will examine the role Gothic identity played in Spanish society before and after the Arab Conquest of 711, and explore the changing meaning of being a 'Goth' in this period.
An expanded, more in-depth version of my Leeds 2011 paper.
When we think of sixth-century Gaul, we usually start with Gregory of Tours. However, his writing... more When we think of sixth-century Gaul, we usually start with Gregory of Tours. However, his writing is not our only source for the period. Venantius Fortunatus, unlike Gregory, made use of ethnic terms to advance his aims of flattery and vivid description in a genre requiring more verbal economy and imagery than history or hagiography. This paper examines the ways Fortunatus used ethnic identities and discovers a language of Romans and barbarians far more alive and well than Gregory’s Histories would have us believe.
Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity Workshop Rome, Byzantium, and the Visigothic Kingdom of... more Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity
Workshop
Rome, Byzantium, and the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo: Imitation, Reinvention, or Strategic Adoption?
3-4 May 2019
Scheide Caldwell House, Room 209
Cosponsored by: Center for Collaborative History, Program in the Ancient World, Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies
Princeton University
Workshop 1: November 2016, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) Workshop 2: March 2017, E... more Workshop 1: November 2016, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel)
Workshop 2: March 2017, Emory University (United States)
Deadline for abstracts: 10 January 2016