This volume provides a collection of chapters by a multidisciplinary collection of experts on the linguistic variegation of the later-Roman and post-imperial period in the Roman west. It offers the first comprehensive modern study of the main developments, key features, and debates of the later-Roman and post-imperial linguistic environment.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Languages are central to the creation and expression of identities and cultures, as well as to life itself, yet the linguistic variegation of the later-Roman and post-imperial period in the Roman west is remarkably understudied. A deeper understanding of this important issue is crucial to any reconstruction of the broader story of linguistic continuity and change in Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as to the history of the communities who wrote, read, and spoke Latin and other languages. Languages and Communities in the Late-Roman and Post-Imperial Western Provinces offers the first comprehensive modern study of the main developments, key features and debates of the later-Roman and post-imperial linguistic environment, focusing on the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, Gaul, the Germanies, Britain and Ireland. The chapters collected in this volume help us to understand better the embeddedness, or not, of Latin, at different social levels and across provinces, to consider (socio)linguistic variegation, bi-/multi-lingualism, and attitudes towards languages, and to confront the complex role of language in the communities, identities, and cultures of the later- and post-imperial Roman western world. This volume will be accompanied by two further volumes from the European Research Council-funded LatinNow project: Social Factors in the Latinization of the Roman West and Latinization, Local Languages, and Literacies in the Roman West.

The Romans who established their rule on three continents and the Europeans who first established new homes in North America interacted with communities of Indigenous peoples with their own histories and cultures. Sweeping in its scope and rigorous in its scholarship, Empires and Indigenous Peoples expands our understanding of their historical parallels and raises general questions about the nature of the various imperial encounters. In this book, leading scholars of ancient Roman and early anglophone North America examine the mutual perceptions of the Indigenous and the imperial actors. They investigate the rhetoric of civilization and barbarism and its expression in military policies. Indigenous resistance, survival, and adaptation form a major theme. The essays demonstrate that power relations were endlessly adjusted, identities were framed and reframed, and new mutual knowledge was produced by all participants. Over time, cultures were transformed across the board on political, social, religious, linguistic, ideological, and economic levels. The developments were complex, with numerous groups enmeshed in webs of aggression, opposition, cooperation, and integration. Readers will see how Indigenous and imperial identities evolved in Roman and American lands. Finally, the authors consider how American views of Roman activity influenced the development of American imperial expansion and accompanying Indigenous critiques. They show how Roman, imperial North American, and Indigenous experiences have contributed to American notions of race, religion, and citizenship, and given shape to problems of social inclusion and exclusion today.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Latinization is a strangely overlooked topic. Historians have noted it has been 'taken for granted' and viewed as an unremarkable by-product of 'Romanization', despite its central importance for understanding the Roman provincial world, its life, and languages. This volume aims to fill the gap in our scholarship. Expert contributors have been selected to create a multi-disciplinary volume with a thematic approach to the vast subject, tackling administration, army, economy, law, mobility, religion (local and imperial religions and Christianity), social status, and urbanism. They situate the phenomena of Latinization, literacy, and bi- and multilingualism within local and broader social developments and draw together materials and arguments that have not before been coordinated in a single volume. The result is a comprehensive guide to the topic, which offers original and more experimental work. The sociolinguistic, historical, and archaeological contributions reinforce, expand, and sometimes challenge our vision of Latinization and lay the foundations for future explorations. This volume will be accompanied by two further volumes from the European Research Council-funded LatinNow project: Latinization, Local Languages, and Literacies in the Roman West, and Languages and Communities in the Late-Roman and Post-Imperial Western Provinces.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Latinization is a strangely overlooked topic. Historians have noted it has been 'taken for granted' and viewed as an unremarkable by-product of 'Romanization', despite its central importance for understanding the Roman provincial world, its life, and languages. This volume aims to fill the gap in our scholarship. Expert contributors have been selected to create a multi-disciplinary volume with a thematic approach to the vast subject, tackling administration, army, economy, law, mobility, religion (local and imperial religions and Christianity), social status, and urbanism. They situate the phenomena of Latinization, literacy, and bi- and multilingualism within local and broader social developments and draw together materials and arguments that have not before been coordinated in a single volume. The result is a comprehensive guide to the topic, which offers original and more experimental work. The sociolinguistic, historical, and archaeological contributions reinforce, expand, and sometimes challenge our vision of Latinization and lay the foundations for future explorations. This volume will be accompanied by two further volumes from the European Research Council-funded LatinNow project: Latinization, Local Languages, and Literacies in the Roman West, and Languages and Communities in the Late-Roman and Post-Imperial Western Provinces.

Text and Textuality in Early Medieval Iberia is a study of the functions and conceptions of writing and reading, documentation and archives, and the role of literate authorities in the Christian kingdoms of the northern Iberian Peninsula between the Muslim conquest of 711 and the fall of the Islamic caliphate at Córdoba in 1031. Based on the first complete survey of the over 4,000 surviving Latin charters from the period, it is an essay in the archaeology and biography of text: part one concerns materiality, tracing the lifecycle of charters from initiation and composition to preservation and reuse, while part two addresses connectivity, delineating a network of texts through painstaking identification of more than 2,000 citations of other charters, secular and canon law, the Bible, liturgy, and monastic rules. Few may have been able to read or write, yet the extent of textuality was broad and deep, in the authority conferred upon text and the arrangements made to use it. Via charter and scribe, society and social arrangements came increasingly to be influenced by norms originating from a network of texts. By profiling the intersection and interaction of text with society and culture, Graham Barrett reconstructs textuality, how the authority of the written and the structures to access it framed and constrained actions and cultural norms, and proposes a new model of early medieval reading. As they cited other texts, charters circulated fragments of those texts; we must rethink the relationship of sources and audiences to reflect fragmentary transmission, in a textuality of imperfect knowledge.

This groundbreaking history of Spain in late antiquity sheds new light on the fall of the western Roman empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. Historian Michael Kulikowski draws on the most recent archeological and literary evidence in this fresh an enlightening account of the Iberian Peninsula from A.D. 300 to 600. In so doing, he provides a definitive narrative that integrates late antique Spain into the broader history of the Roman empire. Kulikowski begins with a concise introduction to the early history of Roman Spain, and then turns to the Diocletianic reforms of 293 and their long-term implications for Roman administration and the political ambitions of post-Roman contenders. He goes on to examine the settlement of barbarian peoples in Spain, the end of Roman rule, and the imposition of Gothic power in the fifth and sixth centuries. In parallel to this narrative account, Kulikowski offers a wide-ranging thematic history, focusing on political power, Christianity, and urbanism. Kulikowski’s portrait of late Roman Spain offers some surprising conclusions, finding that the physical and social world of the Roman city continued well into the sixth century despite the decline of Roman power. Winner of an Honorable Mention in the Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards in Classics and Archeology