Description
Book SynopsisAristocrats and Statehood in Western Iberia, 300-600 C.E. combines archaeological and literary sources to reconstruct the history of late antique Iberian aristocracies, facilitating the study of a social class that has proved elusive when approached through the lens of a single type of evidence.
Trade Review"
Aristocrats and Statehood in Western Iberia, 300–600 C.E is to be welcomed by historians and archaeologists wishing to acquaint themselves with a detailed and intellectually stimulating account of developments in what is still, in relative terms, a historiographically marginal area… [I]n a world in which so many history books are restatements of (frequently exhausted) positions, it is refreshing to encounter a book that makes such a striking contribution to a subject of perennial interest." * Early Medieval Europe *
"A very timely and wide-ranging work that makes an important and original argument that the local elite were crucial to the day-to-day operation of the state in western Iberia in both the late Roman and post-Roman periods. It is theoretically sophisticated, very well researched, and the argument is substantiated by reference to a wealth of literary, epigraphic, and, especially, archaeological evidence, much of which is not generally known outside specialist circles." * Jonathan Edmondson, York University *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. An Invisible Class in a Silent Land
PART I. WESTERN IBERIAN ARISTOCRACIES IN THE LATE ROMAN EMPIRE
Chapter 1. In the Shadow of Empire: Settlement and Society in the Late Roman Period
Chapter 2. An Unprovincial Aristocracy: Aristocratic Identity in a Renewed Empire
Chapter 3. Economic Strategies in a Renewed Empire: Aristocratic Economic Units in the Late Roman Period
PART II. WESTERN IBERIAN ARISTOCRACIES IN THE POST-ROMAN WORLD
Chapter 4. Adapting to a New World: Post-Roman Settlement in Western Iberia
Chapter 5. Crafting Fragmented Statehood: Aristocratic Identity in the Post-Roman World
Chapter 6. Preserving Wealth in a Changing World: Post-Roman Aristocratic Economic Strategies
Conclusion
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
