Interrogatingthe‘Germanic’ Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde Herausgegeben von Sebastian Brather, Wilhelm Heizmann und Steffen Patzold Band 123 Interrogating ‘ ’ the Germanic A Category and its Use in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Edited by Matthias Friedrich and James M. Harland ISBN978-3-11-069976-0 e-ISBN(PDF)978-3-11-070162-3 e-ISBN(EPUB)978-3-11-070173-9 ISSN1866-7678 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2020946663 BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de. ©2021WalterdeGruyterGmbH,Berlin/Boston Typesetting:IntegraSoftwareServicesPvt.Ltd. Printingandbinding:CPIbooksGmbH,Leck www.degruyter.com Contents ListofContributors VII JamesM.HarlandandMatthiasFriedrich Introduction:The‘Germanic’anditsDiscontents 1 MichaelKulikowski TheMarriageofPhilologyandRace:Constructingthe‘Germanic’ 19 RolandSteinacher RomeandItsCreatedNortherners 31 StefanDonecker Re-inventingthe‘Germanic’intheEarlyModernEra:OmnesGermanisunt, contrafabulasquorundam 67 CătălinȚăranu TheBalloonthatWouldn’tBurst:AGenealogyof‘Germanic’ 89 OtávioLuizVieiraPinto WhatCanCulturalAnthropologyDoforMedievalists?AMethodological DiscussionofEthnicityAppliedtoLateAntiqueand EarlyMedievalHistory 111 MichaelJ.Kelly FromRhetorictoDialectic:TheBecoming‘Germanic’ofVisigothic (Legal-)Literature,and(Postulating)theEndofa‘Truth’ 127 VeronikaEgetenmeyr SidoniusApollinaris’sUseoftheTermBarbarus:AnIntroduction 145 JamesM.Harland AHabitusBarbarusinSub-RomanBritain? 167 SteveWalker AFarewelltoArms:GermanicIdentityinFifth-CenturyBritain 189 VI Contents SebastianBrather GermanicorSlavic?ReconstructingtheTransitionfromLateAntiquitytothe EarlyMiddleAgesinEastCentralEurope 211 LudwigRübekeil LinguisticLabelsandEthnicIdentity 225 NelsonGoering (Proto-)GermanicAlliterativeVerse:LinguisticLimitsonaCultural Phenomenon 241 ErinSebo TheLimitsofObligationandFriendship:Hrothgar,Beowulf,andthe ‘Germanic’Ideal 251 Index 267 List of Contributors SebastianBratherisProfessorofProtohistoricandMedievalArchaeologyintheInstitutfür ArchäologischeWissenschaften,attheAlbert-Ludwigs-UniversitätFreiburg,Germany StefanDoneckerisaPostdoctoralResearchFellowintheInstituteforMedievalResearch,atthe AustrianAcademyofSciences,Vienna VeronikaEgetenmeyrisaPostdoctoralResearchFellowintheHistorischesInstitutatthe UniversitätGreifswald,Germany MatthiasFriedrichisaPostdoctoralResearchFellowintheDepartmentofPrehistoricand HistoricalArchaeology,attheUniversityofVienna,Austria NelsonGoeringisaBritishAcademyFellowinLinguisticsintheFacultyofLinguistics,Philology andPhoneticsattheUniversityofOxford,UnitedKingdom JamesM.HarlandisaPostdoctoralResearchFellowintheSeminarfürAlteGeschichte,atthe EberhardKarlsUniversitätTübingen,Germany MichaelJ.KellyisVisitingAssistantProfessorinClassicsandComparativeLiteratureattheState UniversityofNewYork,Binghamton,USA MichaelKulikowskiistheEdwinErleSparksProfessorofHistory,ClassicsandAncient MediterraneanStudies,andHeadofDepartment,intheDepartmentofHistoryatthePennsylvania StateUniversity,USA OtávioLuizVieraPintoisProfessorofAfricanHistoryintheDepartmentofHistoryatthe UniversidadeFederaldoParaná,Brazil LudwigRübekeilisProfessorofGermanicPhilologyintheDeutschesSeminar,attheUniversität Zurich,Switzerland ErinSeboisSeniorLecturerinMedievalLiteratureintheCollegeofArts,HumanitiesandSocial SciencesatFlindersUniversity,Australia RolandSteinacherisProfessorofAncientHistoryattheInstitutfürAlteGeschichteund AltorientalistikattheUniversitätInnsbruck,Austria CătălinȚăranuisaPostdoctoralResearchFellowattheInstituteforResearchintheHumanities,at theNewEuropeCollege,Bucharest,Romania SteveWalkerisaPhDCandidateintheDepartmentofHistoryattheUniversityofBirmingham,UK https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110701623-203 JamesM.Harland andMatthias Friedrich ‘ ’ Introduction: The Germanic and its Discontents The origins of this volume lie in a chance meeting between the two editors, while bothwerepostgraduatestudentsattheUniversityofYorkin2015.Acopyofanother volume from the RGA Ergänzungsbände, Philipp von Rummel’s groundbreaking Habitus barbarus, is ultimately responsible.1 One, walking by the other’s desk, spied a copy of that volume, and expressed surprise that a British scholar should haveinterestinarchaeologicalresearchcomingoutofFreiburg,whichhasbeenno- table in Germany in recent years for its challenges to interpretative paradigms re- gardingethnicandculturalidentityinthelateRomanandearlymedievalperiods.2 Neither of us had met at this point, and Friedrich quickly outed himself as a Freiburggraduate.Harlandwasshockedmeanwhile,thathehadnotonlyencoun- tered another graduate student of late antique ‘Germanic’ archaeology (neither of us,ironically,werebasedinYork’sDepartmentofArchaeologyandstudentsofthis themewereinanycaserareinYorkatthetime),butonewhomightactuallyagree withhimabouttheproblemswithusingsuchlabelsatall. This event (and, specifically, the excitement at finding a fellow dissenter) high- lightshowisolatingitcanfeeltobescepticalaboutthenotionof‘Germanicantiquity’ today.Thisisapuzzlingsituation,becausedoubtaboutthevalidityofsuchananalyt- icalframework ishardly new. The modern cultural construct of the ‘Germanic’ isan invention of the early modernperiod, and owes itsoriginstothe rediscovery, in the fifteenthcentury,ofTacitus’sGermania.AsStefanDoneckershowsusinhisarticlefor thisvolume,eventheearlymodernhumanistswhoattemptedtoestablishandiden- tify ‘Germanic’ ethnographic traits struggled, despite their seemingly rich source 1 PhilippvonRummel,Habitusbarbarus:KleidungundRepräsentationspätantikerElitenim4.und 5. Jahrhundert, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 55 (Berlin: DeGruyter,2007) 2 For the Freiburg School, see, e.g., Sebastian Brather, Ethnische Interpretationen in der Frühgeschichtlichen Archäologie, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 42 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004); Philipp von Rummel, “Gotisch, barbarisch oder rom̈ isch?MethodologischeÜberlegungenzurethnischenInterpretationvonKleidung,”inArchaeology ofIdentity/Archaö logiederIdentitaẗ,editedbyWalterPohlandMathiasMehoffer(Vienna:VerlagÖAW, 2010), 52–53; Guy Halsall, “Commentary Two: Careful with that Axe, Eugenius,” in Cemeteries and Society in Merovingian Gaul: Selected Studies in History and Archaeology, 1992–2009 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 131–68; For the historiographical origins of modern ‘Germanic’ archaeology, Bonnie Effros, UncoveringtheGermanicPast(Oxford:OxfordUniv.Press,2012).FormorecriticalviewsoftheFreiburg School,cf.e.g.FlorinCurta,“MedievalArchaeologyandEthnicity:WhereareWe?,”HistoryCompass 9,no.7(2011):537–48orCurta,“TheElephantintheRoom:AReplytoSebastianBrather,”Ephemeris Napocensis23(2013):163–74. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110701623-001