Historical Ethnography of the Franks

The Frankish kingdoms from the sixth to the ninth centuries were an important stage in the long process of formation of ethnic identities in Europe. Several modem nations have ultimately grown out of the Frankish experience. But who were the Franks? Frankish identity is much harder to grasp than usually assumed. The term "Franci" could describe a specific ethnic identity, the inhabitants of a region (Francia), a social status (the "free"), a broad population of very mixed origin (the inhabitants of the Frankish kingdoms); it could even be used as a more general category, and become synonymous with Germani or (Western) Europeans. The aim of the project therefore is to study changing perceptions and concepts of Frankish identity. Texts, and more specifically, historiographic texts, constructed and promoted these identities. The project will look at varieties of a rich and complex body of Frankish historiography that reshaped the past for the uses of the present. It aims at a systematic study of the varying narratives about central elements of Frankish identity: origin, role of the kings, role and extension of the gens Francorum, meaning of the name ,,Franci", territorial configuration, relationship and boundaries to other gentes etc. These narratives should be compared between different works of historiography (especially the Historiae of Gregory of Tours, Fredegar`s Chronicle and its continuations, and the Liber Historiae Francorum), but also between textual variants and differing recensions of the same text. The systematic analysis of manuscripts of Frankish historiography allows important new insights about specific uses of the Frankish past, as a pilot study has already shown. The comparison between Merovingian and Carolingian perceptions of the Franks should explore changes in Frankish identity. Opinions differed as to who were the Franks, where did they come from, what was specific about them, and what was their role in history. As a result, new insights into the meaning of Frankish ethnic identity, and new methods to deal with texts about ethnicity, can be expected. The project can also serve as a test case for the assumption that texts constituted, and promoted ethnic identities, rather than simply reflecting them. It can thus also have a beating on the general debate on the nature of ethnic and social identities that may be significant beyond the early medieval evidence it uses.

The purpose of the project was to investigate ethnic processes in the Frankish kingdoms of the early Middle Ages. It was at this time, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire that ethnic identity took on its specific role in the integration of large-scale political organisations within European history. The Franks set a crucial standard concerning this particular development of an ethnic legitimation of supremacy and the formation of ethnic identity. They represented the most successful early medieval people that established its rule on the former soil of the Roman Empire. France and Germany did indeed develop from parts and divisions of this early medieval Frankish kingdom, and several other modern European nations have arisen from this Frankish heritage. The systematic starting point of the project was the combination of two relatively new research traditions, which share a close affiliation to Vienna, as a location for scholarly research. On the one hand, the project hinged on the methods and approaches developed over the last three decades by the "Wiener Schule der historischen Ethnographie" (Viennese School of Historical Ethnography). According to this school of thought, nations and ethnic identity are not understood as objective phenomena, but rather as based on historical experience. Their emergence is not determined at any stage but the result of a specific historical process. From this followed the second basic approach of the project. The central issue raised here concerned what role texts, particularly historiographic texts played in the social construction of ethnic identity in the early Middle Ages. The texts investigated were not merely considered as straightforward reflections of existing ethnic groups, but also as the media through which these identities were traced and propagated. Thus it was necessary to analyse varying, as well as competing perceptions and conceptions of Frankish identity. Not only were different historical works from the early medieval Frankish kingdoms investigated, but also their manuscript context in which these texts were transmitted from the early Middle Ages. In such a way it could be recognised how frequently, through their varying compendia and contextualisations, very similar texts and historiographic traditions might serve to make for very different blueprints of identity. Using this method it was possible to identify these different blueprints as sources of competing bids for identity and to pick up the trail of the different endeavours to promote integration which can be connected with the name of the Franks. This allowed a better undrstanding of the dynamic processes of the formation and charting of Frankish identity.