History and Geography in Late Antiquity

Abstract

The period from the fifth century to the eighth century witnessed massive political, social and religious change in Europe. Geographical and historical thought, long rooted to Roman ideologies, had to adopt the new perspectives of late antiquity. In the light of expanding Christianity and the evolution of successor kingdoms in the West, new historical discourses emerged which were seminal in the development of medieval historiography. Taking their lead from Orosius in the early fifth century, Latin historians turned increasingly to geographical description, as well as historical narrative, to examine the world around them. This book explores the interdependence of geographical and historical modes of expression in four of the most important writers of the period: Orosius, Jordanes, Isidore of Seville and the Venerable Bede. It offers important readings of each by arguing that the long geographical passages with which they were introduced were central to their authors' historical assumptions and arguments.

Cultural politics and the racial cartographics of human origins

“…Later, when elaborating on the names of nations, he specified that 15 had sprung from Japheth, 31 from Ham and 27 from Shem. While on the surface, his jumbled recital of their various attributes ‘does not at first appear to celebrate any individual gens over any other’, on closer inspection, according to Merrills, it becomes clear that he ‘conceptualized a hierarchy of gentes ’ (Merrills 2005, 212). And the traits that marked out their different ethnic dispositions were attributed to climatic causes:…”

Classifying Geographical History*

“…Clarke arrives at that position after an extensive review of the relevant literature of her two selected historic periods (Clarke 1999, 1–76). Similarly, A. H. Merrills (2005) argues that, in late Antiquity, geography and history were so closely bound in its literature as to be inseparable. Perhaps this provides some justification for those authors who today use these two terms interchangeably.…”

“…This interpretation of geography as the physical stage upon which the drama of history was enacted came to be widely adopted by many (not only French) historians. Geographical introductions to historical narratives have roots reaching down into classical antiquity (Clarke 1999; Merrills 2005). They blossomed, for example, in such classic works as G. M. Trevelyan's (1930) England under Queen Anne and R. G. Collingwood's (1936) Roman Britain as well as in more recent works, including Wickham's (1981) Early Medieval Italy and Alan Bowman's (1986) Egypt After the Pharaohs .…”

The Geography of Grammar: Nebrija's Appropriation of the Laus Tradition in the Prologue to the Introduciones latinas (1488)

“…It is only following the break-up of the Roman Empire from the fifth century onwards that geography becomes impor tant to histories of a more regional focus. This is evident not only in the work of Isidore but also in the texts of Jordanes, Orosius, Cassiodorus and others, who begin their histories with geographic description, reflecting the new political reality of the fractured Roman Empire (Merrills 2005). These geographies set physical boundaries for the history and tie the actions of a people to a place.…”