Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth: People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489 554 (Paperback)

Patrick Amory; Rosamond McKitterick; Christine Carpenter
Cambridge University Press
 9780521526357
0-521-52635-3

The barbarians of the fifth and sixth centuries were long thought to be races, tribes or ethnic groups who toppled the Roman Empire. This book proposes a new view, through a case study of the Goths of Italy between 489 and 554. The author suggests wholly new ways of understanding barbarian groups and the end of the Western Roman Empire. The book also proposes a complete reinterpretation of the evolution of Christian conceptions of community, and of so-called "Germanic" Arianism.