Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe (review)

The issues of state formation and 'barbarian' ethnic identity have seen a revival of interest in recent years, and this new volume by Brepols, Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe, is a welcome addition on these subjects. The debate over ethnic identity is particularly interesting as it is perhaps the area in early medieval studies that witnesses the most strident debates between two opposing schools of thought (usually referred to as the 'Vienna School' and the 'Toronto School'). The animosity between the two was most evident in an earlier Brepols publication, On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages (A. Gillet, ed., 2002). Fortunately, this new volume mostly manages to avoid the academic vitriol that marred On Barbarian Identity, and instead scholars, who do not necessarily agree with each other, are able to sit happily within the covers of the same volume. The introduction includes a concise overview of the ethnicity debate, and notes that the two opposing schools are now closer in their approach than is immediately evident from the language of the proponents. The volume is divided into three sections, one for each of the 'peoples' named in the title, concentrating on the eighth to eleventh centuries.

Somewhat strangely, the first paper in the 'Franks' section, Peter Heather's 'Ethnicity, Group Identity, and Social Status in the Migration Period', is not actually on the Franks. Instead, the paper serves as an extended second introduction. Heather provides an outline of the ethnicity debate since 1945, and offers suggestions on how the debate may be moved forward. Investigation into the Franks begins with 'Omnes Franci: Identifications and Identities of the Early Medieval Franks' by Helmut Reimitz, who demonstrates that the terms Franci and Francia changed over time and were manipulated in the process of state formation. Janet Nelson then concludes the short opening section with an examination of 'Frankish Identity in Charlemagne's Empire', arguing that ethnicity was not a major concern and that the empire was multi-ethnic.

Stefan Brink opens discussion on the 'Northmen' with 'People and land in Early Scandinavia': an examination of early people names and their association with topographical features. Unlike many modern scholars, Brink concludes that the people names provided by classical and early medieval writers are of use in searching for prehistoric peoples. Ildar Garipzanov concentrates on Denmark in 'Frontier Identities: Carolingian Frontier and the gens Danorum', in which he argues that the king Godfried, encountered by Charlemagne, controlled a smaller border area and not a unified Denmark. Examining such evidence as early Danish coinage, Garipzanov concludes that once Carolingian expansion ended, the impetus for Danish unification was removed. The focus then moves to Norway with Sverre Bagge's 'Division and Unity in Medieval Norway'. Bagge suggests that the impetus for unification in Norway was not particularly strong, but that the process was aided by an absence of any strong regional polities presenting an alternative.

The section on the 'Slavs' commences with a paper by Oleksiy Tolochko on the Primary Chronicle's description of the origin of the Rus state, which demonstrates that the chronicler was heavily influenced by Byzantine chronicles, and that he invented some of the tribes he named. Christian Lübke then examines the fascinating creation of a new people name and state as a pagan reaction to Christianity by the Luticians. The role of religion in state formation is also considered in Przemyslaw Urbańczyk's 'Slavic and Christian Identities During the Transition to Polish Statehood', a paper that describes how, owing to a lack of written or archaeological evidence, early 'tribes' in Poland have been guessed at and created in order to fill the void. Neven Budak then examines 'Identities in Early Medieval Dalmatia', focusing on the distinction in that region between Croats, Dalmatians...