Dissertation Information for Arne Alexander JaaskaNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Fully Complete Title: Raetia and Alamannia: The mixed cultural world of a former Roman province in the Middle Ages Abstract: This dissertation examines historical memory and cultural interchange in the German region of Alamannia from post-Roman times to the high middle ages. The southern and eastern parts of Alamannia had lain within the Roman Empire's province of Raetia, which in the fourth century was subdivided into the provinces of Raetia prima and Raetia secunda. Several elements of Roman civilization survived the end of antiquity in this border region of the ancient Empire, and would continue to shape and influence the region's identity in post-Roman times and beyond, when it fell under the political and cultural sway of the Germanic people known as Alamannians. Remains of Roman cities, fortresses, and roads continued to stand in the region during medieval times and provided Alamannians with the most obvious evidence of their country's ancient past. Other, smaller remnants of Roman times--statuary, sarcophagi, coins, and inscriptions in stone--also survived and provided more information about the ancient civilization that had once flourished there. Medieval Alamannians also came into regular contact with living reminders of the Roman past in the form of persons living in Alamannia who were descended from the regions ancient, Roman population. These non-Germanic people living among Alamannians testified by their ancient Roman names and Latinate speech to southeastern Alamannia's pre-Germanic past. Finally, the bones of the dead lying in the soil of the country, especially of the saints who had lived and died there in Roman times, bore witness to that aspect of the regions past of greatest interest to Alamannians, its native, ancient, Christian heritage. Both the inanimate remains of ancient times in Alamannia and the living descendants of that ancient past in the country provided medieval Alamannians with the raw materials they used to construct the history and identity of their country. The vestiges and reminders of Roman civilization that medieval Alamannians found in their homeland gave it a heritage and identity that in many ways marked it off from other Germanic regions and drew it closer to Romance areas to the south and west. |
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