Romanness – a multiple identity and its changes

In the often controversial debates about early medieval ethnicity and identities, Romanness has received little attention. But it should, because it is a particularly interesting case of the transformations of identity. What did it mean to be Roman after Rome? Early medieval Roman identities could be civic, regional, imperial, religious, cultural, legal or military; by self-identification or by outside ascription; they could constitute one facet in a complex web of affiliations, or a stubbornly maintained point of reference for the survival of a community. The 'Byzantine' empire, the city of Rome, the Catholic church, an educated elite or a regional population could provide foci of post-Roman Romanness in the west. Romans could be counted as one gens among others, or still measured by their imperial pretences. These ambivalences about Roman identity are not simply a result of the fall of the western empire. Numerous recent studies have dealt with the significance of Romanness in antiquity, and have shown that this was a paradoxical construction from the start, creating a wide variety of ways to be Roman. At times, Romanness was also ethnicized, although usually its political, legal and cultural definitions were in the forefront. The present contribution sketches some ways in which the classical multiplicity of romanitas affected its early medieval development.