Episcopal identity in Merovingian Gaul, 397--700

Using the methodological framework of identity advanced by the Vienna School, this project demonstrates that the bishops of Frankish Gaul (397-700) more than mere tools of "the state" (Roman or Merovingian). They were not unchanging embodiments of continuity from the Roman era to the Carolingian. Neither were they one-dimensional political figures but men who integrated their spiritual beliefs into all facets of their lives, an aspect heretofore largely ignored by scholars. The Merovingian bishops were very much men of their own time, who negotiated and transformed their own identities as bishops in response to the changing world around them.;Throughout the fifth century, Gallic aristocrats infused the episcopacy with the social, cultural, political values of elite Roman culture. Simultaneously, the bishops integrated ascetic monastic values into their identities, which dramatized the distinction between themselves as ascetic clergymen and their fellow aristocrats. At the turn of the sixth century (c. 476-542), bishops identified themselves in two new ways: (1) they exaggerated or expanded upon old tropes---aristocratic family connections, Roman-educated literary ambitions, and ascetic values---to encompass a broader, more ambitious vision of the episcopacy, or (2) they drew upon a smaller, more local sense of episcopal romanitas as they attempted to maintain the status quo in a world that was constantly changing. In the second half of the sixth century, the bishops increasingly defined their identity in reaction to the Merovingian kings and a converted Frankish aristocracy. Bishops stressed the special nature of their identity and authority by collectively participating in episcopal councils, creating a special connection between the themselves and the saints, by memorializing holy bishops, and by sanctifying episcopal abilities. Throughout the seventh century, Merovingian bishops transformed into courtier-bishops; as aristocrats, raised at court, their political interests as court officials remained important and contributed to their definition of the episcopacy. The connection between these bishops and their kings and to each other as fellow courtiers became intrinsically connected to the definition of the episcopacy itself, to the point where their court activities were even sanctified.