Gaul between imperium and regna. The representation of contingency and its coping

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Matthias Becher
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 289272346

The project focuses on the Gallic letter collections of Sidonius Apollinaris, Ruricius of Limoges and Avitus of Vienne from the late 5th and early 6th century. Up until today research interests have mainly concentrated on individual letters or individual sections of letters but a systematic overall analysis is still lacking. Furthermore, with the term 'contingency' the project introduces a heuristically promising alternative to the controversial models of decline, continuity and transformation of the Western Roman Empire. By means of examining the textual representation of contingency and its coping the project primarily focuses on the perception of the Gallo-Roman contemporaries and its literary conversion. The methodical approach of the project to analyse the narrational mode of the letter collections on the one hand allows to examine the internal structure of the respective letter collection and its immanent developments and on the other hand to compare the three letter collections. Thus, the project provides an as yet missing contribution to the research of literary communication and of possible changes of perception and interpretation patterns in late 5th and early 6th century Gaul.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants