History Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-2025
Abstract
While scholarship on early medieval Europe often centers ethnicity or religion over other forms of identity, they were not always the most relevant form of identification for contemporaries. In the Lives of the Fathers of Mérida (late sixth-early seventh century), ethnic and religious identity were actually deployed to construct a local identity around the space and people of the city. This article explores how the text did so by closely analyzing terms used and their context, and by applying social scientific theories of boundary construction to illuminate the strategies of identification behind it. It argues that such an approach gives historians of medieval identity a window into shifting affiliations within a locality and forces us to reconsider the salience of various layers of identity, both locally and kingdom-wide.
Recommended Citation
Buchberger, Erica. "Local identity in the Lives of the Fathers of Mérida: when ethnicity and religion aren’t the point." Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 17.3 (2025): 293-314. https://doi.org/10.1080/17546559.2024.2422027
Publication Title
Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies
DOI
10.1080/17546559.2024.2422027
Comments
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (JMIS) on Nov. 13, 2024, available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17546559.2024.2422027