Military Encounters between Vascones and Barbarians in Francia and Iberia between the End of Roman Rule and the Eleventh Century

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Pursuit of Basque national identity in the Western Pyrenees Mountains emphasized their linguistic isolation (i.e., last speakers of a non-Indo-European language) and purported ethnic antiquity (i.e., residents since, if not before, the Last Glacial Maximum). This overshadowed inquiry on encounters between Basque as Vascones and Barbarians from across the Rhine as the latter fulfilled their territorial and political aspirations in Francia and Iberia. Paulus in his usurpation challenge to Wamba the Visigothic king in 673 ridiculed the Vascones as mountain goats scampering across barren and inhospitable mountain peaks away from the strongest and fiercest lion (i.e., Wamba) and yet a century later Vascones warriors called “spears” by the Saxon Poet destroyed Charlemagne’s rearguard and killed several of his paladins. Mountains have long been ignored by historians from the surrounding plains as little more than places where pastoralists seek refuge from the influence of kings or as the hideout for thieves from where they can antagonize kings. Contemporary historical and archaeological research in combination reveal the Vascones as strategically isolated yet militarily engaged with and against the vertically integrated regnums of the surrounding plains, and their interactions jointly contribute to political and social change in the lands of their encounters.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35711.0