Title: Framing Late Antiquity in the Iberian Peninsula
By Prof. Jorge López Quiroga, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Date: 21 November 2023, Tuesday
Time: 17.30
Venue: AZ-31 Seminar Room
Abstract:
In the post-Roman West, the Iberian Peninsula, characterized by historical dynamics common to the Mediterranean region, nonetheless exhibits significant heterogeneity and diversity in the transition processes defining the period known as Late Antiquity. Traditionally, the scarcity of textual sources from the 5th to 8th centuries related to the Iberian Peninsula, along with their close ties to the discourse and narratives of secular and ecclesiastical elites, often of a legislative or hagiographic nature, has offered a rather generic and reductionist view of this transitional phase between the end of the Roman era and the dawn of the Middle Ages. As a result, many themes, stereotypes, and even mythical constructs have been established, frequently portraying the Iberian Peninsula as somewhat marginalized or even “left behind” in terms of historical development as it parallels and interacts with other territories in the post-Roman West. Nevertheless, the Iberian Peninsula’s integration into a broader and interconnected Western (and Eastern) context becomes increasingly evident through the growing body of material evidence from the late antique period found throughout Hispania. In this article, we provide a broad overview, not intended to be exhaustive or systematic, of this shift in paradigm and, consequently, the narrative regarding a pivotal and formative period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula.
Bio:
Jorge López Quiroga is a Senior Scientist at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He is the author and editor of more than a dozen books and more than 100 articles in scientific journals and papers in International Congresses focused on Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Mediterranean. He was recently a fellow at the University of Tübingen and at the RomanIslam Center at the University of Hamburg where he is pursuing his current research on Migration and female mobility during the Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.