Proyect

ROMEX INVESTIGATES the interactions that took place between the various ethnic and religious groups of Late Antique Hispania, trying to cast light into the factors and the strategies that led to their integration, as well as the role played in this process by the civil, the ecclesiastical institutions and the common population. A particular attention will be devoted to the strategies and the resources employed for coexistence, integration and collaboration among the different Late Antique Hispanic communities, examining individual and collective attitudes favourable to integration and its effectiveness as mediation and social structuring.

The main OBJECTIVES of the project are:

• Investigating the strategies and the resources employed for coexistence, integration and collaboration among the different Late Antique Hispanic communities
• Delving into individual and collective attitudes favourable to integration and its effectiveness as mediation and social structuring.
• Identifying, from a gender perspective, who carried them out, assessing the depth of their proposals, their attractiveness and social impact and their ability to achieve them
• Analyzing the integrating role played by the religious factor, specifically by Christianity in relation to Arianism, Catholicism and Judaism.
• Carrying out translations, study and historical-critical analysis of the most significant written sources (literary, epigraphic and legal) and
• Identifying events or characters that may be capable of generating resources that promote integration, diversity and understanding of diverse cultures people, ethnicities and religions.

The main INTEREST AND ORIGINALITY of this project lies in:

• Its constructive and positive approach, since, from the perspective of Peace Research, its analysis does not focus exclusively on violence, conflict or intolerance and their consequences, but rather contemplates non-violent strategies and processes of peace, integration and fusion.
• To present an overview of the evolution of the interaction and relations between the different barbarian groups that settled in the Iberian Peninsula throughout Late Hispanic Antiquity. Also the interaction of these groups with the Hispano-Romans. To this end, we Will study the political, economic, social, ethnic, cultural and ideological factors. For this purpose, special attention will be paid to the written sources (literary, epigraphic and legal), putting them in dialogue with each other, analysing them and carrying out a translation of those that are very significant for our study.
• In addition to analysing the institutions (the Church, Suevic or Visigothic kingdoms, Roman Empire) or the characters that represent them (bishops, kings, aristocrats), the study that we propose highlights, from a gender perspective, the valuable role that the common peopele and everyday life played in the dynamics of.

METHODOLOGICAL TOOLS

The most important methodological tool of the project, the basis for the analysis of the information, is the creation of a database on events and interactions in Late Antique Hispania that can be analysed from the theoretical perspective of the project.

The fields of the database are as follows: 

1. TYPE OF INTERACTION
   1. Peaceful
      (Coexistence, charity, marriage, mediation/ arbitration, aid, asylum, agreement, embassy, pact, negotiation)
   2. Violent
      (War, military action, institutional, structural, gender, aggression, threat/intimidation, symbolic)
2. CONTEXT
   1. Chronology (first half of the 5th century; second half of the 5th century; first half of the 6th century; second half of the 6th century; first half of the 7th century; second half of the 7th century; beginning of the 8th century).
   2. Place:
      - Political-administrative entity (Roman, Suebi, Byzantine, Visigothic, Frankish, undetermined, others).
      - Sphere (rural, urban, private, public)
      - Historical context (integration processes)
3.  PROTAGONISTS/AGENTS
   1. Individual
      - Name
      - Sex (M/F)
      - Age:
      - Civil status (single, widow/widower, married, other).
      - Political status (king/queen, palatine aristocracy, delegated territorial administration, local offices, bishops, clergy, abbot, other).
      - Socio-economic status (elite, urban commoner, rural commoner, ecclesiastic, other:)
      - Legal status (free, dependent, slave, Hispano-Roman, Visigoth, Jew, foreigner, other:).
      - Religious status (Catholic, Arian, Jew, heterodox, other:).
      - Kinship/family network:
   2. Collective and/or institutional.
      - Monarchy (Visigoth, Suevic, Empire).
      - Church (Papacy, Council, metropolitan episcopate, episcopate, religious communities)
      - Arian hierarchies
      - Jewish community
      - Other religious groups or minorities:
      - Cities
      - Other actors:
4. NATURE OF THE ACTION
   - Political act
   - Religious act
   - Legal norm
   - Customary
   - Social act (daily life, family practices, funerary practices, rituals)
   - Discourse (political, philosophical, religious, symbolic, legend, hagiography, iconography)
   - Pact (formal, informal)

5. MOTIVATION
   -Policy
   -Economic
   -Emotional/ Affective
   -Religious
   -Personal interests
   -Cultural
   -Tradition
   -Primary survival

6. CONSEQUENCES OF INTERACTION AND CHANGES
   -Human relations
   -Religious sphere
   -Political scope
   -Legislative/legal field
   -Socio-economic
   -Cultural
   -Everyday life (habitus)
   -Symbolic systems
   -Durability or permanence:

7. DOCUMENTATION
   - Type of source (literary, epigraphic, numismatic, archaeological, iconographic)
   - Transcription:
   - Full reference:
   - Bibliography:
    - File/s to be uploaded (texts, translations, photos, etc.)

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT

Late Antique Spain is conceived in ROMEX Project as a laboratory to understand the set of problems that migration, coexistence and integration of diverse groups present nowadays, as well as of how these can be addressed at a state, cultural and ideological level. In brief, we intend that our Project not only help to better comprehend the Late Antique world but also our own, in such a way that this last, making use of his experience to avoid the contempt ofof the Other and to promote respect, dialogue and the exchange of positive values of each one of the cultures, ethnic groups and religions).

FUNDING

ROMEX, PID2021-123986NB-I00 -Romanorum et exterarum gentium generalis consensus: procesos de integración en la Hispania tardoantigua is funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033  and by ‘ERDF A way of making Europe’.