Dolores Castro received her PhD in 2017 from Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is assistant lecturer at Universidad de General Sarmiento, Argentina. Her current research explores the fields of religion and political power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, with particular focus on the Visigothic period. Fernando Ruchesi received his PhD at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 2015. At present he works as a Researcher at the Universitat de Lleida, Spain. His research focuses on the development of social cohesion in Merovingian Gaul and Visigothic Spain, with particular emphasis on the Northeast of the Iberian peninsula.

• Table of contents Introduction (Dolores Castro and Fernando Ruchesi) Building Leadership, Forging Cohesion. Bishops and Charity in Late Antiquity (Dolores Castro) The Logic of Control: Postulating a Visigothic Ontology of Human Being (Michael J. Kelly) Ritual Communities and Social Cohesion in Merovingian Gaul (Alexander O’Hara) Constructing New Leaders: Bishops in Visigothic Hispania Tarraconensis (fifth to seventh centuries) (Meritxell Pérez Martínez) Coexisting Leaderships in the Visigothic Cities: A ‘Coopetitive’ Model (Pablo Poveda Arias) Leadership and Social Cohesion in Merovingian Gaul and Visigothic Spain. The Case of Military Groups (Fernando Ruchesi) Between Rome and Toulouse. The Catholic Episcopate in the regnum Tolosanum (418-507) (Christian Stadermann) .

"This volume’s express aim is to add to discussions of post-Roman leaderships, identities, and social cohesion, particularly in terms of cultural structures and institutions in Gaul and Iberia. The greatest contributions of this work are to diversify what is studied and how, with successful coverage of both Merovingians and Visigoths, in both Gaul and Iberia, offering readers useful insights for future comparative and de-centralising work." – Erica Buchberger, Al-Mas.q, issue 681, 2024.