Saxon Identities, AD 150–900

Robert Flierman is Assistant Professor in Medieval History at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

• List of MapsAcknowledgementsNote on annotation and translationAbbreviations1. Introduction12. The most ferocious of enemies. Saxons from a Roman perspective3. Rebels, Allies, neighbours. Saxons from a Merovingian perspective4. Gens perfida or populus Christianus? The Saxons and the Saxon Wars in Carolingian historiography5. From defeat to salvation. Remembering the Saxon Wars in Carolingian SaxonyConclusionBibliographyPrimary sourcesSecondary literature

Robert Flierman’s original discussion of perceptions of the people labelled ‘Saxons’ in antiquity and the early middle ages neatly and convincingly addresses texts as instruments of identity formation. The development of views of the Saxons as disparate groups of ‘barbarian’ outsiders in Roman texts to their being regarded, in Merovingian sources at least, as a well-defined people, is traced authoritatively. The book culminates in the role of the Saxons in Carolingian war narratives and Saxon self-representation. Flierman's book is not only an important and engaging contribution to the debate about ethnicity in the barbarian successor kingdoms of Europe. It also represents a timely challenge to the assumptions of a link between textual representation and ethnic reality.