Diversity and Convergence

Abstract

Abstract This chapter is based on the paradox that whereas the Carolingians used an imagined Frankish identity upon which to build their empire, the very expedient of highlighting this ethnic identity catalyzed the fragmentation of the empire as a whole. As the core was strengthened, more peripheral communities used those same mechanisms to find a voice of their own. During the rise of the Carolingian Empire, the new ruling dynasty dealt with the reality of Frankish and other identities within their realm by reinforcing a legal pluralism that had grown out of the Roman Empire and that had been further developed under their Merovingian predecessors. In this process, acts of legislation came to be much less legitimated by central authority or office. They were agreements between rulers and groups through which authority was acknowledged in exchange for the confirmation or grants of rights and privileges. The resulting interdependence of claims to ethnic identity and legal status, however, intensified in the context of the Carolingian rise to power. But the increasing politicization of ethnic traditions and communities, their legal rights and claims, also worked against the political integration of Carolingian rule. Regional elites emphasized their own customs and rights vis-à-vis the new Frankish kings. The imperial framework allowed for accommodation of all these different claims along with the variety of Frankish ones in a Christian-imperial framework.