Rothman Fellowship Brown-Bag Series
Ralph Patrello, 2016-2017 Rothman Doctoral Fellow (Department of History)
Dressing the Part: The So-Called “Aquitanian” Plate Buckles and Personhood in Early Medieval Gaul
Wednesday, 1 March, 12:00-1:00 pm, Walker Hall 200
The elaborately-decorated belt buckles of southern Gaul (modern France between the Loire River and Pyrenees) have long been a focus of archaeological and historical investigation. Found primarily in funerary contexts, scholars have presumed that the buckles adorned the interred as an expression of social status, or less frequently, ethnic origin. The origins of the buckles’ form and design have been chief among scholars’ concerns, although the mechanisms of circulation have likewise been addressed. However, few scholars have attempted to explore the social significance of buckles in sixth and seventh-century Gaul, or the role that such buckles played in the funerary rite. Moreover, all too often scholars have assumed the items were placed in the grave whole as adornments. Yet in a survey of 19 cemeteries from southern Gaul, 15 of which contained graves furnished with belt buckles, nearly one in four buckle sets recovered were incomplete.