The View from the Edge: Gallaecia and the Byzantine Mediterranean in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries
- Autores: Jamie Wood
- Localización: A Plural Peninsula: Studies in Honour of Professor Simon Barton / coord. por Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, 2023, ISBN 9789004425460, págs. 215-238
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
This chapter examines a range of material and textual evidence to explore the connections between Gallaecia, in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Byzantine world in the sixth and seventh centuries. Focusing on the cities of Braga and Vigo, it uses ceramic evidence to chart fluctuating rates of contact through trade, demonstrating that some sub-regions of Gallecia interacted with different areas that were under Byzantine control or influence, from North Africa to the eastern Mediterranean. Some parts of the region remained connected into Mediterranean trading circuits well into the seventh century, while continued interest in the East is underlined by the written sources, which show that elite religious and political connections were cultivated in the period too, especially under the Suevic regime of the sixth century. This chapter argues that regional variation and differential rates of continuity indicate that local elites—including churchmen—as much as the Suevic and Visigothic kings played a key role in articulating, and sometimes curtailing, such connectivity.