sehepunkte 24 (2024), Nr. 7/8

Tabea L. Meurer / Veronika Egetenmeyr (eds.): Gallia docta?

The volume collects thirteen contributions from a virtual conference held in March 2021, centered on the intriguing topic of education in late antique Gaul. Specifically, it examines how education promoted processes of inclusion and exclusion during a period of substantial political, religious, and social transformations. Gaul is particularly suited for this investigation due to its wealth of sources and the high level of literary sophistication achieved by its ruling class.

The book is divided into four thematic sections of roughly equal length, downplaying chronological order: it begins with a discussion on Eucherius of Lyon and concludes with a contribution on Ausonius. In the fourth section (Gallia docta - A Landscape of Learning? Realities and Ideologies), the chronological criterion is more evidently set aside: following Alison John's article on the knowledge of Greek in the circles of Sidonius, it moves to Nikolas Hächler's original study on the treasure of Kaiseraugst and ends, as mentioned, with an analysis of Ausonius' compositions. This arrangement allows the two editors, Veronika Egetenmeyr and Tabea L. Meurer, to strategically position their contributions at the beginning and end of the volume: in these writings, the guiding principles of the collection are most effectively articulated and applied, thereby providing coherence and cohesion to the entire book.

As clearly stated in the introduction, education - understood in its post-structuralist definition as the continuous, active and passive formation of a person in their entirety - "is a crucial factor in processes of in- and exclusion and differentiating of the self and the other". (5) In other words, education contributes not only to the formation of individuals' identities but also to the creation of communities, generating new barriers or reaffirming existing ones. Based on these premises, Egetenmeyr and Meurer propose considering late antique Gaul as a "landscape of learning" (11), where different educational communities coexisted across time and space. In her study on Eucherius of Lyon, Veronika Egetenmeyr impeccably illustrates the mechanisms underpinning the construction of educational communities, demonstrating how the monastery of Lérins founded by Honoratus of Arles at the beginning of the 5th century was not just a place of asceticism and prayer but a true "educational landscape" where members of the senatorial class built "interest groups and networks". (42) In the letter known as De contemptu mundi, Eucherius outlines two educational communities: that of the inhabitants of Lérins and that of the learned Christians who have abandoned worldly riches and honors, a group of which Valerianus - the letter's recipient - could be part due to his status and education. As recognized by Egetenmeyr, the canon of Christian philosophers defined by Eucherius has an evident parallel in the Professores of Ausonius - the subject of Tabea Meurer's study - as in both texts belonging to educational communities is based on knowledge rather than kinship. In the case of Ausonius, Meurer points out that among the tutors and teachers remembered for bringing glory to the city of Bordeaux, there are also foreigners recognized as citizens by right for their exceptional qualities and dedication to the education of young people. Even those who have left Bordeaux find a place in this canon: for Ausonius, in fact, Bordeaux is a "landscape of learning" that transcends the city's geographical limits, composed of members distinguished primarily by knowledge and rhetorical talent.

Within the framework provided by the enlightening essays of the editors, the other contributions explore various significant works and figures of the late antique Gallic cultural landscape. Naturally, Sidonius Apollinaris takes the lion's share, with four essays dedicated to him (by Gernot Michael Müller, Judith Hindermann, Willum Westenholz, and Alison John). Specifically, Müller shows how the Carmina minora of Sidonius, although addressed to an audience characterized by a certain cultural and religious heterogeneity, tend to portray the image of an educational community inaccessible to the new barbarian arrivals. This community, however, eventually opens up partially in the correspondence, including members of non-Roman elites provided they possess the necessary cultural means. Müller's article pairs with Christian Stadermann's excellent contribution dedicated to the challenge that integrating barbarian communities represented for Western Roman intellectuals, especially in 5th-century Gaul. While Sulpicius Severus was skeptical about the possibility that the new arrivals could successfully adopt Roman customs, other authors, both pagan (like Rutilius Namatianus) and Christian (such as Eucherius or Prosper Tiro), believed in the capacity of laws to transform the barbarians into true citizens, a condition that - for the latter - preceded union in faith. For others, like Sidonius or Ruricius of Limoges, education represented a crucial factor in the process of including the new Germanic elites.

On a more literary level, Raphael Schwitter's essay shows how a considerable amount of Latin poetic production from this period, both pagan and Christian, can be related to educational practices, which were so embedded into the social and cultural life of the elites that the line between school exercises and cultural products became blurred, while Joop van Waarden, a specialist in Sidonius, focuses on the different applications of the first and second person singular and plural in some letter collections (including those of Faustus of Riez, Ruricius of Limoges, Avitus of Vienne) to show how, from a sociolinguistic point of view, "politeness" was an essential tool for implementing strategies of inclusion and exclusion. Furthermore, in the contribution titled Novi Martini, Jan-Markus Kötter shows how the anonymous author of the Gallic Chronicle of 452 evokes the deeds of the Apostle of the Gauls to delineate the boundaries of a community whose members, bound by monastic rule observance, preferred to withdraw from the world rather than continue serving a now-dying empire. Lastly, Hendrik Hess and Maik Patzelt focus on the female component: the former emphasizes the important role of women in the representation that the Gallic aristocracy gave of itself through letter exchange, while the latter demonstrates how the Regula ad virgines by Caesarius of Arles sought to prevent any form of religious authority within communities of nuns, replacing normal secular education with a wholly spiritual one, directed exclusively within the monastery.

Ten years after the release of Steffen Diefenbach and Gernot Michael Müller's pivotal work, Gallien in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter, this new volume serves as an important resource for expanding our understanding of a region central to the cultural history of the late Roman Empire and early Middle Ages. While much of the volume understandably focuses on Sidonius' literary production, it successfully offers a highly original and comprehensive view of Gallic society during a time of significant transformation, highlighting the strategies of inclusion and exclusion prompted by the emergence of new communities and the spread of Christianity, and going beyond the traditional barbarian/Roman and pagan/Christian dichotomies.