History, Frankish identity and the framing of Western ethnicity, 550-850

Part I. Communities of the Middle Ground in Sixth-Century Gaul

1. Gregory of Tours and his genealogy of pastoral power in late antique Gaul

2. Virtutes sanctorum et strages gentium : "The deeds of the saints and the slaughters of the peoples" : the radicalisation of church history

3. The dangers of history

4. Continuities and discontinuities : Roman and Frankish alternatives to Gregory

5. The politics of identity in the Merovingian kingdoms of the sixth century

Part II. Countermyths : The Search for Origins in the Merovingian Kingdoms

6. The persistence of Gregory's vision of community : the réécriture and reconfiguration of the Histories in the seventh century

7. Iocundus in fabolis et strenuus in consiliis : Roman trickery and Frankish mythmaking in the Chronicle of Fredegar

8. "... sicut ceterae gentes" : "...like the other peoples" : the Liber historiae Francorum and the definition of the populus in the seventh and eighth century

9. Spielräume of Frankish identity in the long seventh century

Part III. A Common Future : The Reforms of Frankish Identity under the Carolingians

10. Gens Francorum inclita : "the illustrious Frankish people" : the centralization of Frankishness under the early Carolingians

11. Correctio : the redefinition of central Frankishness

12. Before and after 800 : central and local Frankishness in the Carolingian world

13. Before and after 829 : the transformation of Frankish identity from the short to the long history of the Royal Frankish Annals

Conclusion: Frankish identity, Western ethnicity.