CIVIS: Rhetoricity, Citizens, and Citizenship in Seventh-Century Hispania

Abstract

This dissertation presents an in-depth study of the rhetorical and heuristic use of the Latin term civis (transl. "citizen") in texts produced in seventh-century Hispania. This was a world in which both the social and political order and the language through which this order was expressed were still strongly anchored in a Roman past and in which thinking about the meaning and function of language was a fundamental part of intellectual culture. This emphasis on language is perhaps best illustrated by the corpus of Bishop Isidorus of Seville which encloses several texts specifically focused on establishing the origin, meaning and function of language, such as De Differentiis Verborum and the Etymologies. But is also illustrated by the series of church councils organized during this period. These councils form a returning thread throughout this study as moments where bishops and kings sought to codify their vision of reality and the language by which it was expressed. The texts produced by the participants in these councils present fragmentary remnants of attempts to navigate certain religious and political crises that, in the eyes of contemporaries, had seriously undermined ecclesiastical and political unity in the Iberian Peninsula. This thesis seeks to establish what role civis played in interpreting these crises and in articulating the supposed remedies by which those crises could be navigated.