Chapter 4 The Role of Culture in a World in Transition: Iberia between the Romans and the Arabs
In: A Companion to Late Antique and Medieval Islamic CordobaSearch for other papers by Esther Sánchez-Medina in
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Abstract
This paper analyzes the role that culture played in the legitimization and consolidation process of the Visigothic state and its lay and religious elites alike, with special emphasis placed on the use of knowledge by the episcopal authorities. In this process, religion was an important tool for cohering and building an identity on which to construct the main sociopolitical structures. And all this was achieved through the creation of a new cultural program that included and reformulated only part of the knowledge coming from the ancient world. In short, this work analyzes the process through which the culture of late Hispania was progressively identified with that of the Catholic Church.