Imperium Superesse: Aristocratic Survival in Late-Antique Gaul

The purpose of this study is to assess the ways that the myriad changes taking place over the course of the fifth and sixth centuries impacted the ruling class of Roman Gaul. In doing so I will take into account a range of scholarship dealing with the organization of the Roman empire under the Theodosian dynasty (379-455 C.E.), the transition from Roman to barbarian rule in the western empire, changes in the roles of ecclesiastical and secular officials in the fifth and sixth centuries, and the political and social landscape of the Merovingian Regnum Francorum