ABSTRACT
In this wide ranging article published in 1998 Walter Pohl, the director of the medieval history research unit in the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the most distinguished student of Herwig Wolfram, turns to sources of many kinds ranging from the fourth to the late ninth centuries. He asks whether people noted differences between themselves and others and, if so, how they talked about those differences. Were perceived differences matters of culture or of ethnicity? How do ethnicity and identity relate to each other? Could people change their identity? In reading this article, one should keep in mind the kinds of sources the author uses. This steady focus is important in its own right, but also in light of the controversy between Wolfram and Goffart. In other words, one might ask whether the great battles are over how one reads sources or instead over what those sources can actually tell us.
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