The brief concluding chapter begins with an anecdote from the Life of Caesarius raising issues of lower-class agency in a context of shifting power structures. It proceeds to reflect upon the key questions at the heart of the book, including the relationship between popular culture and the ‘end of antiquity’.

This chapter introduces key structures and developments in the cities of late antique southern Gaul as relevant as contexts for the development of popular culture at this time, with reference to archaeological as well as literary evidence. While Arles and Marseille come under particular focus, other smaller urban centres including Aix and Narbonne are also considered. The general built urban environment is discussed first, then the occupations, social status and identities of the cities’ inhabitants. Next, the impact of the church upon the late ancient city, social and political as well as topographical, comes into focus. Urban social relations are examined before the final section looks at the transformation of performance and leisure in late antiquity.

The EU’s equal opportunities policy prohibits discrimination on grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation and age. The Directives prohibit direct and indirect discrimination as well as harassment. The Court of Justice has played an important role in shaping quality law. Drawing on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, it has indicated that non-discrimination is a general principle of EU Law, but the precise effect of this over and above the degree of protection offered by the equality Directives is not clear. Moreover, the Court is called upon to shape the scope of equality law and balance the prohibition against discrimination with other legitimate policies. Beyond conferring rights to workers, the EU has extended gender and race discrimination to other spheres, like the provision of services and education. Efforts to develop a policy of substantive equality have led to mixed results: positive discrimination is allowed only in limited circumstances, there are significant differences in the capacity of national equality bodies to offer support to victims of discrimination and mainstreaming equality in EU Law has been patchy.

This chapter focuses on the cultural transformations of Late Antiquity, using poems and letters produced between 300–600. Late Antique poets used rivers as ways of addressing changing religious, political, and religious identities, and to help them create new images of self and country. These early writers were responding to both literary and cultural rivers and to real encounters with river ecosystems. They shaped a sense of place and community alongside the rivers of Gaul, and their poetry reflects not only a sensitivity to the aesthetics of these riverscapes but also an awareness of the non-human world of river ecosystems. All told, Gallo-Roman poetry highlights an appreciation for the natural beauty of rivers, an awareness of their ecological abundance, and a recognition of the manifold ways in which human cultures, histories, and economies were drawn up in their watery webs.

This chapter considers EU data protection law, most notably Regulation 2016/679, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR governs the processing of data that identifies an individual or makes her identifiable. It sets out circumstances when the process is lawful. The most notable of these is that the individual consented to it; processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority; or the data is required for the pursuit of a party’s legitimate interests unless the fundamental rights of the individual overrides these interests. Individuals have a number of rights in respect of their personal data. These include the right to information about it and to access it, and to rectify inaccurate or incomplete personal data. Arguably, most contentiously, the individual can have the data erased if she withdraws her consent or the data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was processed. This right must be balanced against other interests, most notably the freedom of others to expression and information.

This chapter considers non-EU nationals. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides common policies on borders, immigration and international protection, albeit that there are special regimes for Denmark and Ireland. The Schengen Borders Code governs the treatment of non-EU nationals at external borders. However, it is supplanted for many non-EU nationals by out-of-area border controls such as visa policy, carrier liability regimes and interception of non-EU nationals out at sea. Immigration policy requires States to deport non-EU nationals who are irregularly present in the Union unless there are strong compassionate grounds. EU law grants significant social rights to two types of non-EU national and their families: the worker resident and the long-term resident. Those seeking international protection can make only one application in the EU, which, usually, has to be in the State where they first enter the EU. They have a right to remain within the State pending consideration of their application. During this time, they must be provided with housing, food, healthcare and education for minors. These benefits are sparse and contingent on the applicant complying with reporting and accommodation requirements.

This chapter explores the ways that rivers could shift from cultural and economic resource to sites of risk. Beginning with a close reading of the early medieval historian Gregory of Tours, it argues that as a bishop, Gregory saw rivers both as sites of regular and significant economic and cultural risk and of potential religious salvation. This balance between practical and religious response and representation weaves through the chapter, which draws heavily on hagiographical accounts and historical sources to explore cultural constructions of “risk.” Rivers were sources of economic and political instability, and threats to cultural memory and cohesion. Floods, shipwrecks, drought, and other disasters are found throughout medieval narrative, and form the basis of this chapter’s analysis. Finally, this chapter argues that medieval authors also saw rivers as connected to existential threats: the “Flood,” sin, demons, and the dissolution of memory and cultural identity. Paired with these fears, those same rivers became sources of salvation and markers of sanctity.

The chapter details early medieval riverine infrastructure, looking at ways that medieval leaders and communities understood the challenges and opportunities posed by the many rivers that supported and surrounded them. Working across the broadest range of sources, this chapter is the most focused on material culture and human infrastructure. It surveys practical responses, economic solutions, concerns about riverine sustainability, and the construction and maintenance of infrastructure (canals, mills, fish weirs, bridges, etc.), presenting the ways that medieval people responded to rivers on a daily basis. It also includes discussion of the regulation of riverine resources and the conflicts that could arise over rivers, ultimately arguing that rivers were actively contested, constructed, and integrated into the full economy, culture, and experience of medieval Europe.