The previous chapter addressed how any understanding of Gallic society will be made difficult because most of the sources derive from a small segment of society, male ecclesiasticalaristocrats. While this control of the evidence demands caution in interpretation, it does not negate the possibility of gaining much insight about how society was structured and how people acted and interacted. Using evidence for Gallic activity – that is, biographical data – over this and the next chapter we shall attempt to construct a model for the society of Barbarian Gaul. A first step toward that model will be to regard images for the structure of society that the producers of our sources advanced. In particular, we shall consider briefly what may be characterized as two independent efforts at “envisioning” society. The first was motivated by secular, indeed royal, concerns, and derives from legal sources, while the second was heavily influenced with ecclesiastical ideas and comes from literary texts. Although the visions expressed in these two kinds of source disagree in particulars, it becomes apparent that socially prominent composers of law and literature shared an opinion that a proper society should be orderly and hierarchical.