The Inheritance of Rome
An ambitious and enlightening look at why the so-called Dark Ages were anything but thatPrizewinning historian Chris Wickham defies the conventional view of the Dark Ages in European history with a work of remarkable scope and rigorous yet accessible scholarship. Drawing on a wealth of new material and featuring a thoughtful synthesis of historical and archaeological approaches, Wickham argues that these centuries were critical in the formulation of European identity. Far from being a middle period between more significant epochs, this age has much to tell us in its own right about the progress of culture and the development of political thought.Sweeping in its breadth, Wickham’s incisive history focuses on a world still profoundly shaped by Rome, which encompassed the remarkable Byzantine, Carolingian, and Ottonian empires, and peoples ranging from Goths, Franks, and Vandals to Arabs, Anglo- Saxons, and Vikings. Digging deep into each culture, Wickham constructs a vivid portrait of a vast and varied world stretching from Ireland to Constantinople, the Baltic to the Mediterranean. The Inheritance of Rome brilliantly presents a fresh understanding of the crucible in which Europe would ultimately be created.
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- FWIW I'd recommend "The Inheritance of Rome" by Christopher Wickham. It is jumps around a lot but gives a lot of really in-depth analysis of the Eastern Roman Empire and the rise of the Caliphate.
It's doesn't look like you may expect.
- If by "taking refugees" you mean "using as troops and mercenaries in their wars against other border groups" sure.
They played a chess game with the people around them, and the right to settle or not within their rather arbitrarily defined borders was part of the game. Remember that the borders that they gave rights to enter were borders they established through imperial conquest anyways...
The Franks and the Goths both Romanized and created successor states that mimiced the Romans. To many of the people who lived in these areas the transition from Rome to these new states was so gradual they never fully clued into it. The successor states of Francia, Visigothic Spain, Lombardic Italy, etc. all inherited most of the legal and cultural framework of Rome.
Additionally the Western part of the empire fell for reasons probably not much related to barbarian invaders but more to economic and political decline. Taxation models shifted, landholding models shifted, raising large successful armies became harder, and the empire became harder to defend.
And the eastern half of the Empire continued with significant vibrancy for quite some time.
I really like this book on this topic: "The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000" https://www.amazon.ca/Inheritance-Rome-Illuminating-Dark-400...
- Chris Wickham's recent book "The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000" shines a light on this oft misunderstood period, showing ways in which it was darker and ways in which it was lighter.
- Fair enough, I'm no medieval scholar, I am/was merely commenting with the interpretation that Chris Wickham (who is) had in his book "The Inheritance Of Rome", where he begins his chapter "The caging of the peasantry" with a brief discussion of this event (and a translation that looks a bit more like the one done from the Latin by the other commenter).
He does point out that the meaning of "incaute" is ambiguous here, but the salient point still stands: that military service was forbidden from the common people and that an organized common people was not allowed, and dangerous. It is speculative but he comments that these peasants may have felt they were following in the footsteps of their grandfathers who would have rightfully assembled for defense in time of need, and in fact that had formerly been the prerogative of free peasants.
So the point still pretty much stands regardless, the language speaks of free peasants self-organizing as a threat and an easily defeated one.
- What I take from the scholarship (e.g. Chris Wickham's _The Inheritance of Rome_) is less "the fall of Rome wasn't that bad" as "various things changed in various places, but there wasn't a single event where everything changed" and "the `barbarians' who supposedly took over Rome were virtually indistinguishable from the `Romans` who preceded them".
And there were surprising details, such as that after the Arabic conquest of many areas, the conquerors pretty much kept relying on Roman era tax rolls and local organization.
- Still, there were families in those days with unfathomable wealth. If memory serves me well, one was so wealthy that when they sold their land after becoming Christians they caused a real estate crisis across the Roman Empire. (Source: The inheritance of Rome, Chris Wickham, one of the early chapters.) And just a few centuries earlier, Julius Caesar arguably was one of the richest to have ever lived on earth. It's sensible to expect that families with that kind of wealth to leave a trace in their ancestry. And yet with rare exceptions they did not.
