Hello all. While looking after our newborn I've been slowly reading a book on European history.
Specifically Medieval Europe 400 - 1500 by (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1862985.Medieval_Europe_400_1500)H.G. Koenigsberger (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/577504.H_G_Koenigsberger) (1987).
It's a bit of an old text (and I imagine there's many newer better overviews), but something I had on my shelf for a few years that I'd been meaning to look at.
My knowledge of medieval European history is quite fragmentary, so what I was looking for was more broader context that could help me hang different bits of my knowledge together better (rather than learning fine details). I'm only half way through so far, but I thought I might post a few observations / impressions so far. Perhaps some of you might have some thoughts they could add? This can also help me solidify some of what I have learned into long-term memory. Otherwise I fear I will have forgotten much of it soon!
I'll start a new post below to get into some specifics.
Thanks Jubal!
OK, starting with the transition to the medieval era, and the fall of the Roman Empire. I can do other topics on other days (not much time with the baby to deal with).
I was aware of the fact that the Roman empire split into eastern and western halves, with the eastern half based out of Constantinople, where it would eventually become the Byzantine Empire. And I knew that the eastern half lasted for quite a bit longer than the western half of the empire. But beyond this there was quite a bit of new information here for me to digest.
First off, on the cause of the collapse of the western empire, Koenigsberger briefly addresses the various theories that have been given (and I understand this is still an area of contention / much discussion today?) For example, the increasing number of barbarians within the army. Growing wealth disparity. The cost of looking after such extensive borders, etc.
But his basic argument is that ultimately these issues were not decisive, as we can find them in the eastern half of the empire also, and that did not collapse. What stands out therefore is the invasion of the Germanic tribes, which was initiated (according to Koenigsberger) by the Huns. I can see that other causes for this period of tribal migration are given in Wikipedia.
QuoteThe reasons for the migrations of the period are unclear, but scholars have proposed overpopulation, climate change, bad harvests, famines, and adventurousness as possible reasons.[177] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBrather20101035%E2%80%931036-187) Migrations were probably carried out by relatively small groups rather than entire peoples.[178] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBrather20101036-188)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_peoples)
But unless I glossed over a bit, Koenigsberger really just focuses on them being displaced by steppe nomads.
(Below I'll supplement some of what he says with bits and pieces I'm grabbing from Wikipedia too.)
So, a big early event in this migration is Gothic tribes (such as the Thervingi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thervingi)) being forced by the Huns out of their lands around the Balkans, down into the Eastern Roman empire. The Eastern Roman emperor at the time, Valens, goes to battle to fight them at the Battle of Adrianople (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople) in 378. Valens is killed. The next Eastern emperor, Theodosius I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius_I), signs a treaty with these tribes. They allow them to settle within the Empire.
Later, Alaric I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaric_I) would come to lead some of these Gothic tribes (now known as the Visigoths). Alaric is used by Theodosius, who sent him to Italy to attack the Western Empire in 394 (I'm hazy on the details of why, but I understand some conflict over who got to inherit the Western Empire, with Theodosius wanting to unify the whole thing back under his command?). The idea was to handle two birds with one stone. Subdue the Western empire, and have a lot of the annoying Visigoths (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigoths) die in the process. Alaric was successful (at great cost it seems), and was annoyed at how he was used / under-rewarded by Theodosius. Once the Eastern Emperor was dead the following year, Alaric considered the agreement finished, and started gathering forces. There was a protracted period of various attacks, sieges, deals, retreats, and eventually he sacked Rome in 410 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410)).
Roman control over Italy (from Byzantium) was later successfully re-established for a time, but it couldn't last. Eventually, the Lombards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_the_Lombards) (another German tribe) moved in, in 568. For the next two centuries or so Italy was contested ground between the Byzantines and the Lombards.
Along with the Visigoths and the Lombards, it seems the Franks were one of the most important Germanic tribes. They were united under their leader Clovis, who founded
the Merovingian dynasty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingian_dynasty) (which I had not heard of). They came to dominate not just post-Roman Germany territory, but also France / Belgium / Netherlands. This whole kind of western sweep. So what we think of as French culture has some Germanic elements too (like English culture does from the Anglo-Saxons). (Later the Franks would form the Carolingian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_dynasty) dynasty, which is also an important force in the early development of medieval Europe.)
The Visigoths were eventually displaced from Gaul by the Franks, and pushed down into Spain. There they did not have as long a hold (a few hundred years?), so their long-term influence on the development of the local culture was weaker.
Another points Koenigsberger makes that I thought interesting was that the barbarian tribes were relatively small groups (generally 80k or so people at most). In occupying parts of the Western empire, they replaced the existing elites to a degree, but were also in turn gradually Romanized to an extent in terms of different customs, through marriage, etc.
Major Takeaway - Importance of Germanic Tribes For me, reading this part of the history of early Europe, what struck me was the extent to which the Germanic tribes are a key part of the development of a broader 'European' culture. England. France. Germany. Italy, and Spain (to a lesser extent) were all occupied for extensive periods by these tribes, whose language and customs combined with Latin / Roman culture. In the past, I had only thought of these tribes from the perspective of their role in ending the Western Empire, and didn't really appreciate how extensively they roamed, or for how long they ruled different regions.
Other Things I LearnedI was hazy on the nature of the Celts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts). In reading this section of the book I dug around online more, and finally learned about how extensive Celtic culture was prior to the Romans pushing them out of much of their territory. I didn't really appreciate in the past that the Gauls belonged to the Celtic cultural group, such that both the Gauls and the Britons were Celts. I think I had a feel for it due to how similar they were in Rome Total War, haha, but that might have been it.
I also learned that the Gaels (from whence we get "Gaelic"), although originating in Ireland, also spread to Scotland. From Wikipedia: "In Latin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin), the Gaels were called
Scoti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoti), but this later came to mean only the Gaels of Scotland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Scotland)." It seems that after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Gaels were successful in expanding further into Wales + Scotland, while the Anglo-Saxons took the lowlands (and later we have the Vikings of course coming in and taking bits and pieces for a while). I'm unclear though on how much of what we understand as 'Welsh Culture' is Gaelic vs the older Celtic Briton culture of that area, and even specifically what differences really exist between Celtic Britains and Gaels. I'd be interested in learning more about this!
Lastly, I think I gained a greater appreciation for how most of the continental lands of the Western Empire (outside of Italy) were much lower in population when compared to the Eastern Empire (to what extent it was depopulated by the Empire's collapse I am not sure). The great urban centers of the Ancient world lay in the East. Which makes sense. The Germanic tribes were culturally not interested in urbanism (or at least, so Koenigsberger claims), and cities in the West diminished quite a bit. The climate of North-Western Europe was also still quite cold in the first millennium AD, and the heavy soil was harder to till prior to the use of iron plows and oxen. This contrasts with the east, which had long been home to relatively large urban areas for longer (kinder weather, soil that was easier to manage with wooden plows, etc.). (Also, Germany, France and England were covered in dense forests of hardwood. Difficult to clear for agriculture without iron tools, which were in very scarce supply.) How this changes is interesting, and something I'm reading about currently, but can leave for future discussion.
Further ReadingIf anyone has some recommendations, I wouldn't mind reading some more books on the German Tribes. I feel like our knowledge of them (from what I have seen online) must have expanded a great deal / been re-evaluated since the time Koenigsberger wrote this book. For example, when it comes to an appreciation of their building skills, etc. discovered in the archaeological records.
I'm curious as to what made them so effective in fighting the Romans? What differentiated the different tribes from each other? What skills and crafts they were experts at, etc.
Oh, and something else I didn't mention above - the adoption of Christianity by the Germanic tribes. Their cultural 'romanization' was also a Christianization. This seems like an important step in the formation of early medieval Europe.
So, I've had to refresh myself rapidly on this stuff - this is on the area where I know bits but haven't properly studied it since undergrad. But basically, the first thing I'd say is that a lot of this stuff is still very much "live" historiographical debate.
Big questions that there aren't firm answers to here include:
- The endogenous/exogenous factor debate - does Rome fall from within or without? Part of that depends on how you account for things like inviting already increasingly Romanised Germanic folks into the Empire as auxiliaries. So one of the things that makes them effective at fighting the Romans is that in a bunch of cases from a military perspective they also were the Romans. A lot of these people probably never thought that they were trying to conquer the Roman Empire, rather in a lot of cases they were trying to succeed within its structures (there was a lot of concern for e.g. legal continuity among the early 'barbarian kingdoms' for example) but did so in such a way that caused the breakdown of monopolies of force. Also the East/West side: a lot there rests on whether we see the East and West as similar, and I think generally the view is that the East had a pretty sharp economic and manpower advantage in the 400s though I may be wrong.
- What do we even mean by a Germanic tribe? How deep into the population do these identities go, and how mutable are they? The general view is increasingly "actually pretty flexible" with the understanding that what it meant to be a Goth, Alan, Avar, etc was actually in pretty rapid flux during this period. This is especially contentious because the idea of stable, primordial "Germanic tribes" who could be treated as European cultural progenitors was so central to Nazi historical theory.
- What material change does this all make? The negotiation of new land-holdings etc wasn't as simple as conquest and expropriation, in many cases there was a lot of language around barbarian "guests" and Roman "hosts" and as the stability of having armed protection became more important, there may have been a benefit to engaging in those relationships.
- Does the despecialisation of the economy hurt everyone? This is a wider historical debate. In general, the traditional assumption has always been that a more specialised economy is more 'advanced' and provides better goods and material conditions. The loss of a state structure that supports long distance trade will hurt that, therefore in general people's living standards should be expected to fall in an event like the fall of the Western Empire. But there are some caveats. First, if production is too heavily geared to the elite to start with, then despecialisation of labour can also mean a reduction in elite surplus extraction: if your job is making fancy pots but you never get to use the fancy pots anyway and the rent is screwing you ever, going back to the countryside and starting goat herding where at least you get to eat the goats might have its attractions. Second, a despecialised economy is often one where it's easier to be "off the grid" and not being taxed, so for subsistence farmers a 'broken' social model could be one where they could opt out of various burdens and actually see their living standards rise if they were lucky, especially if they lived somewhere that wasn't going to turn into an imminent war zone.
- How varied is the process? Whilst the West in general "falls", what happens in Africa and Italy is very different to what happens in Gaul and Britannia. Italy remains a pretty urban landscape for the most part and the role of the 'barbarian kings' actually does vary considerably. Theodoric the Great is very much a ruler, but he's also styling himself as a princeps and behaving in quite a Roman style.
For people whose work you should look at - Guy Halsall, Walter Pohl, Chris Wickham are the names that spring to mind. Halsall is very much the internal collapse theory guy, and argues generally against treating the incomers as a unified category of "Germanic tribes" to begin with, and so might be a good counterpoint to the book you're reading, Pohl is the biggest living specialist on the archaeogenetics and ethnogenesis element of the Germanic tribes, and Wickham is a bit more focused on things like the material conditions. I've also got a PDF of a paper called "Land, Freedom, and the Making of the Medieval West" saved in my undergrad notes that might also be interesting to look at particularly on that dynamic of how the Germanic peoples settle into the Roman world in practice.
Hopefully those are useful thoughts!
Behold also this map... Some visualization is helpful. (Visigoths = Western Goths, a term coined by a contemporary Roman. Ostrogoths = the Eastern Goths.)
(https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/courses-images/wp-content/uploads/sites/1936/2017/05/31175126/px-germanic-kingdoms-526ce.png)
Yeah, I love the historical maps in older books :) One of the other big challenges of this stuff is mapping, because it inherently privileges seeing things as if they were post-Westphalian nation states. Theoderic in Italy (this being 526 so the year of his death) is for example directly receiving legitimation and recognition from Constantinople: contemporaries might genuinely have not all agreed if you were to ask them if the Roman Empire ruled in Italy. But we sort it into a "Kingdom of the Ostrogoths" etc because we don't have a good way of showing "well this ruler is sort of independent and sort of not and part of the point here is to come up with legitimacy systems that you prove by making sure they don't come into tension with one another".
Quote from: Jubal on Today at 05:16:02 PMYeah, I love the historical maps in older books :) One of the other big challenges of this stuff is mapping, because it inherently privileges seeing things as if they were post-Westphalian nation states. Theoderic in Italy (this being 526 so the year of his death) is for example directly receiving legitimation and recognition from Constantinople: contemporaries might genuinely have not all agreed if you were to ask them if the Roman Empire ruled in Italy. But we sort it into a "Kingdom of the Ostrogoths" etc because we don't have a good way of showing "well this ruler is sort of independent and sort of not and part of the point here is to come up with legitimacy systems that you prove by making sure they don't come into tension with one another".
Yes that makes a lot of sense. Easier to show in a computer game or something dynamic (Crusader Kings?) than in a static map like this.
Incidentally, and going back to your earlier point about the difficulty of even distinguishing between "Romans" and "barbarians" at a certain point (within Italy more specifically I mean, and during the era of the fall of the Western Empire.) It seems what we are kind of looking at the relative weakening of the meaning of this distinction over time. But this surely can be considered from multiple axis. It is not just the barbarians understanding themselves (or becoming) "Roman", with what is "Roman" staying fixed. Rather, the concept of what is "Roman" also changing / being enlarged? Perhaps even undergoing some form of "barbarianization" in turn? I imagine that shared Christian beliefs would also have helped to soften this distinction.