Medieval European History

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

Hello all. While looking after our newborn I've been slowly reading a book on European history.

Specifically  Medieval Europe 400 - 1500 by 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.

[Jubal]

Oou interesting, happy to add any thoughts if I can

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

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.

The 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] Migrations were probably carried out by relatively small groups rather than entire peoples.^[178]

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) 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 in 378. Valens is killed. The next Eastern emperor, Theodosius I, signs a treaty with these tribes. They allow them to settle within the Empire.

Later, 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 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.

Roman control over Italy (from Byzantium) was later successfully re-established for a time, but it couldn't last. Eventually, 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 (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 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 Learned

I was hazy on the nature of the 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, the Gaels were called Scoti, but this later came to mean only the Gaels 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 Reading

If 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.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

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. 

[Hufflescruff]

Massive congratulations to you ❤️

Also envious how you can process so much information with a New Born. I'm just a functioning zombie right now 😅

[Hufflescruff]

Massive congratulations to you ❤️

Also envious how you can process so much information with a New Born. I'm just a functioning zombie right now 😅

Btw, I didn't mean to dismiss your post. I'm just taking my time to read and digest it ❤️

[Jubal]

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!

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

Massive congratulations to you ❤️

Also envious how you can process so much information with a New Born. I'm just a functioning zombie right now 😅

Btw, I didn't mean to dismiss your post. I'm just taking my time to read and digest it ❤️

Oh I understand! 

But yeah, I am a zombie to be certain. We are one month in, and I am only managing 5 pages a day on average. So my account is quite fragmented as a result. I feel I've missed a lot and need to re-read with a highlighter.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

Hopefully those are useful thoughts!

Thanks Jubal!  Extremely helpful thank you. I particularly appreciate the point there about the way we think of the identity of the German tribes. I was doing a little more digging elsewhere online (https://historyguild.org/the-germanic-tribes/), and this comment seems pertinent.

Roman writers characteristically organized and classified people, and it may very well have been deliberate on their part to recognize the tribal distinctions of the various Germanic people so as to pick out known leaders and exploit these differences for their benefit. For the most part however, these early Germanic people shared a basic culture, operated similarly from an economic perspective, and were not nearly as differentiated as the Romans implied. In fact, the Germanic tribes are hard to distinguish from the Celts on many accounts simply based on archaeological records.

That is an interesting point too about how a de-specialization could potentially have meant a positive change for some people. I imagine it was a heavy burden on the peasants of the empire to support the lives of the Roman citizens / elites.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

Behold also this map... Some visualization is helpful.  (Visigoths = Western Goths, a term coined by a contemporary Roman. Ostrogoths = the Eastern Goths.)

[Jubal]

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".

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

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".

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.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

My reading continues. A few scattered thoughts from my phone while I sit with the goblin.

In reading about these various big picture developments - movements of people, invasions and battles, the rise and fall of dynasties - I feel the relative lack of an accompanying sociology or anthropology. To be fair, Koenigsberger is quite good I think in discussing economic and political developments. He mentions things too like childhood mortality and agricultural developments. He is not just dryly rattling off dates and battles. And I suppose he was simply working within the genre of "history" as traditionally understood, especially in the 80s. 

I recall from my undergraduate minor in history that since then there have been pushes to expand on this genre (i.e. histories of workers, histories of women), or to approach from a materialist / Marxist frame. I suppose there must be a good deal of sociological-history too by now. That's something id be interested in.

For example, Koenigsberger doesn't discuss patriarchy really at all. Only indirectly when it comes to subjects such as the Frankish tradition of apportioning land to the kings sons.

I guess I want to understand better some of the basic realities of organised human life that serve as motive forces for traditional big picture accounts of "history", while not reducing said history to mere epiphenomenon.

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

I've managed to get a bit more reading done. Currently in the middle of the 1000-1200 period. I'll try and give another rough account of what Koenigsberger outlines, or at least, of the things that stood out to me as particularly important. I'm going to write this off the top of my head, and while I re-read sections there's going to be some degree of vagueness for which I apologise! Anyway, while last time I looked at his account of the fall of Rome and the immediate aftermath, this time my focus is on his account of the "Early Middle Ages" (although I note he doesn't use this term, and his cut off for the major book section on this period is from 700-1000, while typically this term typically designates more the period of 500-1000 it seems). Anyway...

First off, I'll admit I've struggled to come to grips with just how dense things get with the various kingdoms and peoples. There's a lot of political fluctuation, and it seems like a kind of transitory period. The period following the collapse of the Western Empire was one of tribal 'migration', where warrior groups would move into a region, displace the old elites to different extents, and then gradually form new blended cultures with new identities. For example, the Franks in Gaul blending with the Gallo-Romans. The degree to which they succeeded in doing so varied, with more success in places like England and France, where geographically there was less pressure from neighbours, giving them more time to 'work things out' internally.

Outside of Italy, these new western kingdoms / cultures were less urban. There is no longer an urban elite managing vast territories via a central bureaucracy (although this is maintained in the Byzantine Empire). Literacy declines. Records become scarcer. And technologically there is in a sense a 'decline' in the west, with a loss of knowledge about the past, and a loss of the capacity to create the kinds of artistic and architectural achievements that still remained in the environment as a visual reminder of what once existed.

'Restoring the Empire'

Still, something Koenigsberger stresses here that I found interesting was the psychological / cultural impact on the development of Europe that was provided by this 'lost golden past'. He speaks not of a single renaissance, 'The' (Italian) renaissance that I was familiar with already, but of a series of renaissances, of which the famous one was the greatest. There was a general sense among educated peoples that there was a past to look back to, to recover, a culture that could be longed for or emulated. For Koenigsberger this (among an number of other factors) was a driving force for the future 'dynamic' character he ascribes to European history.

This 'great past' included the political project of an 'Empire'. There's a kind of mental step here I've found I needed to make, because from a modern perspective we have our conceptual categories that help us make sense of things, such as 'the Roman Empire' and the 'Byzantine Empire', but of course the way peoples thought of themselves was somewhat different. For example, the Byzantines thought of themselves not as the 'Byzantines', nor as the 'Eastern Roman Empire', but as the Roman Empire, the inheritors of that past. Even though linguistically if I understand correctly their elites were Greek speakers, with their 'Greek' Christian tradition diverging from the Latin Christian tradition centred in Rome that would become the Catholic church. But back to the Byzantines later. What I mean is that the idea of 'recovering the past' for these early European western kingdoms included a 'recovery of Empire', a uniting of the land under one Emperor or peoples.

The above for me feels very important. And I think it speaks to what Jubal was saying about the self-identities of the 'German' tribes. Who in many cases came to feel or understood themselves as 'Roman'. I think this points to the way that the idea of 'Roman' or 'Eternal Rome' transcended any ethnic identity, and was more broadly understood as a kind of universal touchstone of culture. This touchstone was shared by different peoples through their Roman cultural heritage (i.e. again the Franks in taking over Gaul did not wipe away all that existed before, but intermarried with the Gallo-Romans, taking up elements of old Roman culture). There is also the linguistic connection, with Latin being the lingua-franca of the educated western elites, and perhaps most importantly a religious connection, with Rome later forming the hub of Christianity, with the growing power of the 'Bishop of Rome' (who would gradually become politically independent of the patriarch and Emperor of Byzantium - although not in the period we are discussing).

So, we see different attempts throughout European history at 'restoring the Empire' (renovatio imperii), and indeed within the complex system of feudal titles that becomes established, the rank of 'Emperor' - if I understand correctly - lingers on as a kind of latent possibility, a formal title that people could claim the right to via birth and military achievements. The 'Holy Roman Empire' is something I still know next to nothing about really, but I feel I have some context now for understanding why a German Empire would claim this title for itself. Similarly, I believe Napoleon's crowning of himself as 'Emperor' was standing in this tradition (I think Koenigsberger mentions this). He may have effectively been 'Emperor of the French Empire', but what we was harking back to / claiming the glory of was 'Emperor of Europe', inheritor of the glory of Rome.

This goes beyond the scope of our discussion, but this also helps for me as a piece of the puzzle of modern European fascism and how the Italians / Germans conceived of their 'role in history'. The 'glory of Rome' was a touchstone for the development of Europe, a dynamic force that contributed to many cultural efforts, but it was also a potential justification for dominating other nations on the continent.

Anyway, back to the Byzantine Empire for a moment. It seems it had an important role to play in preserving this Roman cultural touchstone not only in continuing to exist (and trade / communicate / politic) with the west, but in its 6th century attempt at reclaiming / re-establishing the Empire, particularly the Italian peninsula.

/Side note
Incidentally, this this initial attempt at "renovatio imperii" was undertaken by Justinian I (482-565), i.e. Justinian "The Great". This was the same Justinian who ordered the construction of the still extant Hagia Sophia, and who famously ordered the re-writing of Roman law (the Corpus Juris Civilis). Koenigsberger claims that alongside the bible itself this was one of the most important texts in shaping the future development of European civilisation. I feel like this is one of those pivotal figures who I would benefit from reading more about, for example in the form of a good biography.
/Side Note

Justinian's attempt was only temporarily (and partially) successful, but (in Koenigsberge's view) it had a very important impact in that it helped smooth out the transition, in effect retaining a degree of cultural continuity between the imperial and post-imperial periods in the west, even if that was primarily in Italy and Rome. He mentions for example that Byzantine's time holding on to Rome helped with the early formation of what would become the Papacy / Catholic church. For example, and this is my own simplification / guess here really, but I imagine the love of rules and regulations we see in Catholic tradition has a certain 'Byzantine' flavour to it, given they were preservers of Roman style codified laws and central administration.

The perhaps ironic thing about this role of the Byzantine Empire however is that while it helped preserve a link in the west to the Roman past, it's own relatively strong connection to that past was in some ways a hindrance. Koenigsberger argues that over the following centuries a reason it lacked the relative cultural 'dynamism' of Western Europe (and I cannot form an opinion on this claim, but perhaps Jubal can chime in here) was that relatively it lacked this sense of a 'lost past'. It still largely had access to the texts of the ancient world, alongside many of the artistic and architectural techniques. It still culturally viewed itself as 'the Roman Empire', so there was nothing it viewed as 'lost' that it could aspire to and try to surpass, even if in reality it was slowly declining and losing that past in various ways. The more pronounced loss of that past in the west conversely fostered a desire to try and reclaim it, which spurred many great efforts. This was an interesting claim I thought. I wonder how this is evaluated today.

The New Kingdoms and their Elites

Anyway, back to the western continent. Koenigsberger speaks of this time (the Early Middle Ages, although he doesn't use this term) as a period where politically the kings would maintain their power by way of largesse. There was little thought yet to building long term institutions (for example, via legal systems). Rather, it is a time of personalities and blood ties. The old tribal culture of 'warrior loyalty' here is the seed that would develop into the more formalised forms of feudal relations that characterise the later 'middle ages'. But that loyalty was a fickle thing. It had to be purchased, via gifts of treasure and land. This meant that wealth gathered via periods of conquest was gradually dispersed in order to maintain power. This dynamic meant that kingdoms couldn't really remain very stable. Empires would rise, but then fall.

Still, through this process we are seeing a kind of ongoing 'development'. There is some kind of dialectic here. For example, we see the rise of small regional powers (and associated titles and such) that might align with one leader or king, and now with another. And so while the lines of the map might change drastically over time, this was increasingly a different kind of change when compared with the wholesale displacement of old elites by new elites when the Germanic tribes were migrating (although this wholesale displacement still happened, with for example the Normans basically supplanting the old Anglo-Saxon elites when they invaded England in 1066).

In other words, this is a time when a new kind of 'noble' elite is emerging. An elite who are intermarrying across sometimes large distances, establishing lineages / heraldry, and are increasingly operating at a level of remove from the common people. I think the 'international' nature of this nobility is hard for us to wrap our heads around when we think in terms of modern states of more recent centuries.

To take an example from a later period, Mary Queen of Scotts was betrothed in 1542 at age 6 to 'Dauphin' (heir apparent) of France, and effectively raised there until she was married to him at 17, becoming 'Queen Consort' of France in 1559 until his death the next year in 1560. She returned to Scotland in 1561. While in France she was apparently taught French, Italian, Latin, Spanish and Greek (along Scots). The elites of the early medieval period were not at all this cosmopolitan, but the early seeds were there.

This is a time of an emerging plurality of power centres, something Koenigsberger lists as another important contributor to the 'dynamism' of European history (alongside the gradual separation of Church and state). Yet the rulers of those power centres were linked, via their shared Roman cultural history and identity towards which they still aspired, as well as via their Christian faith.

A few other related points about this period:

- Trade at this time was still quite restricted. It was often more a matter of exchange of goods, with coins still not in high circulation (although of course this would depend on the region and if we are talking 700AD vs 1000AD). Gradually this would shift as silver mines opened up, especially in Germany, but initially it was mostly a barter economy. Trade was carried out often via the great rivers of Europe, or via special caravans, and Jewish peoples played a special role here. A connected point, but in the early medieval period we still also have limited specialisation when it comes to different craft skills.

- The above simple economic structure makes sense too when we consider that outside of Italy there were few urban areas with more than a few thousand people in them (unlike the great cities of Constantinople, or Damascus in the east).
Overall, the population was still very sparse. One of the reasons I mentioned in a previous post was due to limited agricultural surplus (iron tools to make ploughs for denser soils for example). But Koenigsberger mentions a few other contributing factors.

• The climate was still coming out of a relatively cooler period. As northern and western Europe warmed, harvests gradually increased, and this contributed to a growing population.
• Larger intergenerational family structures slowed down the process of people forming new families and moving into new regions (something that the Church helped to change with its emphasis on the 'atomic family' and dislike of concubinage.)
• The persistence of slavery. Slaves had to be provided for, and were less likely to have children. Over time this institution waned, partially due to the Church, and partially because it was ultimately more economical to have serfs / peasants who provided for themselves but gave a tithe. This would help increase the birth rate.

The Role of the Church

While we are speaking of the Church. Something I should briefly mention is that the Church at this time is still quite different to what it would become in the middle ages. For example:

• There is initially still a love of hoarding treasures that glorify God (culturally this feels like a string link with Pagan cultures). Of course, that continues later too, particularly in Italy, but it would later exist in a tension alongside movements promoting simplicity and restraint. This early wealth hoarding contributed towards making churches and cathedrals a target for Viking raids. However, and this is kind of interesting, there was at least here some 'gathering up' of wealth, that could later then be 'spent' as capital on various works. Even if it was stolen by the Vikings, it could eventually find its way back to circulation on the continent. This can be contrasted with the great burials of tribal chiefs in the past, where the treasures were effectively 'lost' for future use. The Church discouraged this, which arguably indirectly helped future economic development, much like its promotion of atomic families and dislike of slavery.
• Church positions were by political appointment still at this time. This was something that put a limit on the possible influence of Rome, as members of the Church would have split loyalties. Wresting absolute control over Church positions was a key step later in the rise of the Church's independence and power relative to the different monarchies of Europe.

I haven't bothered to mention the role of the Church in maintaining literacy and access to ancient literature, as this is of course very well known. Although it is worth emphasising that it was a complicated relationship. There was often a deal of antipathy towards 'pagan' literature, depending on the place and time.


The Muslim World

Of course, the Latin western kingdoms and the Greek speaking 'Roman' Byzantine Empire were not the only inheritors of the once united Ancient world. Koenigsberger does give quite a bit of attention to the Arabic world in this period too. Although his primary interest is in the way in which this growing force contributed to the development of Europe. A few interesting things I learned here...

• What apparently paved the way for the meteoric rise of the Muslim world at this time (with its golden age starting around 800 AD) was a conflict between Persia and the Byzantine Empire over the Eastern Mediterranean. Although the Byzantine ultimately prevailed (withstanding a great siege in 626 thanks to its mighty defences), the war weakened both powers greatly. This created a void into which the Arab-Islamic invasions later that century (particularly in the 630s to the 660s).
• The Muslim world also saw itself as the rightful inheritor of the culture of Rome. It incorporated Christian religious teachings alongside the literature and learning of the ancient world.
• The expansion of the Muslim world effectively meant it included all the great urban centres of the ancient world (with the exception of Constantinople itself). We traditionally thought of Byzantine as a hold-out of Roman culture, but of course the Muslim world was too. We have urban, cultured, literate classes preserving and developing ancient learning as a living tradition, while in the west this was something often only glimpsed at and yearned for.
• Still, the religious divide was considerable (and here I refer as much to the 'perception' of difference as any actual difference). This helped to limit cultural exchange during this time, despite the Muslim and Christian worlds sharing many fundamentally similar cultural elements.

So, alongside learning more about Byzantine and people like Justinian I, I think something I'd like to read about more would be the Muslim world in this period. Particularly with a focus on Arabic philosophy, mathematics, and other learning.



The Church and the Greek / Latin Divide

Finally, Koenigsberger spends some time discussing the growing divide between the Churches of the east (Constantinople) and west (Rome). The Pope (the Bishop of Rome) for quite some time did acknowledge the ultimate authority of the Patriarch of Byzantium, although this was more a formality in many respects. I believe this points in part to the manner in which Christianity had become fused with the 'Empire'. We think today of the heart of Christianity as Rome. But at this time Constantinople represented the peak of political, cultural and economic influence. Still, there were key differences that grew with respects to doctrine, and this was connected also to a growing linguistic Greek / Latin divide. A major point of divergence was the Byzantine attack on religious icons (an 'iconoclasm), which occurred twice.  Once around the mid 800s, and again in the early 900s. This would contribute to what would eventually become a permanent split between the Catholic and Orthodox Christian world.



OK, that's about it for now! Let me know if you have any thoughts or corrections!

[Jubal]

Re the shorter post above, I'd associate the big wave of sociology coming into history with before this book came out: I think it's more a matter of interests than whether people were doing it, the French Annales school were active in the mid C20th and were some of the first real pioneers of that sort of work.

Some thoughts on the main post:

• Absolutely agree that the sense of lost Empire is vital to a lot of European thinking thereafter, though it's also important to note that what that sense means gets very reinvented (more modern versions in the Early Modern period onwards for example often treat the Imperial imaginary as Christian, European and Racially White, categories that would not have made much sense to pre-300AD Imperial Romans who were not yet Christianised, the core of whose territories were very much inclusive of the southern side of the Mediterranean basin, very much did not include say Denmark or Poland, and who pre-dated the modern concept of Whiteness by about 1200 years.)
• The idea of Byzantium being 'less dynamic' dates back to Edward Gibbon, but is probably seen as a bit old fashioned and orientalist now. The Empire clearly did reinvent itself repeatedly, most notably in the Middle Byzantine period when the Empire really refocuses itself on its new core territories and has the Theme system for its military force, and then again in the Komnenian period in the C11th where increased engagement with the West and the Crusades changes Byzantium's position, and then finally in the Palaiologan restoration. You don't actually last a thousand years by standing still.
• The Byzantines did refer to and understand themselves as Romaioi: it's important to note that this wasn't a universal understanding of who they were, though. Texts from westerners and easterners will sometimes use references like "King of the Greeks" instead of "Emperor of the Romans". The Greek language/culture and divergence of religious traditions also do form meaningful changes in what the Roman Empire is. This is a pretty live debate in Byzantine scholarship, with most notably Anthony Kaldellis being an extremely strident and prominent supporter of the "Byzantines are Romans" perspective and a lot of other Byzantinists being more or less mildly annoyed at him, either because they think there's holes in his base argument or, like me, because they think he's irresponsible about his failure to address the ways his argument dovetails with the far-right in Southeastern Europe and modern Orthodox-tinged fascist movements in America, where people often get really into Byzantium precisely to claim the heritages of Christ and Rome simultaneously.
• Justinianic law is super interesting - importantly it doesn't have much impact in the west until the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when it gets effectively "rediscovered" and reinterpreted significantly as part of the scholastic tradition, which involves making theological and legal arguments based on the principle that certain authoritative texts can't be wrong about anything (the Bible, Canon Law, Justinianic Law, and Aristotle being the conventional authorities referred to). A lot of early medieval realms did issue a lot of their own laws and law codes though as well, in general legal systems are very underplayed as a feature of the medieval world and I absolutely wouldn't think of it as something absent from early medieval Europe except maybe in a few very turbulent patches. In general, once something settles down into a kingdom, legal codes seem to be a high priority. See for example the Edictum Rothari or the Breviary of Alaric.
• Simplicity or not in religion: I'd actually argue that this isn't a tension that appears later, it's already there in the early Middle Ages. The ascetic movement is a very early feature of the church, and is what monasticism develops from: in the East, the early monks are often barefoot rabble-rousers whipping up mobs to wreck remaining Roman-pantheon temples and similar, and they gain a lot of that power by their visibly ascetic practices persuading people of their sacrality. Peter Brown refers to this as 'inarticulate' power as opposed to the articulated legal power of official authorities, which is a useful framework I think.
• It's worth noting that engagement with the Islamic world was persistently stronger in areas that were actually closer to it and had to engage with it. Nearer the frontiers there's a lot more of a general vibe of "Oh these horrible infidels! My sister married one and now I'm serving in the army of another. What terrible heretics."