As I understand it the re-casting of that period from the Dark Ages to Late Antiquity also tended to downplay the real costs that came with the decline of the Roman world. So alongside Brown I would place Bryan Ward-Perkins (The Fall of Rome) and Peter Heather (Empires and Barbarians, The Fall of the Roman Empire) who also highlight the suffering and violence, economic / lifestyle decay, and cultural loss after Rome's fall.
The study of late Roman/ post Roman migration period has been rife with politics because of the desire to refute the 19thC and early 20thC racialist views that the Germanic migrations established a pure ethnic ancestorship for modern states. It has instead been argued over recent decades that there were not movements of whole peoples and what did occur involved peaceful integration and evolutions of identity. Whilst worthy in origin this position has arguably gone too far in downplaying conquest and violence and has been partly motivated by desires to justify modern multiculturalism in Europe. Peter Heather for one has challenged this and argued there were real large migrations and not always peaceful.
The fact that Romance languages survived everywhere Rome ruled in western Europe, except some borderlands and Britain, suggests that there was no "Great Replacement" and the Germanic speakers were a drop in a Latinate ocean.
It is pretty obvious from accounts at the time that war and pillage was involved in the business even if the economic collapse was possibly more due to the demographic crash from volcanic winter and plague.
I love your articles in this category - history for non-historians, summarising (which must be very difficult) the lifeworks of your favourite scholar-writers. I just wanted to write that down. Apart from anything else, while I love too your acerbic takes on modern life (I think you would make a great Peter Simple), it's refreshing to read a longer view. You shine a light on the vast loci of my intellectual ignorance - I know no history beyond Bible Films and Scottish 1980s school education - and help fill the gaps. Thank you!
Excellent article, reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend about the Arab conquests, she told me “we shouldn’t have conquered all of these lands!, it changed our character for the worse” Funnily enough, Tom Holland notes that the Arabs didn’t call themselves Muslims for a full century after the conquests, they merely saw themselves as the “believers”, and it seems that their conquest of the Levant was facilitated by the Jewish population there.
"Whereas men had been allowed to play a public role so long as they kept paganism to themselves, that all changed under Justinian, and in 528 pagans were given three months to be baptised. The following year, pagan professors of philosophy at Academy in Athens were banned from teaching in public, these ‘persons diseased with the insanity of the unholy Hellenes"
A video on how Justinian's closure of the Platonic Academy in 529 may be considered the end of the Classical world:
"Christianity had huge advantages. The early Church worked as a sort of parallel state and Christians helped each other in crucial ways that gave it a demographic edge. During times of plague the clergy were the only effective relief agency in many areas, organising food supplies and burials where the state had failed. Christians were also more generous, inspired by a desire to secure their status in the next life, and by AD 250 the church in Rome was supporting 1,500 widows and orphans. They also sent large amounts of money to Africa and Cappadocia to ransom Christian captives after barbarian raids in 254 and 256. ‘In this way, being a Christian brought more protection than being a civis romanus.’ As our own age illustrated, if a belief system conveys material advantages, then all other things being equal, that belief system will grow and spread."
Tom Holland has compared monotheistic faiths like Christianity to shrews in the Mesozoic Era of the dinosaurs. Barely noticeable and unimportant by and large.
Over the 3rd Century (Christian calendar), a series of calamities shook the four great empires of Eurasia (most notably a plague) and the Roman Empire just squeaked through. It's older belief systems less so.
I've seen an argument that the ruinous inflation of the 3rd century devastated the traditional pagan cults. Their temples were sustained by something like modern day trusts, and the value of those funds plummeted as money became increasingly devalued. The temples could no longer afford to put on the lavish public festivals that drew common people to them.
An enjoyable overview! The World of Late Antiquity is a cracking read.
For different perspectives on politics/culture in the crisis of the western Empire, you might enjoy Alan Cameron’s ‘Last Pagans of Rome’ and John Matthews’ ‘Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court’ (both brilliant). I think it’s fair to say that most scholars today would treat the senatorial aristocracy as less of a unified class, less politically quietist, and less the ark of ‘pagan’ culture than was fashionable when Brown began working.
Spotted one typo - ‘Cyril of Alexander’ (whether those bribes were real is … an interesting question).
And of course the first Christians were Jews who were following the Messiah, as they saw it (see Life of Brian). They diverged after about ooh 200 years!
I’m reading on and off a book called Mahomet and Charlemagne by a Belgian historian that has as one of it’s themes what some of the commentators here are saying: there wasn’t a collapse in the Roman Empire, but more of a metamorphosis into the Roman Catholic Church. Life and trade in Gaul and Spain didn’t change much at all apparently, despite the shifts at the top. And the shift also involved foreigners like Stilicho the Vandal and Hermann/Arminius the German becoming thoroughly Romanized. Or did they…?
Re: The following year, pagan professors of philosophy at Academy in Athens were banned from teaching in public, these ‘persons diseased with the insanity of the unholy Hellenes’.
However they were pensioned off and they were allowed to teach privately as tutors. Some were even brought to Constantinople as learned adornments to the capital.
"Emperor Leo III had used Greek Fire to push back the invaders at the second attempt, but the eastern world was shaken by the ordeal. The triumph of Islam was followed by the iconoclasm controversy, which exploded just as a suitably portentous volcano erupted in the Aegean in 736. When the Lombards attacked Rome, the Byzantines were too busily immersed in this religious dispute to help; so Ravenna became the last part of the western empire to fall to the barbarians, in 751"
It is remarkable though how often it is overlooked in popular consciousness how Rome itself was very much part of the "Roman Empire " again for two centuries well into the "Dark Ages ". The mint in Rome continued to create coins of the emperor in Constantinople as late as 781.
Here is a cup from the 8th Century portraying the cities of Rome and Constantinople together indicating that as late as this date, they were very much seen as part of the same Roman world.
In 451 Attila’s Huns got as far as the Loire and the people of Orleans looked to Annianus, their bishop for help: ‘He advised them to prostrate themselves in prayer and with tears to implore the help of the Lord… “Keep a watch on the city walls [he said] to see if God, in his pity, will send us help.” When their prayers were finished, they were ordered by the old man to look for a third time. Far away they saw what looked like a cloud of dust… the Roman cavalry of Aetius, along with a Visigothic army, were on their way to relieve the city… “It is the help sent by God.” The walls were already rocking under the shock of the battering rams.’"
Attila the Hun may be the most famous of the barbarians of Late Antiquity but in terms of the Fall of the WRE, Gaiseric the Vandal really deserves the lion's share of the credit. Attila mainly ravaged the Balkans in the Eastern Empire for most of his era. He only launched two invasions of the West (Gaul in 451 and Italy in 452) before dying in 453. Gaiseric, by contrast, was a constant thorn in the Romans side. An evil genius who successfully thrwarted every Roman attempt to re-take the wealthy province of Africa that was central to the WRE's tax base.
"Fifty years later, Paris would be made the capital of an incoming German tribe who would prove the most significant of all. Franci comes from Frekkr, ‘the fierce ones’, and the Franks had often been used by the Romans as allies, until the relative strength of the two groups had shifted towards the former’s favour."
An interesting fact about the area that would become the heart of the Frankish kingdom and in turn modern France is that it was under the rule of a remnant of the Western Roman Empire that survived ten years longer than 476, the date traditionally considered the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Thanks Ed.
As I understand it the re-casting of that period from the Dark Ages to Late Antiquity also tended to downplay the real costs that came with the decline of the Roman world. So alongside Brown I would place Bryan Ward-Perkins (The Fall of Rome) and Peter Heather (Empires and Barbarians, The Fall of the Roman Empire) who also highlight the suffering and violence, economic / lifestyle decay, and cultural loss after Rome's fall.
The study of late Roman/ post Roman migration period has been rife with politics because of the desire to refute the 19thC and early 20thC racialist views that the Germanic migrations established a pure ethnic ancestorship for modern states. It has instead been argued over recent decades that there were not movements of whole peoples and what did occur involved peaceful integration and evolutions of identity. Whilst worthy in origin this position has arguably gone too far in downplaying conquest and violence and has been partly motivated by desires to justify modern multiculturalism in Europe. Peter Heather for one has challenged this and argued there were real large migrations and not always peaceful.
The fact that Romance languages survived everywhere Rome ruled in western Europe, except some borderlands and Britain, suggests that there was no "Great Replacement" and the Germanic speakers were a drop in a Latinate ocean.
It is pretty obvious from accounts at the time that war and pillage was involved in the business even if the economic collapse was possibly more due to the demographic crash from volcanic winter and plague.
I love your articles in this category - history for non-historians, summarising (which must be very difficult) the lifeworks of your favourite scholar-writers. I just wanted to write that down. Apart from anything else, while I love too your acerbic takes on modern life (I think you would make a great Peter Simple), it's refreshing to read a longer view. You shine a light on the vast loci of my intellectual ignorance - I know no history beyond Bible Films and Scottish 1980s school education - and help fill the gaps. Thank you!
Excellent article, reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend about the Arab conquests, she told me “we shouldn’t have conquered all of these lands!, it changed our character for the worse” Funnily enough, Tom Holland notes that the Arabs didn’t call themselves Muslims for a full century after the conquests, they merely saw themselves as the “believers”, and it seems that their conquest of the Levant was facilitated by the Jewish population there.
"Whereas men had been allowed to play a public role so long as they kept paganism to themselves, that all changed under Justinian, and in 528 pagans were given three months to be baptised. The following year, pagan professors of philosophy at Academy in Athens were banned from teaching in public, these ‘persons diseased with the insanity of the unholy Hellenes"
A video on how Justinian's closure of the Platonic Academy in 529 may be considered the end of the Classical world:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qFDJirCVKxE
"Christianity had huge advantages. The early Church worked as a sort of parallel state and Christians helped each other in crucial ways that gave it a demographic edge. During times of plague the clergy were the only effective relief agency in many areas, organising food supplies and burials where the state had failed. Christians were also more generous, inspired by a desire to secure their status in the next life, and by AD 250 the church in Rome was supporting 1,500 widows and orphans. They also sent large amounts of money to Africa and Cappadocia to ransom Christian captives after barbarian raids in 254 and 256. ‘In this way, being a Christian brought more protection than being a civis romanus.’ As our own age illustrated, if a belief system conveys material advantages, then all other things being equal, that belief system will grow and spread."
Tom Holland has compared monotheistic faiths like Christianity to shrews in the Mesozoic Era of the dinosaurs. Barely noticeable and unimportant by and large.
https://unherd.com/2023/07/the-depravity-of-the-roman-peace/
Over the 3rd Century (Christian calendar), a series of calamities shook the four great empires of Eurasia (most notably a plague) and the Roman Empire just squeaked through. It's older belief systems less so.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aWpUf7PBWto&t=376s&pp=ygUYRm91ciBlbXBpcmVzIG9mIGV1cmFzaWEg
I've seen an argument that the ruinous inflation of the 3rd century devastated the traditional pagan cults. Their temples were sustained by something like modern day trusts, and the value of those funds plummeted as money became increasingly devalued. The temples could no longer afford to put on the lavish public festivals that drew common people to them.
An enjoyable overview! The World of Late Antiquity is a cracking read.
For different perspectives on politics/culture in the crisis of the western Empire, you might enjoy Alan Cameron’s ‘Last Pagans of Rome’ and John Matthews’ ‘Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court’ (both brilliant). I think it’s fair to say that most scholars today would treat the senatorial aristocracy as less of a unified class, less politically quietist, and less the ark of ‘pagan’ culture than was fashionable when Brown began working.
Spotted one typo - ‘Cyril of Alexander’ (whether those bribes were real is … an interesting question).
"Christianity had huge advantages." Most notably its humanity. The Greek and Roman worlds were worlds without pity.
And of course the first Christians were Jews who were following the Messiah, as they saw it (see Life of Brian). They diverged after about ooh 200 years!
You have inspired me to order these two books from Amazon. Appreciate the essay and recommendations!!
I’m reading on and off a book called Mahomet and Charlemagne by a Belgian historian that has as one of it’s themes what some of the commentators here are saying: there wasn’t a collapse in the Roman Empire, but more of a metamorphosis into the Roman Catholic Church. Life and trade in Gaul and Spain didn’t change much at all apparently, despite the shifts at the top. And the shift also involved foreigners like Stilicho the Vandal and Hermann/Arminius the German becoming thoroughly Romanized. Or did they…?
Excellent overview, thanks, and a worthy tribute
Nice essay Ed, I will look out for Peter Brown's works .Also as an aside Devalera tried to get the Sudan mandate pre WW2
Re: The following year, pagan professors of philosophy at Academy in Athens were banned from teaching in public, these ‘persons diseased with the insanity of the unholy Hellenes’.
However they were pensioned off and they were allowed to teach privately as tutors. Some were even brought to Constantinople as learned adornments to the capital.
"Emperor Leo III had used Greek Fire to push back the invaders at the second attempt, but the eastern world was shaken by the ordeal. The triumph of Islam was followed by the iconoclasm controversy, which exploded just as a suitably portentous volcano erupted in the Aegean in 736. When the Lombards attacked Rome, the Byzantines were too busily immersed in this religious dispute to help; so Ravenna became the last part of the western empire to fall to the barbarians, in 751"
It is remarkable though how often it is overlooked in popular consciousness how Rome itself was very much part of the "Roman Empire " again for two centuries well into the "Dark Ages ". The mint in Rome continued to create coins of the emperor in Constantinople as late as 781.
https://x.com/Purpura57912934/status/1906791363146035612
Churches in Italy very much adhered to the "Byzantine" style.
https://x.com/Purpura57912934/status/1889931352499429619
Here is a cup from the 8th Century portraying the cities of Rome and Constantinople together indicating that as late as this date, they were very much seen as part of the same Roman world.
https://x.com/Purpura57912934/status/1443712606003363840
"Worst of all were the Hun.
In 451 Attila’s Huns got as far as the Loire and the people of Orleans looked to Annianus, their bishop for help: ‘He advised them to prostrate themselves in prayer and with tears to implore the help of the Lord… “Keep a watch on the city walls [he said] to see if God, in his pity, will send us help.” When their prayers were finished, they were ordered by the old man to look for a third time. Far away they saw what looked like a cloud of dust… the Roman cavalry of Aetius, along with a Visigothic army, were on their way to relieve the city… “It is the help sent by God.” The walls were already rocking under the shock of the battering rams.’"
Attila the Hun may be the most famous of the barbarians of Late Antiquity but in terms of the Fall of the WRE, Gaiseric the Vandal really deserves the lion's share of the credit. Attila mainly ravaged the Balkans in the Eastern Empire for most of his era. He only launched two invasions of the West (Gaul in 451 and Italy in 452) before dying in 453. Gaiseric, by contrast, was a constant thorn in the Romans side. An evil genius who successfully thrwarted every Roman attempt to re-take the wealthy province of Africa that was central to the WRE's tax base.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=FVAvDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=geiseric+the+vandal&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=geiseric%20the%20vandal&f=false
"Fifty years later, Paris would be made the capital of an incoming German tribe who would prove the most significant of all. Franci comes from Frekkr, ‘the fierce ones’, and the Franks had often been used by the Romans as allies, until the relative strength of the two groups had shifted towards the former’s favour."
An interesting fact about the area that would become the heart of the Frankish kingdom and in turn modern France is that it was under the rule of a remnant of the Western Roman Empire that survived ten years longer than 476, the date traditionally considered the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2024/06/kingdom-of-soissons-the-last-roman-stronghold-in-gaul-that-survived-ten-years-after-the-fall-of-the-western-empire/