Barbarian invasions and history repeating itself

[lord of the mark]

Re: Re: Barbarian invasions and history repeating itself

Originally posted by molly bloom

The Arabs were the inheritors of Hellenistic culture and science and Roman engineering.

Not the only inheritors. "barbarian" europe is now seen, IIUC, to have done much better technologically than the dark ages stereotype implies. In particular they spread water mills much further than the Romans had.

[Ned]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Romans ran themselves into the ground. They had one equivalent "Sherman's March to the Sea" in every decade from 193AD on. As if things were not bad enough, Diocletian installed a monstrous bureaucracy and Constantine bled the nation dry with his taxation scheme. In the end, there was no point for ordinary Romans to maintain the "Evil Empire", so it fell.

Very true. As well, Diocletians wage and price controls and his tying of people to their professions caused massive economic damage. A major reason the Empire turned to barbarians to fill its ranks was because only sons of soldiers could be soldiers. When Rome's army was decimated by the Goths in '378, they simply could not replace the lost troops with Romans.

Then there is the fact that the barbarian invasions were fairly violent at times. St. Patrick visited Gaul circa 407 to open trade between Ireland and the Empire. He and his fellows travelled for two weeks and found nary a live human or farm animal. Everything had been destroyed by the Germans.

A few years later, Germans invaded Italy and did a lot of damage.

Then there was the Goth Alaric who did his number throughout the Balkans and later ransacked Rome itself.

But all this paled in comparison to the damage done to both the East and the West by Atilla.

As time went on, areas governed by Rome shrank as their army was defeated. Grand designs to reconquer lost areas were sabotagoed. Justinian got some of it back, but himself was defeated by bubonic plague.

Economic decline coupled with military defeats and their own self destruction (killing Atius, for example) lead to the end of the Roman Empire in the West, not peaceful migration of Germans and Goths.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Re: Re: Re: Barbarian invasions and history repeating itself

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Not the only inheritors. "barbarian" europe is now seen, IIUC, to have done much better technologically than the dark ages stereotype implies. In particular they spread water mills much further than the Romans had.

LOTM, I do find it interesting (as I'm sure you do as well) how so many so called "barbarians" or "savages" have tended to be far less barbarian or savage than people considered them to be a few decades back.

I'm happy to see that, for instance, the natives of the Americas finally being given some due for their societies. As well as, as you've pointed out, that the so called "Dark Ages" were anything but, and there was plenty of progress in the ages which were thought to have been merely stagnant.

[Ned]

Imran and Mark, they are called "Dark Ages" for a reason. Civilization almost completely collapsed in Europe. If you actually read accounts written at the time, it was almost heartbreaking to see just how far down civilization went. According to Churchill, the last road built in Britain was build in 350. Not another road was build until around two hundred years ago. Knowledge of sewer systems and aqueducts vanished. Education, except for the most elite, did not exist. A few monks saved what was left of civilization by slavishly copying what texts were available.

Italy did not completely fall apart until the Gothic Wars. But it too was then destroyed and did not recover for a very long time.

When Timur the Lame did his number on Central Asia, it is said he set it back 600 years. Something very similar happened to Europe after the Roman Empire vanished.

[Imran Siddiqui]

There is a reason they are now breaking up the Middle Ages and are calling certain parts of them the "High Middle Ages", Ned.

And Italy did NOT completely fall apart after the Goths sacked the peninsula. First, it was in slow decline under Western Rome, and the Goths actually conquered and ruled Rome fairly well. The Goths for the most part admired Rome and tried to rule it (even though Theodoric would move the capital to Ravenna). Let us, also, not forget Norman Sicily and the splendor of Robert Guiscard's kingdom. And the Carolingian Empire, which incorporated northern Italy (The Pope held Rome and the surrounding lands)

They also fail to account for the Golden Age of the Byzantine Empire, the "New Rome".

The 'collapse' is decidedly overstated. If anything it is merely a continuation of the slow decline of the Western Roman Empire. At least until 700(ish) AD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages

the explosion of new knowledge and insight into the history and culture of the Early Middle Ages which 20th-century scholarship has achieved means that these centuries are no longer dark even in the sense of "unknown to us". Consequently, many academic writers prefer not to use the phrase at all.

Students of education systems today are familiar with the canon of Greek authors, but few are ever exposed to the great thinkers of the Middle Ages such as Peter Abelard or Sigerus of Brabant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

Historically this period has been more pejoratively termed the "Dark Ages" by some Western European historians. The term "Dark Ages" has now fallen from favour, partly to avoid the entrenched stereotypes associated with the phrase, but partly because more recent research and archaeological findings about the period has revealed that complex cultural influences persisted throughout this period.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Ned
Imran and Mark, they are called "Dark Ages" for a reason. Civilization almost completely collapsed in Europe. If you actually read accounts written at the time, it was almost heartbreaking to see just how far down civilization went. According to Churchill, the last road built in Britain was build in 350. Not another road was build until around two hundred years ago. Knowledge of sewer systems and aqueducts vanished. Education, except for the most elite, did not exist. A few monks saved what was left of civilization by slavishly copying what texts were available.

Italy did not completely fall apart until the Gothic Wars. But it too was then destroyed and did not recover for a very long time.

When Timur the Lame did his number on Central Asia, it is said he set it back 600 years. Something very similar happened to Europe after the Roman Empire vanished.

I remember reading one stat which said there were more books in the Library of Toledo (during the time when Spain was under the control of the Muslims) than there was in all Christendom put together.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


I remember reading one stat which said there were more books in the Library of Toledo (during the time when Spain was under the control of the Muslims) than there was in all Christendom put together.

And in Cordoba too. Despite the glories of the Umayyad Caliphate in Spain, it still paled beside the achievements of the Abbasids.

Moorish rulers encouraged the arts and sciences, and the reawakening of ancient learning in the West owed rather more than it is currently fashionable to say to Arab, Moorish and Jewish sources- Western rulers used to 'borrow' superior Jewish doctors from Muslim rulers.

'Clash of civilizations', my royal Irish Erse.

http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/astrolabe/exhibition/climates.htm

A Hispano-Moorish astrolabe:

[Ned]

Imran, I agree the Goths were good Romans themselves. However, my reference to the Gothic wars was to the time when Justinian retook Italy from the Goths. That war resulting in massive destruction of Italy, especially of Rome, where the Goths destroyed most of the city's aqeducts sieging the Empire's troops.

There is a reason the 500's and 600's are the darkest of the dark years.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Ned
Imran and Mark, they are called "Dark Ages" for a reason. Civilization almost completely collapsed in Europe.

This perception has more to do with a pro-literate bias and a specific definition of "civilization" than anything else. Writing was not widespread at the time, and thus few records survive - they're called the Dark Ages largely because of the dearth of written records, which is what we base our history on. The lack of writing, however, does not neccessarily mean a lack of "civilization," assuming you don't define civilization as neccessarily literate. Complex forms of government, religious practice, trade, and societal interaction can all exist within a strong oral tradition that is now totally lost to us. Literate upper-class Roman society was replaced by a "barbarian" noble class that was largely illiterate, but I would hardly call that a collapse of civilization. It's only a collapse if what you mean by "civilization" is really "Roman Empire."

[Az]

a pro-literate bias

wtf?!!

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Az
wtf?!!

We often think of literate societies as cultured and civilized and illiterate ones as primitive and barbaric regardless of what our knowledge of their customs, societies, traditions, governments, and so on is. Because we can only know history from written records, we play up the importance and civilization of literate societies and downplay that of largely illiterate ones. We lack the ability to know anything about "barbarian" societies save what was written about them by their "civilized" (read: literate) enemies, and so we take those written records to be the general consensus, even the "truth" about those cultures. Would we think about the Roman Empire differently if the Vandals, Franks, Goths, and so on had their own historians, poets, and writers who had given their opinions on the Empire in written form? Maybe, but we'll never know, because their poets and historians relied on oral traditions, not writing.

Only in recent times are we starting to realize that a decrease in literacy does not mean "OMG collapse of civilization!"

[Az]

well, I am not saying that it's "teh complete collapses", but I am definetly saying that a literate culture is more civilized than an illiterate one.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


The lack of writing, however, does not neccessarily mean a lack of "civilization," assuming you don't define civilization as neccessarily literate. Complex forms of government, religious practice, trade, and societal interaction can all exist within a strong oral tradition that is now totally lost to us.

Except trade DID decline dramatically. while the exact pattern of decline over time is a matter of debate among economic historians, by the mid-10th century or so most of the West had been reduced to manorial autarchy, more or less, and trade had been reduced to the sporadic supply of luxuries by the occasional Jewish trader.

Complex forms of govt? The absense of money and literacy forced the Carolingians to attempt a centralized govt based on fiefs, which they were unable to maintain. Again, the 10th c west, govt was hardly complex, it was rule by the local strongman - only gradually did a more complex feudal system reemerge.

Societal interaction is vague - given the levels of localism, im not sure what it means.


Even religion - sophisticated religion in the West was largely happening only in monasteries - apparently the countryside was hardly Christian, and of course there was no organized paganism.

[Ned]

Any people who would tie their queen to four horses to tear her assunder, pour molten lead down peoples throats for sport, drag them behind horses to be quartered while still alive, loot rape and pillage generations after they conquered the Romans, are not civilized. That they wanted to live in the Empire and enjoy the benefits of civilization is understandable. But they soon found out that without civilization, there were no "benefits."

I wonder why revisionists are trying to write a different picture of that time, a time without pity or hope.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Az
well, I am not saying that it's "teh complete collapses", but I am definetly saying that a literate culture is more civilized than an illiterate one.

I understand that. This is exactly what I mean by "pro-literate bias." You're of course entitled to your own definition of civilization, but I for one think it too narrowly simplistic to define "civilized" solely on who writes and who does not.

Except trade DID decline dramatically. while the exact pattern of decline over time is a matter of debate among economic historians, by the mid-10th century or so most of the West had been reduced to manorial autarchy, more or less, and trade had been reduced to the sporadic supply of luxuries by the occasional Jewish trader.

Sure, international trade. What do we know about the internal economies of these peoples? Absolutely nothing, because they hardly kept records. Besides, the evaporation of far-reaching trade routes probably had more to do with the decentralized nature of post-Roman Europe, without the conveniently located metropolises through which trade could flow between people with the money to purchase foreign goods. By the time the Empire collapsed, trade had already been nose diving for some time, as routes relocated to the Eastern Empire; the phenomenon predates the fall of the Western Empire.

Complex forms of govt? The absense of money and literacy forced the Carolingians to attempt a centralized govt based on fiefs, which they were unable to maintain. Again, the 10th c west, govt was hardly complex, it was rule by the local strongman - only gradually did a more complex feudal system reemerge.

Was the Dominate any less ruled by strongmen? Germanic kingship based on valor, generosity, and kinship ties was its own complex form of interaction and governance, though it lacked the written laws and writs that we typically associate with more complex governments. The nature of government changes depending on what is being governed; a leader of a fairly small tribe simply didn't need the kind of bureaucratic structure of the Empire. The shift in the methods of governance has to do with changes in demographics and political boundaries, and is not neccissarily indicative of some "collapse" of "civilization."

Societal interaction is vague - given the levels of localism, im not sure what it means.

So is "collapse of civilization." I've been assuming that we all know and recognize this whole discussion is by definition rather vague.

Even religion - sophisticated religion in the West was largely happening only in monasteries - apparently the countryside was hardly Christian, and of course there was no organized paganism.

"Sophisticated" religion? Is that a monotheism-only title, or what? Paganism wasn't organized like Christianity would be, but Christianity just copied its organization from the Roman Empire (dioceses and so on). Pagan traditions had their own priests, practitioners, traditions, oral histories, and rich mythologies. Again, what you see as a lack of organization is due to the much smaller polities of the time; the Roman Empire required bureaucratic everything, including religion, and without the Empire there exists no further need. The Papacy had to struggle to maintain its relevance in an increasingly localized world that, unlike the Empire, didn't see the need to look to far-away lands for spiritual or political guidance.

Any people who would tie their queen to four horses to tear her assunder, pour molten lead down peoples throats for sport, drag them behind horses to be quartered while still alive, loot rape and pillage generations after they conquered the Romans, are not civilized. That they wanted to live in the Empire and enjoy the benefits of civilization is understandable. But they soon found out that without civilization, there were no "benefits."

The Romans were some of the nastiest, most brutal civilizations on this earth. They certainly did things just as bad as drawing and quartering people or dragging them behind horses - crucifixion, anyone? Feeding the Christians to the lions? The Parthians perfected the art of pouring molten metal down people's throats long before the "dark ages," and they are generally considered far more "civilized" than the Vandals or Goths at that point. The people you point to as civilized were just as brutal as those you claim to be uncivilized; your anecdotes are meaningless.

I wonder why revisionists are trying to write a different picture of that time, a time without pity or hope.

I'm going to answer this with a quote of mine from the last time we debated that seems to still be applicable here.

I am being a revisionist in the academic sense of the term - a critical analyst of historical fact.

I'll admit, your notion of some era of history as "a time without pity or hope" is quite romantic, if totally false.