Fall of the Western Empire

Maybe the simplest way to explain why Rome fell is that it moved east--and the eastern part did not fall for another thousand years!  In fact, as barbarians pressed down from the north, some eastern emperors protected themselves by bribing the barbarians to attack West rather than east.  The west had been in decline for years, as we have seen.  The Germanic tribes were more numerous than in the past, and pressed by the Huns, looking for land and safety.  They were quite familiar with the empire.  Many had been given land in the empire, or had served in its armies.  In the final analysis, they wanted to move in, and enjoy the benefits of Roman civilization.  Better yet, they would rule it!  They didn't really want to destroy Roman culture.  They were soon christianized, and learned to speak Latin, but the empire was no longer an a single great state governed by the rule of law, but a group of warrior kingdoms.  Of course, the Roman empire had over time become less ruled by laws and more by the personal rule of warrior emperors.  In the end, the empire had become more barbarian, and the barbarians more Roman.

One could date the fall of Rome either in the year 410, when the Goths first sacked Rome, or 476, when the Gothic king, Odoacer officially deposed the Roman emperor.  By this time there were a number of kingdoms in which the Roman population was governed by Germanic overlords, and which fought with each other.  In the end, the Franks emerged the strongest of the new kingdoms.  Under King Clovis (ruled 482-511) the Franks gained control of all of Gaul, Caesar's old province, and parts of Germany also.  The Franks had the important advantage of church support.  This was because, unlike most other Germanic kings, Clovis had converted to catholic Christianity (as defined by the Council of Nicea in 325).  Other kings had converted to Arian Christianity, which most Romans considered heretical. (see p. 208 for an explanation of Arianism.)

The Rise of the Church

We have discussed the rise of Christianity in the empire.  As the empire disintegrated, the church rose in importance.  When we speak of the church in this period, we really mean a number of important institutions.  First is the bishops, the elected leaders of the church.  As government power faded, and as German invaders sought to rule their new kingdoms, the bishops became important political as well as spiritual figures.  They represented both Roman culture and the Roman people to the German overlords.  Increasingly, bishops became not elected officials but almost inheritable titles dominated by aristocratic families, sometimes Roman, sometimes Germanic.  The spiritual and political power of these families was merged together.  They might serve as administrators of the kingdom and advisors to the kings.

Another increasingly important institution was the monastic movement.  Beginning in the 300s, increasing numbers of Christians were attracted to the idea first articulated by St. Anthony in Egypt--that of turning away from the world to a life of complete holiness.   Early monks were solitary hermits (that's what the word "monk" means), but as the ideal of a holy life grew more popular, communities of holy men were founded. The most important and influential was St. Benedict's monestary at Monte Cassino in Italy around the year 520.  Part of the power of monasticism was perhaps the special allure of a higher life of holiness in the calamitous world after the fall of the empire.  Another reason is the social and economic stablity that communities of holy men and women offered both to those living in them and to those around.  They became important centers of both spiritual and political power.  They were governed by Abbots, who were usually aristocrats who had abandoned the secular leadership for sacred leadership.  Powerful noblemen would pay for these monestaries in their territory to offer assistance in governing, and also intercession with God for their souls and for their domains.

Finally, a third institution making up the church in the West was the Papacy.  The bishops of Rome succeeding in establishing their ascendancy over the Western church by making the claim that the first bishop of Rome was St. Peter, whom Christ himself had selected to found the church.  The great pope Gregory I (590-604) managed to make himself the real ruler of Rome and the surrounding territory, holding off the claims of the Lombard Germans and the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire.  From that time until the 19th century, central Italy was at least under the theoretical control of the Pope.  Pope Gregory worked with monestaries and nunneries, and with the Frankish kings to convert Germanic kingdoms such as the Anglo-Saxons in England, and to create a uniform and loyal church throughout the Western kingdoms.
 

The Carolingian Kingdom

By the 700s, a new dynasty of Frankish kings formed a close alliance with the popes.  The Franks would protect the provinces and spiritual authority of the popes in return for their blessing on the Frankish kings.  King Pepin helped the pope conquer more land in central Italy, and what did he get in return?  Legitimacy and moral authority.  King Pepin's son Charlemagne was a brilliant military leader who defeated his opponents in all directions: Lombards in Italy, Muslims in Spain, and Saxons to the east in Germany.  He created a large empire, in many ways resembling the late Roman Empire.  He was even crowned "emperor of the Romans" in 800.

Some scholars speak of a Carolingian (Latinized form of Charlemagne) "renaissance."  This is apparent in his chapel.  Charlemagne supported the monestaries and scholars, and their preservation of ancient Christian and pagan texts.  But the political and economic foundation for a stable new empire was lacking.  Charlemagne was a great warrior, but kingdom was not particularly united or economically developed.  Charlemagnes's conquests brought together different ethnic and cultural groups, and he relied on the personal loyalty of noble families for his power, rather than any true legal or traditional authority.  The Europe of Charlemagne was thinly populated, and mostly a land of manors farmed by peasants who produced even less food than in Roman times.  Cities were small and the roads poor.  There was almost no trade, no gold coins, vast unsettled areas--and no shipping in Mediterrenian for lack of things to carry.  One of the few important items of trade within and beyond Europe was slaves--from the name Slav--indicating that they were taken from non-Christian enemies on the Eastern borders Christian Europe.  From the perspective of the Byzantine and Moslem world, Western Europe was a backwater.  There was little excess wealth to build strong state.  After Charlemagne's death, the kingdom was divided between his three sons, and each kingdom gradually weakened until times really turned bad in the late 800s .

Vikings

Much of the movable wealth of Western Europe was found in monestaries and churches.  These became prime targets for Viking invaders.  Britain was particularly hard hit.  As time went on, the Vikings turned from raiding to conquering.  By the 900s, about half of Britain, northern France, and parts of southern Italy and Russia were settled by Vikings.  Why?  Perhaps there was population pressure in Scandinavia.  Perhaps it was the relative wealth and relative military weakness of Europe that was too tempting.

Whatever the case, more than a century of raids and settlements left European government and economy, for what it was, in greater disarray.  The norse invasions finally stopped around 1000, when the settled Vikings and the Scandinavian homelands were converted to Christianity, and effectively absorbed into Western civilization.  Peace seems to have been the main requirement for the emergence of a new, dynamic Europe of the "High Middle Ages" after 1000, which we will discuss after Spring break.