HIST 214 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Foederati, Intentionality, Compurgation
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Role of Germanic tribes in fall of Empire, but more important, as third pillar of
Medieval Society (Rome, Church and Germanic)
Transition or catastrophe?
Catastrophic - inherently better because it was stable
§
○
Barbarians?
○
Mutually beneficial with Rome
○
-
From 5th C. BCE, along borders, well-known starting from 1st C. BCE
-
Sources: Julius Caesar, archeology, later laws and languages, Tacitus, Gregory of
Tours
-
Invasion of barbarians
Lends intentionality that it didn’t have
○
Migrations and movements into the Roman empire
○
-
Problem with Sources?
Subjective, biased, difficult to deal with
-
Written sources (narrative sources, letters)
-
Archaeology is a subjective source - decisions made to excavate and interpret
-
Legal codes helps to understand
-
Tacitus (Roman historian) describes the Germans as being very morally upright -
fierce warriors and having allegiance to their leaders, talking about the faults
with the Roman society itself
Uses the Germans as a foil for the Romans
○
-
Gregory of Tours is writing subjectively - writing about the society he knows and
people he interacts with
-
NOT barbarian invasions
Mutual benefits of early contacts with Rome
Integrations and foederati
○
Rome is expanding out
○
Trades and processed goods being exported and sold to Germanic peoples
○
Raw materials are being sold by Germanic tribes to Rome
○
Ideas are being circulated (cultural exchange)
○
Germanic tribes sell military and bodies
○
Rome is not able to support a large army financially
○
Allow Germanic tribes to live on the border to allow them to protect them
from others who try to come into Rome (tribes are not being Romanized)
Leads to the disintegration of Roman values
§
○
-
Slow absorption good and possible for empire but by 5th century flow increases
to mass migrations
False narrative there is a cohesive process of migration
○
Migraitng in and around the empire
○
Makes it seem like these are all the same people - that the tribes have the
same identity
○
-
Volkerwanderung ≠ invasion
-
Reasons
Overpopulation
Not enough food to eat (due to climate change, artifically
manufactured food problems, political conflicts, other groups
moving into the areas)
§
When there is a scarcity of resources between the different groups,
there will be military conflict
§
○
Seeking peace
Seeking to become part of the empire as they are looking for safety
§
○
Huns
Were pushed out of Asia
§
○
-
What is wrong with maps?
By simplifying to the point of saying different tribes were in specific areas, it
erases the diversity of the territory
-
Chronologically wrong, no point in time when everything on the map was true
-
Tries to freeze time and give an abstract representation of reality
-
Transition or catastrophe?
Accomodation vs. Conquest
Bring colonists
○
Northern parts of the empire that have farmers that use the land to grow
crops
○
Use violent force in order to carve out a place for them to survive
○
Militaristically antagonistic
○
-
What changes occur?
Politically (local, regional, national levels)
Provincialisation (roads, aquaducts) - no longer fiscal and
governmental resources which means that people do not move
around that much; decline in long distance travel which means
everything becomes localized (religion, trade, rulers)
Moving away from a more widespread communication
system
□
§
Sword/bible > Virgil (Roman elite had a shared education that was
based on Virgil - it was a symbol and pathway to keep power, as
well as a way to exclude people from power)
Political power is now based on the ability to have military
prowess which means that there is political legtimacy (people
of the curch are now studying the bible, not latin clasics
anymore)
□
§
○
Economically
Radical material simplicfication
Production and trade is localized □
The kinds of things that are being produced is less diverse □
Materials are less sophisticated and diverse □
§
Collapsed tax base - land occupation
Allowed for gladiator fights, etc. □
Paid for an empire to survive on a high level for thousands of
years
□
With the rise of the Germanic kingdoms there was no longer a
fiscal system to bring resources into the capital cities (paying
warriors in land which is a finite resource)
□
Constant process of rulers being ousted because there are no
more resources to buy the warriors off
□
§
○
Socially
Ruralization
Society is much less urban than before □
80% of the population was peasants but a society that defined
itself as being urban
□
Very little contact with itself (people living in small societies) □
§
○
Culturally
○
Religiously
○
-
The Meeting between Leo and the Great and Attila - 453
Shows that governmental structures no longer exist
-
Ethnogenesis (creations of an ethnicity)
Ethnicity as a category
Problematic due to the white guys who "created history"
○
And the sources that we have to examine
○
Romans saw themselves as having a character that was seen as
"biological"
○
Historians in the 19th century that are writing their national identities
they are applying biological race/etnicity to Germanic people, making
groups into something that is tangable and real (not how ethnicity
works‼)
Takes away individual agency and takes away complication
§
Chronologically dishonest (did not have these labels for ourselves)
§
○
Ethnicity is a form of identity which means that people are allowed to
have other identities and be who they are
○
People's identities depend on the situation that we are observing them
○
Using different identities to form different ones
○
-
Category vs. Process
-
Ethnicity as identity
-
Situational, nested and contigent
-
Ship of Theseus?
Replacing individual parts of an entire thing - at what point is it not that
original thing anymore? Same with the groups in Europe
○
Ignoring the instability of identity over time
○
-
Models of ethnic formation and maintenance
Group around royal family (Franks)
Identity is tied to a lineage rather than a single person
§
○
Grouped around charismatic leader, maintaining differences within a
group (Huns)
○
Loosely formed communities, more as events (Slavs)
Artifical constructs that have been created and forced onto people
§
None of these groups have been always together, they are created
and maintained through abstract ideas
§
○
-
Burials
People being buried with their posessions/jewels
Showing legitimacy
○
-
Huns went through the process of skull binding as it was seen to be
aesthetically pleasing
Buried just like native women
This shows they have an identity/ethnicity they were born with, but
then shows that their identity changed throughout their lives
§
Identity is tied to her gender
§
○
-
Germanic Society
Romans when they come into contact with Germanic groups they are not who
they used to be
Forced into being semi-nomadic societies
○
-
Agricultural/pastoral society in northern Europe
-
Kinship based societies
No government, society based on personal ties (lordship)
○
-
Single leaders to unite tribes temporary, "chieftans" rather than "kings"
Provide safety, resources, wealth to the warrior elites who bring with
them groups of followers
○
-
Little coalescence, groups under dux come through Roman influence
-
Society characterized by kindship and warrior loyalty
Kinship: circle of relatives to lend support, and carry out blood feud
(inherently violent)
○
Lordship: sworn loyalty to military leader, without obligating member of
kin group
○
Warrior leaders supported by others in return for protection and booty
○
Violence society because of circumstances, not nature
Attacking kinship groups to get resoures
§
○
-
War = social engineering at a time when Rome was falling under incompetents
-
Feuds and Wergeldn
Legal system based on compurgation and orgal
Man = money
§
Monetizes violent relationships in order to cut down on them
§
○
-
Arians
Missionized by Ulfias
○
They are considered to be heretics later on
○
More on physical nature of Christ and this is the type of Christianity that
was prominent in the Roman Empire when they Germanic tribes at first
came in contact with the Romans
○
Convert to this form of Christianity - when they come into contact with
the Romans, they are believed to be the wrong type of Christian as the
Romans believe in a different type of Christianity
Therefore there is religious tension
§
○
-
Legal system based on ordeal
Allow God to decide on who has done wrong in society
○
Your status helps to protect you
○
Different ways to decide guilt/innocence based on the ordeal - risking life
○
-
Visigoths
Invited in, cheated, Adrianople 378
Arian leaders tried to exploit the Visigoths (tried to starve them to get
more taxes)
○
Rebelled and the Visigoths won the battle of Adrianople
○
-
Germanization of army (Stilicho vs. Alaric 402 - both are generals who are
Visigoths)
Roman military elites are most likely Germanic
○
-
Alaric and siege of Rome 410
City is attacked by the Visigoths
○
This is a symbollically charged moment
○
-
Pressure from Franks on Visigoths in Southern Gaul
-
Visigoths migrate to Spain
Constant disruption of rule (Gothic disease)
○
Catholization under Recared, then strong church support for monarchy
(were originally arians which meant there was tension with the curch at
first) - catholic church allows for him to demonstrate his legitimacy
Anointing of the rulers (kings are anointed by the church;
symbollically showing the approval of God)
§
Anti-semitism (similar to laws of the Theodosian code in order to
erradicate anything that wasn't cathollic; artifically accelerating the
catholisization of Spain)
§
○
Very unstable society as there is a war to maintain control of the kingdom
○
-
Huns
Disruptive force pushing other groups around
-
They are the least cohesive group
-
Early raids on Eastern Empire rebuffed
-
From Hungarian base, raids into Gaul by 450
They are extracting resources
○
-
Battle of Chalons 452 they are defeated
Aetius last Romn magister militum
Stabbed to death by Valentian III
§
○
-
Leo I
-
Atilla and his young bride 453
-
Ostrogoths
Theodoric (r. 489-526)
-
One of the last groups to come into the Roman empire
-
Marked the transition from the Empire into something different
-
Highly romanized
-
Invasion of Italy to oust "usurper" Odovacer 489
-
Split society
Roman administration survived, and applied to Romans
○
Goths as military, kept seperate from Italian population who support
them, Aria but tolerant
○
-
Preservation and even renaissance of Roman culture
-
Diplomacy through marriange, Germanic stability in south with Visigoths against
Franks through marriage
-
Byzantines (535, 552) and Lombards (586) wipe out ?
-
Franks
Last group to come into northern Europe
-
Communication between Franks and northern European roots
-
Clovis
-
Kingdom of Sygarius 486
-
Were not arians, did not convert to Christianity
-
Franks most Germanic, never migrated, expanded
-
Also never Christian, so directly Catholic, Converts like Constantine 495
Note that in 495, no major leader was Catholic (assures survival of
catholicism) although nominal, allows for missionizing and church
strucutre
○
South of Gaul was Catholic with Arian Visigoth rulers
○
-
Beginning of kinship as family rule (Merovingians) no longer merit
-
Kingdom is divided as property (splits property among his sons)
-
Collapse of Roman administrative apparatus
Consul Clovis
○
Franks inexperienced administrators
○
-
Lecture 4 -Barbarians
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
2:03 PM
Role of Germanic tribes in fall of Empire, but more important, as third pillar of
Medieval Society (Rome, Church and Germanic)
Transition or catastrophe?
Catastrophic - inherently better because it was stable
§
○
Barbarians?
○
Mutually beneficial with Rome
○
-
From 5th C. BCE, along borders, well-known starting from 1st C. BCE
-
Sources: Julius Caesar, archeology, later laws and languages, Tacitus, Gregory of
Tours
-
Invasion of barbarians
Lends intentionality that it didn’t have
○
Migrations and movements into the Roman empire
○
-
Problem with Sources?
Subjective, biased, difficult to deal with
-
Written sources (narrative sources, letters)
-
Archaeology is a subjective source - decisions made to excavate and interpret
-
Legal codes helps to understand
-
Tacitus (Roman historian) describes the Germans as being very morally upright -
fierce warriors and having allegiance to their leaders, talking about the faults
with the Roman society itself
Uses the Germans as a foil for the Romans
○
-
Gregory of Tours is writing subjectively - writing about the society he knows and
people he interacts with
-
NOT barbarian invasions
Mutual benefits of early contacts with Rome
Integrations and foederati
○
Rome is expanding out
○
Trades and processed goods being exported and sold to Germanic peoples
○
Raw materials are being sold by Germanic tribes to Rome
○
Ideas are being circulated (cultural exchange)
○
Germanic tribes sell military and bodies
○
Rome is not able to support a large army financially
○
Allow Germanic tribes to live on the border to allow them to protect them
from others who try to come into Rome (tribes are not being Romanized)
Leads to the disintegration of Roman values
§
○
-
Slow absorption good and possible for empire but by 5th century flow increases
to mass migrations
False narrative there is a cohesive process of migration
○
Migraitng in and around the empire
○
Makes it seem like these are all the same people - that the tribes have the
same identity
○
-
Volkerwanderung ≠ invasion
-
Reasons
Overpopulation
Not enough food to eat (due to climate change, artifically
manufactured food problems, political conflicts, other groups
moving into the areas)
§
When there is a scarcity of resources between the different groups,
there will be military conflict
§
○
Seeking peace
Seeking to become part of the empire as they are looking for safety
§
○
Huns
Were pushed out of Asia
§
○
-
What is wrong with maps?
By simplifying to the point of saying different tribes were in specific areas, it
erases the diversity of the territory
-
Chronologically wrong, no point in time when everything on the map was true
-
Tries to freeze time and give an abstract representation of reality
-
Transition or catastrophe?
Accomodation vs. Conquest
Bring colonists
○
Northern parts of the empire that have farmers that use the land to grow
crops
○
Use violent force in order to carve out a place for them to survive
○
Militaristically antagonistic
○
-
What changes occur?
Politically (local, regional, national levels)
Provincialisation (roads, aquaducts) - no longer fiscal and
governmental resources which means that people do not move
around that much; decline in long distance travel which means
everything becomes localized (religion, trade, rulers)
Moving away from a more widespread communication
system
□
§
Sword/bible > Virgil (Roman elite had a shared education that was
based on Virgil - it was a symbol and pathway to keep power, as
well as a way to exclude people from power)
Political power is now based on the ability to have military
prowess which means that there is political legtimacy (people
of the curch are now studying the bible, not latin clasics
anymore)
□
§
○
Economically
Radical material simplicfication
Production and trade is localized □
The kinds of things that are being produced is less diverse □
Materials are less sophisticated and diverse □
§
Collapsed tax base - land occupation
Allowed for gladiator fights, etc. □
Paid for an empire to survive on a high level for thousands of
years
□
With the rise of the Germanic kingdoms there was no longer a
fiscal system to bring resources into the capital cities (paying
warriors in land which is a finite resource)
□
Constant process of rulers being ousted because there are no
more resources to buy the warriors off
□
§
○
Socially
Ruralization
Society is much less urban than before □
80% of the population was peasants but a society that defined
itself as being urban
□
Very little contact with itself (people living in small societies) □
§
○
Culturally
○
Religiously
○
-
The Meeting between Leo and the Great and Attila - 453
Shows that governmental structures no longer exist
-
Ethnogenesis (creations of an ethnicity)
Ethnicity as a category
Problematic due to the white guys who "created history"
○
And the sources that we have to examine
○
Romans saw themselves as having a character that was seen as
"biological"
○
Historians in the 19th century that are writing their national identities
they are applying biological race/etnicity to Germanic people, making
groups into something that is tangable and real (not how ethnicity
works‼)
Takes away individual agency and takes away complication
§
Chronologically dishonest (did not have these labels for ourselves)
§
○
Ethnicity is a form of identity which means that people are allowed to
have other identities and be who they are
○
People's identities depend on the situation that we are observing them
○
Using different identities to form different ones
○
-
Category vs. Process
-
Ethnicity as identity
-
Situational, nested and contigent
-
Ship of Theseus?
Replacing individual parts of an entire thing - at what point is it not that
original thing anymore? Same with the groups in Europe
○
Ignoring the instability of identity over time
○
-
Models of ethnic formation and maintenance
Group around royal family (Franks)
Identity is tied to a lineage rather than a single person
§
○
Grouped around charismatic leader, maintaining differences within a
group (Huns)
○
Loosely formed communities, more as events (Slavs)
Artifical constructs that have been created and forced onto people
§
None of these groups have been always together, they are created
and maintained through abstract ideas
§
○
-
Burials
People being buried with their posessions/jewels
Showing legitimacy
○
-
Huns went through the process of skull binding as it was seen to be
aesthetically pleasing
Buried just like native women
This shows they have an identity/ethnicity they were born with, but
then shows that their identity changed throughout their lives
§
Identity is tied to her gender
§
○
-
Germanic Society
Romans when they come into contact with Germanic groups they are not who
they used to be
Forced into being semi-nomadic societies
○
-
Agricultural/pastoral society in northern Europe
-
Kinship based societies
No government, society based on personal ties (lordship)
○
-
Single leaders to unite tribes temporary, "chieftans" rather than "kings"
Provide safety, resources, wealth to the warrior elites who bring with
them groups of followers
○
-
Little coalescence, groups under dux come through Roman influence
-
Society characterized by kindship and warrior loyalty
Kinship: circle of relatives to lend support, and carry out blood feud
(inherently violent)
○
Lordship: sworn loyalty to military leader, without obligating member of
kin group
○
Warrior leaders supported by others in return for protection and booty
○
Violence society because of circumstances, not nature
Attacking kinship groups to get resoures
§
○
-
War = social engineering at a time when Rome was falling under incompetents
-
Feuds and Wergeldn
Legal system based on compurgation and orgal
Man = money
§
Monetizes violent relationships in order to cut down on them
§
○
-
Arians
Missionized by Ulfias
○
They are considered to be heretics later on
○
More on physical nature of Christ and this is the type of Christianity that
was prominent in the Roman Empire when they Germanic tribes at first
came in contact with the Romans
○
Convert to this form of Christianity - when they come into contact with
the Romans, they are believed to be the wrong type of Christian as the
Romans believe in a different type of Christianity
Therefore there is religious tension
§
○
-
Legal system based on ordeal
Allow God to decide on who has done wrong in society
○
Your status helps to protect you
○
Different ways to decide guilt/innocence based on the ordeal - risking life
○
-
Visigoths
Invited in, cheated, Adrianople 378
Arian leaders tried to exploit the Visigoths (tried to starve them to get
more taxes)
○
Rebelled and the Visigoths won the battle of Adrianople
○
-
Germanization of army (Stilicho vs. Alaric 402 - both are generals who are
Visigoths)
Roman military elites are most likely Germanic
○
-
Alaric and siege of Rome 410
City is attacked by the Visigoths
○
This is a symbollically charged moment
○
-
Pressure from Franks on Visigoths in Southern Gaul
-
Visigoths migrate to Spain
Constant disruption of rule (Gothic disease)
○
Catholization under Recared, then strong church support for monarchy
(were originally arians which meant there was tension with the curch at
first) - catholic church allows for him to demonstrate his legitimacy
Anointing of the rulers (kings are anointed by the church;
symbollically showing the approval of God)
§
Anti-semitism (similar to laws of the Theodosian code in order to
erradicate anything that wasn't cathollic; artifically accelerating the
catholisization of Spain)
§
○
Very unstable society as there is a war to maintain control of the kingdom
○
-
Huns
Disruptive force pushing other groups around
-
They are the least cohesive group
-
Early raids on Eastern Empire rebuffed
-
From Hungarian base, raids into Gaul by 450
They are extracting resources
○
-
Battle of Chalons 452 they are defeated
Aetius last Romn magister militum
Stabbed to death by Valentian III
§
○
-
Leo I
-
Atilla and his young bride 453
-
Ostrogoths
Theodoric (r. 489-526)
-
One of the last groups to come into the Roman empire
-
Marked the transition from the Empire into something different
-
Highly romanized
-
Invasion of Italy to oust "usurper" Odovacer 489
-
Split society
Roman administration survived, and applied to Romans
○
Goths as military, kept seperate from Italian population who support
them, Aria but tolerant
○
-
Preservation and even renaissance of Roman culture
-
Diplomacy through marriange, Germanic stability in south with Visigoths against
Franks through marriage
-
Byzantines (535, 552) and Lombards (586) wipe out ?
-
Franks
Last group to come into northern Europe
-
Communication between Franks and northern European roots
-
Clovis
-
Kingdom of Sygarius 486
-
Were not arians, did not convert to Christianity
-
Franks most Germanic, never migrated, expanded
-
Also never Christian, so directly Catholic, Converts like Constantine 495
Note that in 495, no major leader was Catholic (assures survival of
catholicism) although nominal, allows for missionizing and church
strucutre
○
South of Gaul was Catholic with Arian Visigoth rulers
○
-
Beginning of kinship as family rule (Merovingians) no longer merit
-
Kingdom is divided as property (splits property among his sons)
-
Collapse of Roman administrative apparatus
Consul Clovis
○
Franks inexperienced administrators
○
-
Lecture 4 -Barbarians
Tuesday, September 19, 2017 2:03 PM
Role of Germanic tribes in fall of Empire, but more important, as third pillar of
Medieval Society (Rome, Church and Germanic)
Transition or catastrophe?
Catastrophic - inherently better because it was stable
§
○
Barbarians?
○
Mutually beneficial with Rome
○
-
From 5th C. BCE, along borders, well-known starting from 1st C. BCE
-
Sources: Julius Caesar, archeology, later laws and languages, Tacitus, Gregory of
Tours
-
Invasion of barbarians
Lends intentionality that it didn’t have
○
Migrations and movements into the Roman empire
○
-
Problem with Sources?
Subjective, biased, difficult to deal with
-
Written sources (narrative sources, letters)
-
Archaeology is a subjective source - decisions made to excavate and interpret
-
Legal codes helps to understand
-
Tacitus (Roman historian) describes the Germans as being very morally upright -
fierce warriors and having allegiance to their leaders, talking about the faults
with the Roman society itself
Uses the Germans as a foil for the Romans
○
-
Gregory of Tours is writing subjectively - writing about the society he knows and
people he interacts with
-
NOT barbarian invasions
Mutual benefits of early contacts with Rome
Integrations and foederati
○
Rome is expanding out
○
Trades and processed goods being exported and sold to Germanic peoples
○
Raw materials are being sold by Germanic tribes to Rome
○
Ideas are being circulated (cultural exchange)
○
Germanic tribes sell military and bodies
○
Rome is not able to support a large army financially
○
Allow Germanic tribes to live on the border to allow them to protect them
from others who try to come into Rome (tribes are not being Romanized)
Leads to the disintegration of Roman values
§
○
-
Slow absorption good and possible for empire but by 5th century flow increases
to mass migrations
False narrative there is a cohesive process of migration
○
Migraitng in and around the empire
○
Makes it seem like these are all the same people - that the tribes have the
same identity
○
-
Volkerwanderung ≠ invasion
-
Reasons
Overpopulation
Not enough food to eat (due to climate change, artifically
manufactured food problems, political conflicts, other groups
moving into the areas)
§
When there is a scarcity of resources between the different groups,
there will be military conflict
§
○
Seeking peace
Seeking to become part of the empire as they are looking for safety
§
○
Huns
Were pushed out of Asia
§
○
-
What is wrong with maps?
By simplifying to the point of saying different tribes were in specific areas, it
erases the diversity of the territory
-
Chronologically wrong, no point in time when everything on the map was true
-
Tries to freeze time and give an abstract representation of reality
-
Transition or catastrophe?
Accomodation vs. Conquest
Bring colonists
○
Northern parts of the empire that have farmers that use the land to grow
crops
○
Use violent force in order to carve out a place for them to survive
○
Militaristically antagonistic
○
-
What changes occur?
Politically (local, regional, national levels)
Provincialisation (roads, aquaducts) - no longer fiscal and
governmental resources which means that people do not move
around that much; decline in long distance travel which means
everything becomes localized (religion, trade, rulers)
Moving away from a more widespread communication
system
□
§
Sword/bible > Virgil (Roman elite had a shared education that was
based on Virgil - it was a symbol and pathway to keep power, as
well as a way to exclude people from power)
Political power is now based on the ability to have military
prowess which means that there is political legtimacy (people
of the curch are now studying the bible, not latin clasics
anymore)
□
§
○
Economically
Radical material simplicfication
Production and trade is localized
□
The kinds of things that are being produced is less diverse
□
Materials are less sophisticated and diverse
□
§
Collapsed tax base - land occupation
Allowed for gladiator fights, etc.
□
Paid for an empire to survive on a high level for thousands of
years
□
With the rise of the Germanic kingdoms there was no longer a
fiscal system to bring resources into the capital cities (paying
warriors in land which is a finite resource)
□
Constant process of rulers being ousted because there are no
more resources to buy the warriors off
□
§
○
Socially
Ruralization
Society is much less urban than before
□
80% of the population was peasants but a society that defined
itself as being urban
□
Very little contact with itself (people living in small societies)
□
§
○
Culturally
○
Religiously
○
-
The Meeting between Leo and the Great and Attila - 453
Shows that governmental structures no longer exist
-
Ethnogenesis (creations of an ethnicity)
Ethnicity as a category
Problematic due to the white guys who "created history"
○
And the sources that we have to examine
○
Romans saw themselves as having a character that was seen as
"biological"
○
Historians in the 19th century that are writing their national identities
they are applying biological race/etnicity to Germanic people, making
groups into something that is tangable and real (not how ethnicity
works‼)
Takes away individual agency and takes away complication
§
Chronologically dishonest (did not have these labels for ourselves)
§
○
Ethnicity is a form of identity which means that people are allowed to
have other identities and be who they are
○
People's identities depend on the situation that we are observing them
○
Using different identities to form different ones
○
-
Category vs. Process
-
Ethnicity as identity
-
Situational, nested and contigent
-
Ship of Theseus?
Replacing individual parts of an entire thing - at what point is it not that
original thing anymore? Same with the groups in Europe
○
Ignoring the instability of identity over time
○
-
Models of ethnic formation and maintenance
Group around royal family (Franks)
Identity is tied to a lineage rather than a single person
§
○
Grouped around charismatic leader, maintaining differences within a
group (Huns)
○
Loosely formed communities, more as events (Slavs)
Artifical constructs that have been created and forced onto people
§
None of these groups have been always together, they are created
and maintained through abstract ideas
§
○
-
Burials
People being buried with their posessions/jewels
Showing legitimacy
○
-
Huns went through the process of skull binding as it was seen to be
aesthetically pleasing
Buried just like native women
This shows they have an identity/ethnicity they were born with, but
then shows that their identity changed throughout their lives
§
Identity is tied to her gender
§
○
-
Germanic Society
Romans when they come into contact with Germanic groups they are not who
they used to be
Forced into being semi-nomadic societies
○
-
Agricultural/pastoral society in northern Europe
-
Kinship based societies
No government, society based on personal ties (lordship)
○
-
Single leaders to unite tribes temporary, "chieftans" rather than "kings"
Provide safety, resources, wealth to the warrior elites who bring with
them groups of followers
○
-
Little coalescence, groups under dux come through Roman influence
-
Society characterized by kindship and warrior loyalty
Kinship: circle of relatives to lend support, and carry out blood feud
(inherently violent)
○
Lordship: sworn loyalty to military leader, without obligating member of
kin group
○
Warrior leaders supported by others in return for protection and booty
○
Violence society because of circumstances, not nature
Attacking kinship groups to get resoures
§
○
-
War = social engineering at a time when Rome was falling under incompetents
-
Feuds and Wergeldn
Legal system based on compurgation and orgal
Man = money
§
Monetizes violent relationships in order to cut down on them
§
○
-
Arians
Missionized by Ulfias
○
They are considered to be heretics later on
○
More on physical nature of Christ and this is the type of Christianity that
was prominent in the Roman Empire when they Germanic tribes at first
came in contact with the Romans
○
Convert to this form of Christianity - when they come into contact with
the Romans, they are believed to be the wrong type of Christian as the
Romans believe in a different type of Christianity
Therefore there is religious tension
§
○
-
Legal system based on ordeal
Allow God to decide on who has done wrong in society
○
Your status helps to protect you
○
Different ways to decide guilt/innocence based on the ordeal - risking life
○
-
Visigoths
Invited in, cheated, Adrianople 378
Arian leaders tried to exploit the Visigoths (tried to starve them to get
more taxes)
○
Rebelled and the Visigoths won the battle of Adrianople
○
-
Germanization of army (Stilicho vs. Alaric 402 - both are generals who are
Visigoths)
Roman military elites are most likely Germanic
○
-
Alaric and siege of Rome 410
City is attacked by the Visigoths
○
This is a symbollically charged moment
○
-
Pressure from Franks on Visigoths in Southern Gaul
-
Visigoths migrate to Spain
Constant disruption of rule (Gothic disease)
○
Catholization under Recared, then strong church support for monarchy
(were originally arians which meant there was tension with the curch at
first) - catholic church allows for him to demonstrate his legitimacy
Anointing of the rulers (kings are anointed by the church;
symbollically showing the approval of God)
§
Anti-semitism (similar to laws of the Theodosian code in order to
erradicate anything that wasn't cathollic; artifically accelerating the
catholisization of Spain)
§
○
Very unstable society as there is a war to maintain control of the kingdom
○
-
Huns
Disruptive force pushing other groups around
-
They are the least cohesive group
-
Early raids on Eastern Empire rebuffed
-
From Hungarian base, raids into Gaul by 450
They are extracting resources
○
-
Battle of Chalons 452 they are defeated
Aetius last Romn magister militum
Stabbed to death by Valentian III
§
○
-
Leo I
-
Atilla and his young bride 453
-
Ostrogoths
Theodoric (r. 489-526)
-
One of the last groups to come into the Roman empire
-
Marked the transition from the Empire into something different
-
Highly romanized
-
Invasion of Italy to oust "usurper" Odovacer 489
-
Split society
Roman administration survived, and applied to Romans
○
Goths as military, kept seperate from Italian population who support
them, Aria but tolerant
○
-
Preservation and even renaissance of Roman culture
-
Diplomacy through marriange, Germanic stability in south with Visigoths against
Franks through marriage
-
Byzantines (535, 552) and Lombards (586) wipe out ?
-
Franks
Last group to come into northern Europe
-
Communication between Franks and northern European roots
-
Clovis
-
Kingdom of Sygarius 486
-
Were not arians, did not convert to Christianity
-
Franks most Germanic, never migrated, expanded
-
Also never Christian, so directly Catholic, Converts like Constantine 495
Note that in 495, no major leader was Catholic (assures survival of
catholicism) although nominal, allows for missionizing and church
strucutre
○
South of Gaul was Catholic with Arian Visigoth rulers
○
-
Beginning of kinship as family rule (Merovingians) no longer merit
-
Kingdom is divided as property (splits property among his sons)
-
Collapse of Roman administrative apparatus
Consul Clovis
○
Franks inexperienced administrators
○
-
Lecture 4 -Barbarians
Tuesday, September 19, 2017 2:03 PM
Document Summary
Role of germanic tribes in fall of empire, but more important, as third pillar of. Catastrophic - inherently better because it was stable. From 5th c. bce, along borders, well-known starting from 1st c. bce. Sources: julius caesar, archeology, later laws and languages, tacitus, gregory of. Archaeology is a subjective source - decisions made to excavate and interpret. Tacitus (roman historian) describes the germans as being very morally upright - fierce warriors and having allegiance to their leaders, talking about the faults with the roman society itself. Uses the germans as a foil for the romans. Gregory of tours is writing subjectively - writing about the society he knows and people he interacts with. Trades and processed goods being exported and sold to germanic peoples. Raw materials are being sold by germanic tribes to rome. Rome is not able to support a large army financially.
