Peter Heather
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198205357
- eISBN:
- 9780191676581
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205357.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This book examines the collision of Goths and Romans in the fourth and fifth centuries. In these years Gothic tribes played a major role in the destruction of the western half of the Roman Empire, ...
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This book examines the collision of Goths and Romans in the fourth and fifth centuries. In these years Gothic tribes played a major role in the destruction of the western half of the Roman Empire, establishing successor states in southern France and Spain (the Visigoths) and in Italy (the Ostrogoths). Our understanding of the Goths in this ‘Migration Period’ has been based upon the Gothic historian Jordanes, whose mid-sixth-century Getica suggests that the Visigoths and Ostrogoths entered the Empire already established as coherent groups and simply conquered new territories. Using more contemporary sources, the author is able to show that, on the contrary, Visigoths and Ostrogoths were new and unprecedentedly large social groupings, and that many Gothic societies failed even to survive the upheavals of the Migration Period. This study explores the complicated interactions with Roman power, which both prompted the creation of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths around newly emergent dynasties and helped bring about the fall of the Roman Empire.Less
This book examines the collision of Goths and Romans in the fourth and fifth centuries. In these years Gothic tribes played a major role in the destruction of the western half of the Roman Empire, establishing successor states in southern France and Spain (the Visigoths) and in Italy (the Ostrogoths). Our understanding of the Goths in this ‘Migration Period’ has been based upon the Gothic historian Jordanes, whose mid-sixth-century Getica suggests that the Visigoths and Ostrogoths entered the Empire already established as coherent groups and simply conquered new territories. Using more contemporary sources, the author is able to show that, on the contrary, Visigoths and Ostrogoths were new and unprecedentedly large social groupings, and that many Gothic societies failed even to survive the upheavals of the Migration Period. This study explores the complicated interactions with Roman power, which both prompted the creation of the Visigoths and Ostrogoths around newly emergent dynasties and helped bring about the fall of the Roman Empire.
Peter Sarris
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199261260
- eISBN:
- 9780191730962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199261260.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter examines the role of kingship and military lordship in giving cohesion to post-Roman society, and then charts the history of the major Romano-Germanic kingdoms of the late fifth and ...
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This chapter examines the role of kingship and military lordship in giving cohesion to post-Roman society, and then charts the history of the major Romano-Germanic kingdoms of the late fifth and early sixth centuries: Vandal Africa, Ostrogothic Italy, and Merovingian (or Frankish) Gaul. In both the Vandal and Ostrogothic cases, relatively stable and sophisticated regimes were ultimately brought down by succession disputes within the ruling households and by the failure of rulers to live up to the martial expectations of their followers. This opened the way to Byzantine intervention. In Gaul, much greater dynastic cohesion was achieved, rooted in the military achievements of Clovis.Less
This chapter examines the role of kingship and military lordship in giving cohesion to post-Roman society, and then charts the history of the major Romano-Germanic kingdoms of the late fifth and early sixth centuries: Vandal Africa, Ostrogothic Italy, and Merovingian (or Frankish) Gaul. In both the Vandal and Ostrogothic cases, relatively stable and sophisticated regimes were ultimately brought down by succession disputes within the ruling households and by the failure of rulers to live up to the martial expectations of their followers. This opened the way to Byzantine intervention. In Gaul, much greater dynastic cohesion was achieved, rooted in the military achievements of Clovis.
Menno Fenger and Paul Henman
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748612390
- eISBN:
- 9780748651009
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748612390.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The existence of a rich and powerful nobility in Rome was nothing new – it went back to the earliest times of the republic and lasted throughout the imperial era. Generations succeeded one another, ...
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The existence of a rich and powerful nobility in Rome was nothing new – it went back to the earliest times of the republic and lasted throughout the imperial era. Generations succeeded one another, wealth and magistracies accumulated, simultaneously building the power and prestige of these great gentes (clans). These families, whose political expression was the Senate, embodied the values of their milieu. The most sacred order of the amplissimi, or most distinguished, was nothing other than the élite of mankind. Roman nobles saw in their midst the rapid growth of a process that had started long before: the rise of Christianity – which, if sometimes at odds with the mos maiorum, nevertheless failed to weaken the cohesion of this very powerful social group. Proof of this lies in the fact that they endured, without great mishap, through the periodic sacks of their city and, in the sixth century, the domination of the Ostrogoths.Less
The existence of a rich and powerful nobility in Rome was nothing new – it went back to the earliest times of the republic and lasted throughout the imperial era. Generations succeeded one another, wealth and magistracies accumulated, simultaneously building the power and prestige of these great gentes (clans). These families, whose political expression was the Senate, embodied the values of their milieu. The most sacred order of the amplissimi, or most distinguished, was nothing other than the élite of mankind. Roman nobles saw in their midst the rapid growth of a process that had started long before: the rise of Christianity – which, if sometimes at odds with the mos maiorum, nevertheless failed to weaken the cohesion of this very powerful social group. Proof of this lies in the fact that they endured, without great mishap, through the periodic sacks of their city and, in the sixth century, the domination of the Ostrogoths.
