The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000

by Chris Wickham

  p. 68. Clermont: Gregory of Tours, Life of the Fathers, trans. E. James (Liverpool, 1985), 4.2; siege of Constantinople: see below, Chapter 11.

  p. 68. Pilgrimages: see e.g. Van Dam, Saints and their Miracles, pp. 116-49.

  p. 68. Games, factions: A. Cameron, Circus Factions (Oxford, 1976), pp. 225-96.

  p. 69. Edessa: The Chronicle of Pseudo-Joshua the Stylite, trans. F. R. Trombley and J. W. Watt (Liverpool, 2000), c. 31.

  p. 69. Sidonius: Letters, 2.13.4 (quote), 1.11 (Majorian).

  p. 69. Persians: Ammianus, Res Gestae, 23.6.80.

  p. 69. Petitions: J. Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 82-4, 184-7.

  p. 69. Basiliscus: Life of Daniel the Stylite, cc. 70-84.

  p. 69. Attila: Priskos, fragment 11.2, ed. and trans. in R. C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 2 (Liverpool, 1983), pp. 247-9, 257.

  p. 70. Housing: S. Ellis, Roman Housing (London, 2000), esp. pp. 166-83; B. Polci, in L. Lavan and W. Bowden (eds.), Theory and Practice in Late Antique Archaeology (Leiden, 2003), pp. 79-89; K. Cooper, ‘Closely Watched Households’, Past and Present, 197 (2007), pp. 3-33.

  p. 70. Augustine: Confessions, 9.9; Letters, 262 (to Ecdicia); see esp. B. Shaw, ‘The Family in Late Antiquity’, Past and Present, 115 (1987), pp. 3-51. See also G. Nathan, The Family in Late Antiquity (London, 2000). For eastern attitudes to family violence, see L. Dossey, ‘Wife-beating in Late Antiquity’, Past and Present, 199 (2008), pp.3-40.

  p. 70. Egyptian divorce and marriage papyri: J. Beaucamp, Le Statut de la femme a‘ Byzance (4e-7e siècle), 2 vols. (Paris, 1990-92), vol. 2, pp. 139-58, 127-9.

  p. 71. Domestic slaves: Augustine, Confessions, 9.9; Querolus, ed. and trans. C. Jacquemard-le Saos (Paris, 1994), c. 67.

  p. 71. Augustine’s dislike for his father: Confessions, 2.3, 5.8.

  p. 71. Paulina: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 6.1 (Berlin, 1876), n. 1779, with partial trans. and comment in K. Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), pp. 97-103.

  p. 71. Women and law: Arjava, Women and Law; Beaucamp, Le Statut, vol. 1.

  p. 71. Monica: Augustine, Confessions, 3.4.

  p. 71. Patrikia: Greek Papyri in the British Museum, ed. F. G. Kenyon and H. I. Bell, 5 vols. (London, 1893-1917), vol. 5, n. 1660.

  p. 71. Hypatia: M. Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (Cambridge, Mass., 1995).

  p. 72. Economic activities in Egypt: Beaucamp, Le Statut, vol. 2, pp. 227-47; R. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993), pp. 92-9, 130-33.

  p. 72. Actresses: Beaucamp, Le Statut, vol. 1, pp. 206-8; V. Neri, I marginali nell’Occidente tardoantico (Bari, 1998), pp. 233-50. Theodora: our problem here is that our sole source for her career as an actress is Prokopios, Secret History, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing (Cambridge, Mass., 1935), c. 9, which is a free-standing rhetorical denunciation: see L. Brubaker, ‘Sex, Lies and Textuality’, in eadem and J. M. H. Smith (eds.), Gender in the Early Medieval World (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 83-101. It would be unsafe to assume that it even had a grain of truth.

  p. 72. Female ascesis: see E. A. Clark, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith (Lewiston, NY, 1986), esp. pp. 175-208.

  p. 73. Contrast with early medieval West: see J. M. H. Smith, ‘Did Women have a Transformation of the Roman World?’, Gender and History, 12.3 (2000), pp. 22-41.

  p. 73. Female weakness: see e.g. Clark, Women, pp. 56-62, 119-26.

  p. 73. Decorum and anger: Brown, Power and Persuasion, pp. 35-61.

  p. 73. Faustus: see R. Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul (Austin, Tex., 1993), pp. 50-51.

  p. 73. Valentinian: Ammianus, Res Gestae, 30.8; Sidonius: Letters, 1.11, esp. 11.12.

  Chapter 4

  The fullest overall narrative of this period is still E. Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire, 2 vols. (Paris, 1949-59); up-to-date (and very different) analytical narratives for the West are now P. Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 2005), and G. Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376-568 (Cambridge, 2007), which pays attention to material culture. CAH, vol. 14, M. Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge 2005), and A. Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity AD 365-600 (London, 1993), are state-of-the-art introductions, as is H. Wolfram, The Roman Empire and its Germanic Peoples (Berkeley, 1997). For the integration of the ‘barbarians’ into the Roman world, the Transformation of the Roman World series, published by Brill, is now an essential starting point, including W. Pohl (ed.), Kingdoms of the Empire (Leiden, 1997), and H.-W. Goetz et al. (eds.), Regna and Gentes (Leiden, 2003). B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford, 2005) is a powerful counterblast against excessive continuitism. Scholars disagree, often fiercely, about the issues discussed in this chapter, and are likely to go on doing so for some time.

  p. 76. Huneric: Victor of Vita, History of the Vandal Persecution, trans. J. Moorhead (Liverpool, 1992), 2.38-40, 3.2-14 (quotes from 3.3.3, 7); for 411, Actes de la Conférence de Carthage en 411, ed. S. Lancel, 3 vols. (Paris, 1972-5), and CTh, 16.5.52, for 412, Huneric’s model.

  p. 77. Vandals: see in general C. Courtois, Les Vandales et l’Afrique (Paris, 1955), and the wide-ranging conference published as L’Antiquité tardive, vols. 10 and 11 (2002-3); Possidius, Life of Augustine, trans. R. J. Deferrari, in Early Christian Biographies (Washington, 1952), pp. 73-131, cc. 28-30; Prokopios, Wars, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing (Cambridge, Mass., 1914-28), 4.6.5-9. For Africa in the period, see A. H. Merrills (ed.), Vandals, Romans and Berbers (Aldershot, 2004).

  p. 78. Population of Rome: J. Durliat, De la ville antique a‘ la ville byzantine (Rome, 1990), pp. 92-123.

  p. 79. Marcellinus: B. Croke, ‘A.D. 476: The Manufacture of a Turning Point’, Chiron, 13 (1983), pp. 81-119.

  p. 79. 400-425 in the West: see J. R. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court AD 364-425 (Oxford, 1975); H. Wolfram, History of the Goths (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 139-75; P. J. Heather, Goths and Romans 332-489 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 193-224.

  p. 81. Gainas, Eudoxia: see J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops (Oxford, 1990). Eudoxia, Pulcheria: K. G. Holum, Theodosian Empresses (Berkeley, 1982); L. James, Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium (Leicester, 2001), pp. 59-82. For Theodosius II’s reign as a whole, see F. Millar, A Greek Roman Empire (Berkeley, 2006).

  p. 82. Suevi, etc.: for fifth-century Spain, J. Arce, Bárbaros y romanos en Hispania, 400-507 A.D. (Madrid, 2005), is basic.

  p. 82. Bagaudae: the best overview of a contested subject is J. C. Sánchez León, Los Bagaudae (Jaén, 1996).

  p. 82. Orosius: Seven Books of History against the Pagans, trans. R. J. Deferrari (Washington, 1964), 7.41; Augustine: see R. A. Markus, Saeculum (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 45-71, 147-53.

  p. 83. Theodosian Code: see J. Matthews, in J. Harries and I. Wood (eds.), The Theodosian Code (London, 1993), pp. 19-44.

  p. 83. Aetius: J. M. O’Flynn, Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire (Edmonton, 1983), pp. 74-103; more critical is J. R. Moss, in Historia, 22 (1973), pp. 711-31.

  p. 83. Western legislation in the 440s: see esp. Novels of Valentinian, n. 15, in CTh, pp. 529-30.

  p. 84. Salvian: On the Governance of God, trans. J. F. O’Sullivan, in The Writings of Salvian, the Presbyter (Washington, 1947), pp. 25-232; cf. Priskos, fragment 11.2, in Blockley, pp. 267-73; compare also Orosius, History, 7.41.7.

  p. 84. Huns: basic on them (and on fifth-century politics in general) is P. Heather, ‘The Huns and the End of the Roman Empire in Western Europe’, English Historical Review, 110 (1995), pp. 4-41.

  p. 85. Avitus and Theoderic: Sidonius Apollinaris, Poems and Letters, ed. and trans. W. B. Anderson (Cambridge, Mass., 1962-5), poem 7, lines 392-602.

  p. 85. For 456-75, see e.g. P. MacGeorge, Late Roman Warlords (Oxford, 2002).

  p. 86. Odovacer as king: J.-O. Tjäder, Die nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri Italiens aus der Zeit 445-700 (Lund, 1955-82), nn. 10-11 (for
489).

  p. 86. 476: talked down by many historians, of which the classic is A. Momigliano, ‘La caduta senza rumore di un impero nel 476 D.C.’, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 3rd ser., 3.2 (1973), pp. 397-418.

  p. 86. Euric: Wolfram, History of the Goths, pp. 181-222.

  p. 86. Auvergne: J. Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome (Oxford, 1994), pp. 222-38; quote: Sidonius, Letters, 8.2.2.

  p. 87. Changes in Gaul: see J. F. Drinkwater and H. Elton (eds.), Fifth-century Gaul (Cambridge, 1992); MacGeorge, Warlords, pp. 71-164; E. James, The Franks (Oxford, 1988), pp. 58-91.

  p. 87. Northern Gaul: P. Van Ossel and P. Ouzoulias, in Journal of Roman Archaeology, 13 (2000), pp. 133-60; Sidonius, Letters, 4.17; Vita Genovefae, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, SRM, vol. 3 (Hanover, 1896), pp. 215-38, cc. 35-8.

  p. 87. Noricum: Eugippius, Life of Severinus, trans. L. Bieler (Washington, 1965).

  p. 89. Zeno and Anastasius: A. D. Lee, in CAH, vol. 14, pp. 49-62; for the Theoderics, Heather, Goths and Romans, pp. 240-308.

  p. 90. Theoderic after 489: J. Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy (Oxford, 1992); P. Heather, in EME, 4 (1995), pp. 145-73; for the 500 visit, see the Anonymus Valesianus, ed. and trans. in Ammianus, Res Gestae, vol. 3, pp. 548-57; Cassiodorus, Variae, are partially trans. S. J. B. Barnish (Liverpool, 1992), and summarized as a whole in T. Hodgkin, The Letters of Cassiodorus (London, 1886).

  p. 90. Orosius: History, 7.43.2-8.

  p. 91. Sidonius and his contemporaries: J. Harries, in Drinkwater and Elton, Fifth-century Gaul, pp. 298-308; PLRE, vol. 2, pp. 157-8, 995-6, 1162-3, 1168; R. Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul (Austin, Tex., 1993).

  p. 91. Hydatius: The Chronicle of Hydatius and the Consularia Constantinopolitana, ed. and trans. R. W. Burgess (Oxford, 1993), pp. 70-122; in Victor of Vita, History of the Vandal Persecution, 1.37 and 3.62 are the only references to Romans.

  p. 91. Jerome: J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome (London, 1975).

  p. 92. Justinian: perhaps the best, and certainly the crispest, of the many overviews is A. Cameron, in CAH, vol. 14, pp. 65-85; for the change in atmosphere of the period, eadem, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (Berkeley, 1991), pp. 190-221. For the world of Justinian (though not too much on the emperor himself), see Maas, Age of Justinian. p. 93. Prokopios: On Buildings, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing (Cambridge, Mass., 1940). For redatings, see e.g. G. Brands, Resafa VI (Mainz, 2002), pp. 224-35.

  p. 94. Secret History: see A. Cameron, Procopius and the Sixth Century (Berkeley, 1985), pp. 49-83; L. Brubaker, ‘Sex, Lies and Textuality’, in eadem and J. M. H. Smith (eds.), Gender in the Early Medieval World (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 83-101.

  p. 94. Maurice: M. Whitby, The Emperor Maurice and his Historian (Oxford, 1988), esp. pp. 3-27; M. Whittow, The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600-1025 (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 38-68, is effectively upbeat.

  p. 95. ‘Roman civilization . . .’: A. Piganiol, L’Empire chrétien (325-395) (Paris, 1947), p. 422.

  p. 96. Basiliscus: S. Krautschick, ‘Zwei Aspekte des Jahres 476’, Historia, 35 (1986), pp. 344-71, at pp. 344-55; the link with Odovacer, which is a major reinterpretation of the period, hangs however on the placing of a single comma and an ‘and’ in a text, and it is not clear that this is better than the traditional reading (in R. C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 2 (Liverpool, 1983), pp. 372-3).

  p. 96. Balkan melting pot: P. Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489-554 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 277-91.

  p. 96. Intermarriage: A. Demandt, in E. K. Chrysos and A. Schwarcz (eds.), Das Reich und die Barbaren (Vienna, 1985), pp. 75-86.

  p. 97. Empresses: see James, Empresses and Power.

  p. 97. Anicia Juliana: L. Brubaker, ‘Memories of Helena’, in L. James (ed.), Women, Men and Eunuchs (London, 1997), pp. 52-75; PLRE, vol. 2, pp. 635-6; R. Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium (Austin, Tex., 1989).

  p. 98. Ethnicity in Italy: see in general the critique in Amory, People, which I have not entirely followed. See PLRE, vol. 2, pp. 791-3 for Odovacer’s career.

  p. 99. Ethnogenesis: for guides, see e.g. H. Wolfram and W. Pohl (eds.), Typen der Ethnogenese , 2 vols. (Vienna, 1990); P. J. Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity as a Situational Construct in the Early Middle Ages’, Mitteilungen des anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 113 (1983), pp. 15-26; W. Pohl, in A. Gillett (ed.), On Barbarian Identity (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 221-39, for bibliography, rethinking, and a taste of the sharpness of polemic on the issue; and, most recently, Halsall, Barbarian Migrations. T. F. X. Noble (ed.), From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms (London, 2006), republishes many of the other key articles.

  p. 99. Frankish origin-stories: Fredegar, Chronica, ed. B. Krusch, MGH, SRM, vol. 2 (Hanover, 1888), pp. 18-168, 2.4-6, 3.9: see A. C. Murray, in idem (ed.), After Rome’s Fall (Toronto, 1998), pp. 121-52.

  p. 100. Communication: Amory, People, pp. 102-8, 247-56, for Gothic; M. Banniard, Viva voce (Paris, 1992), pp. 253-86 for Francia (though he is mostly concerned with Latin versus proto-Romance).

  p. 100. Anthimus: see B. Effros, Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul (Basingstoke, 2002), pp. 61-7.

  p. 100. Assemblies: see in general P. S. Barnwell and M. Mostert (eds.), Political Assemblies in the Earlier Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2003); for placita, see W. Davies and P. Fouracre (eds.), The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1986).

  p. 101. Theoderic II: Sidonius, Letters, 1.2.

  p. 102. Shift to land, and tax changes: C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2005), pp. 80-93 for an overview of the debate; see more recently W. Goffart, Barbarian Tides (Philadelphia, 2006), pp. 119-56, and M. Innes, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 16 (2006), pp. 39-74.

  p. 103. Mercenaries: G. Halsall, Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450-900 (London, 2003), pp. 111-15.

  p. 103. Economic simplification: Wickham, Framing, pp. 720-59, 794-805; Halsall, Barbarian Migrations, pp. 320-70. p. 105. Avitus: Sidonius, Poems, 7, lines 251-94; Apollinaris and Arcadius: Gregory of Tours, Histories, trans. L. Thorpe as The History of the Franks (Harmondsworth, 1974), 2.37, 3.9, 12, 18; Cyprian: Cassiodorus, Variae, 8.21-2.

  p. 106. Episcopal career structure: Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats, pp. 89-104; R. Van Dam, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berkeley, 1985), pp. 157-229; M. Heinzelmann, Gregory of Tours (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 7-28 for Gregory’s family.

  p. 106. Clothing: W. Pohl, ‘Telling the Difference’, in idem and H. Reimitz (eds.), Strategies of Distinction (Leiden, 1998), pp. 17-69, at pp. 40-51; M. Harlow, ‘Clothes Maketh the Man’, in Brubaker and Smith, Gender, pp. 44-69.

  p. 107. Memory of Rome: see e.g. J. M. H. Smith, Europe after Rome (Oxford, 2005), pp. 253-92.

  p. 108. Shifts for local elites: see e.g. Heather, ‘Huns’, pp. 37-9.

  Chapter 5

  The best survey of the Merovingian period in any language is Ian Wood’s The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 (Harlow, 1994). Good shorter introductions are S. Lebecq, Les Origines franques Ve-IXe siècle (Paris, 1990), and P. Geary, Before France and Germany (Oxford, 1988); E. James, The Franks (Oxford, 1988), which includes more archaeology, stops around 600, although his The Origins of France (London, 1982) continues to 1000. I. Wood (ed.), Franks and Alamanni in the Merovingian Period (Woodbridge, 1998) contains stimulating articles. J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-haired Kings (London, 1962) is the basic earlier point of reference. Important for social history are G. Halsall, Settlement and Social Organization (Cambridge, 1995) and R. Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde franc (VIIe-Xe siècle) (Paris, 1995). R. Van Dam and P. Fouracre, in NCMH, vol. 1, pp. 193-231, 371-96 are brisk syntheses.

  p. 111. Rauching: Gregory of Tours, Histories, trans. L. Thorpe as The History of the Franks (Harmondsworth, 1974), 6.4, 9.9, 12, cf. 5.3.

  p. 111. Appointment of Gregory: Venantius Fortunatus, Poems, 5.3, ed. F. Leo, MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. 4.1 (Berlin,
1881), partial trans. (not including this poem), J. George, Venantius Fortunatus: Personal and Political Poems (Liverpool, 1995). For Gregory’s literary structure, see the notes to p. 13.

  p. 112. Private fortifications: R. Samson, ‘The Merovingian Nobleman’s Home: Castle or Villa?’, Journal of Medieval History, 13 (1987), pp. 287-315.

  p. 112. Clovis’s Arianism: Avitus of Vienne, Letters and Selected Prose, trans. D. Shanzer and I. Wood (Liverpool, 2002), Letters, 46, with commentary, pp. 362-9.

  p. 113. Royal palaces: J. Barbier, ‘Le Système palatial franc’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 148 (1990), pp. 245-99.

  p. 113. Merovingian name: see A. C. Murray, in idem (ed.), After Rome’s Fall (Toronto, 1998), pp. 136-7.

  p. 114. Theudebert: see R. Collins, ‘Theodebert I, “rex magnus Francorum” ’, in P. Wormald (ed.), Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 1983), pp. 7-33; Agathias: The Histories, trans. J. D. Frendo (Berlin, 1975), 1.4; Gregory of Tours, Histories, 3.25, 34, 36.

  p. 114. Admonitory letters: for some episcopal letters translated, A. C. Murray, From Roman to Merovingian Gaul (Peterborough, Ont., 2000), pp. 260-68; for Venantius Fortunatus, Poems, passim.

  p. 115. Gregory’s meetings with Guntram and Chilperic: Gregory of Tours, Histories, 5.18, 44, 8.2-6, 9.20; cf. 6.46 for Chilperic’s obituary.

  p. 116. Queens: see above all J. L. Nelson, Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe (London, 1986), pp. 1-48; for resentment, see e.g. Gregory of Tours, Histories, 10.27.

  p. 117. Flaochad: Fredegar, Chronica, 4.89; Fredegar’s fourth book and continuations are ed. and trans. in J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar (London, 1960).