How Roman Were the Successor States Essay Example

control) * Land ownership, easiest to exploit and charge rent to those who worked on the land- basic Agrarian system.

Some historians argue the BWL were allowed to access the land and exploit its resources whilst some argue they simply invaded and usurped the land- either way they exploited the resources of the area. By this time, the western Empire was divided into the numerous successor states established by the Germanic invasions and Roman culture was disintegrating. To argue how ‘Roman’ were the successor states, Heather has empathised that it need to be split into 'Roman' in the sense of the central state, and 'Roman' in the sense of characteristic patterns of life revailing within its borders. At the state level, the empire was not just replaced by mini versions of itself, even where Roman landowners survived. Within two generations of 476 AD, a new and weaker type of state structure had emerged right across the former Roman west. The old empire had employed two key levers of central power - large-scale taxation, two-thirds of which was then spent on maintaining the second lever, a large professional army.

This high-tax, high-spend structure meant that the Roman state both intruded itself bureaucratically into localities to raise taxation, and was also able, if necessary, to compel obedience to its demands by employing the army, which the taxation supported. The new states of post-Roman Europe were much weaker affairs. Even where other less important Roman institutions survived, the new kings had only much-diminished revenue rights and their armies were composed of semi-professional contingents of local landowners.

On the level of local 'Roman-ness' too, the revolution could not have been more profound.

The characteristic patterns of local Roman life were in fact intimately linked to the existence of the central Roman state, and, as the nature of state structures changed in the post-Roman world, so too did local life. The Roman city, for instance, was the basic unit of local administration through which taxation was raised. As central tax raising powers disappeared, so too did the need to keep the city, and by 700 AD it was history.

Many of the more advanced elements of the Roman economy, such as specialised production and long-distance trade, quickly disappeared too. The Roman state had subsidised large-scale transport structures for its own purposes, but these had also been used by traders. As this command economy collapsed, so did much of the trade dependent upon it. Cultural patterns were also transformed beyond recognition. Roman elites learned to read and write classical Latin to highly-advanced levels through a lengthy and expensive private education, because it qualified them for careers in the extensive Roman bureaucracy.

The end of taxation meant that these careers disappeared in the post-Roman west, and elite parents quickly realised that spending so much money on learning Latin was now a waste of time. As a result, advanced literacy was confined to churchmen for the next 500 years. Heather accepts that in some parts of the western Empire the wealthy held on to their land and social position. Some aspects of Roman culture survived, but, he thinks that it would be a mistake to minimize the importance of the disappearance of the western Roman state.

Roman political domination involved the rapid spread of urbanization as local elites adopted Roman public and domestic styles

of building. This was the concrete manifestation of a cultural change that was also expressed in the spread of education that would equip the next generation with the polished Latin that would qualify them to participate in the ruling circles of the Empire. Once that state ceased to exist there was no reason to have one’s children expensively educated. Even where Roman landowners survived, they had to learn new ways to impress the semi-literate local king on whom their status now depended.

Literary culture survived to some degree in the Church, but even the Church had to adapt and evolve institutionally. The local organization of the Church began to reflect the new boundaries of kingdoms that cut across the old administrative structures. Centrally, the Popes assumed an importance that would have been inconceivable if the western emperors had survived. In the eastern Empire the Patriarchs of Constantinople never achieved the degree of political authority that the Popes of Rome secured for themselves.

The Barbarian kings were keen to keep the roman elite such as Theoderic. This is seen in Conssedorous- writing the histories of the Goths. The Barbarian elites engage in the Roman lifestyle such as speaking Latin, writing and adherence to law and order. The Warlords needed to cooperate with the Roman elite due to it being pragmatic. Both parties had motives with the Barbarians wanting the prestige, culture and skills needed for administration, etc. and the romans wanting to retain their power and position.

Most Barbarian Kings were Christian which provided a reason and justification for their actions such as wars and various events. The church required bishops, etc. and was the closest thing to civilian

administration since the Roman Empire. The Kings benefitted from acting ecclesial showing power and prestige. Gregory de Tours wrote of Clovis as a hero and fighter for the Christians after his conversions and the various victories – promoting Catholicism. Another form of soft power was ethnicity but this idea has now been overturned.

This is due to the lack of written sources from the period which suggests new ethnicities were formed by the states, they were very much fluid between the various groups. The Successor states have had varying extremes after the collapse of the Roman Empire. BRITANNIA Britain faced an economic meltdown after the withdrawal of Roma troops and the end to Roman provincial administration. Britain fell off the Roman map. In no other part of the empire did this happen. The economic simplification so abrupt and total and I must reflect a sharp social crisis as well.

A patchwork of tiny polities replaced the roman state. Latin was still the normal language of inscriptions and roman titles but most people actually spoke Brittonic whilst the Roman-British spoke Latin. The peasantry did not and even in lowland Britain, spoken Latin ceased to be common unlike most of the west. Lowland Britain was heavily Romanised in its economy and culture but northern and western it was less. These areas had the roman military and thus had fewer cities and traditional social structures. These areas tended to be stronger economically.

The roman elite ceased to exist and over time the roman elite seems to have merged with the British elites in terms of culture and due to intermarry causing new social classes to form over the west. The land

was split into little kingdoms ruled by different leaders. The Anglo- Saxons settled in a still used roman landscape, and as far as historians can tell they hardly picked up Romano-British material culture at all. The British majority evidently adapted to the Anglo-Saxon culture rather than vice versa. FRANKS E. James E. Wickham The Merovingian dynasty ruled the Franks for 250 years.

The traditions of the Franks were not so different from the Roman era, the Visigothic and Burgundian aristocrats had been Roman landowners, living side by side with Roman senators (for more than one generation), and in the north the Frankish aristocrats had been near neighbours and fellow roman soldiers longer. (Showing Roman culture and tradition has been adopted) Soon after the Frankish conquest of Gaul, the Frankish and Roman aristocracy began to intermingle and intermarry, this has been illustrated in recent prosopographical research as a method to eliminate the consciousness of Roman, mainly outside Aquitaine.

Sometimes the intermarriages and intermixing of traditions can be seen in the names giving habits of the aristocracy, with romans in Frankish and Burgundian areas adopting Germanic names, (thus hard to detect roman continuity in the area). However in Southern Gaul the aristocracy retains more than just their roman names to remember the roman era. They retained, (if not increased) their social status, hold on the church, landed property and their cultural predominance (LASTING TRAITS OF THE EMPIRE).

But public schooling did not outlive the empire with laymen finding it difficult to obtain an education, (showing some disintegration of Roman culture/ life). In the 6th Century Frankish aristocracy emulated the roman predecessors with their literary pursuits some replete with classical allusion.

The Roman aristocracy continued to monopolise the offices of bishop and count in southern Gaul and under Merovingian kings, they held important military positions.

Romans were not only found leading armies, but also at Royal courts acting as advisors, administrators and legal experts, just as their predecessors did in Visigoths and Burgundians. However in general the Roman aristocracy was above the ecclesiastical and the locals, with the highest posts in the army and court reserved for the Franks. (SHOWING SOME ADOPTION OF ROMAN TRADITION TO AN EXTENT BUT THE ROMANS ARE NOT THE CENTAL POWER BUT THE FRANKS ARE) The burial rights and traditions changed from the Roman Empire with row-grave cemeteries being established and spread throughout the world dominated by the franks, both in Germany and Gaul.

The foundations of power lay in the land, for that provided the basic resources of food and men; but the political power depended on supplies of treasure thus loyalty had to be bought. A treasury was the keystone to political power. The Merovingian kings acquired their estate everywhere during the conquest of Gaul either by inheritance of confiscation. They also inherited the structure of the tax and customs collection from their roman predecessors and endeavoured to exploit it best they could.

The Merovingian king controlled the surviving elements of the roman land tax but was not maintained regularly; tax registrars could go decades without updating, tax levels were lower than in Rome and royal cessions of tax immunity were emerging. Davies (A History of Medieval Europe) The Arian form of Christianity was the religion of the Theodoric’s Goths. The Goths were far more civilised than the Franks in terms of

culture and society but in their religion prevented them from intermingling with the Romans and each group remained segregated.

The Franks on the other had embraced Catholicism and identified themselves with what the romans stood for. The ‘Romanisation’ of Gaul had never been uniform; it was more complete in the south than the north. The south enjoyed a Mediterranean climate – similar to Rome and many of the numerous cities not only provided amphitheatres for blood sports but theatres for the arts. In the south Roman culture remained and never entirely died. The Roman law remained in use till 1789. However in the North, the Romans had left no traditions but a ‘memory’.

The towns were merely garrison towns and the civilian population had not the civilisation of the south. The culture which had created them was dead but the very presence was still sufficient to inspire people to imitate the arts and monuments- trying to imitate the arts they created a new one. The Merogovians (482-751) derived its wealth from the south and commanded the services of the Gallo-Romans Aristocracy. A Rich Civilisation. The Carolingians (751-891) were northerners, lacked in the arts and graces of the south, uncultivated but determined to be roman.

GOTHS IN ITALY HEATHER Italy had more roman traditions then Spain. VISIGOTHIC SPAIN Spain was partly conquered by the Vandals and after 439 mostly conquered by the Suevi. In 456 the Visigoths invaded and swiftly destroyed the Suevi power, confining it to the north-west. The conquest was completed by 483. The Visigoths were still based in the Gaul. In Spain’s northern areas, we would find references to semi-autonomous communities which were either ruled by

a local strong man or more often collectively run like the Sappi of Sabaria.

There were tribe which were hardly Romanised in many parts of the northern coastline who were generally called the Vascones and many of whom spoke Basque. Such communities could have more roman trappings. In the south, cities remained prosperous in an entirely roman tradition. There were two processes of fragmentation; the loss of central authority of numerous sections and the revival of political processes that were different from those of Rome and more collective. Heather stress all the same that much of Spain remained very Roman whether it obeyed the Visigoth Kings or not, specially along the Mediterranean coast. The legal principles of Spain and to a lesser extent Italy were important points of reference as they had been in the late Roman Empire. In the case of Visigoth Spain, historians have often indeed paid too much attention to the law, for there are a few narratives and documents from the period, and immense secular and ecclesiastical. VANDAL AFRICA J. H. W. G LIEBESCHUETZ Vandal appears to be the collective name shared by a grouping of sub-tribes and the components that constituted a Vandal group changed over time.

The occupation of Africa by the Vandals in 429ad was a turning point in the disintegration of Western Europe. The Vandals had such a powerful impact on history but unlike the Visigoths, Ostrogoth and Lombard, the vandals left no literary records thus making it difficult for historians to assess the change in the constitution in Africa with the establishment of the vandals. The Vandal conquest was shortly followed by the mass confiscation of land, exiling

of many previous landowners and the granting of their stolen estate to Vandals.

The vast amount was split up with the majority granted to the King and his sons, the warriors and the rest of the vast amounts of land was given to his followers in order to display his generosity and power. The wealthy roman landowners continued to live in Africa but there is no evidence to suggest there was any intermixing or and intermarriage between the vandals and Romans. Thus in a sense the Vandal were not roman due to their turn away from the Roman culture, language and clothing.

The vandals were Arian Christian as opposed to Catholicism which the romans were so this religious barrier prevented and intermixing and they remained two distinctive groups. Throughout the first half of the century, the Vandals, were a formidable people, with their fleet dominating the Mediterranean sea ( was the fleet from the Roman empire) Like the Romans, the vandals used Carthage as their capital base in Africa with the monarchy established there and working there as opposed to leading armies.

This job was delegated to relatives and other men who also resembled contemporary emperors. The Vandal aristocracy included wealthy Roman landowners who were still referred with the titles of Roman senatorial rank. The vandal king also displayed his munificence by paying for public buildings and he would be often praised by others in Latin verse, with Latin spoken in court. (He acted like a roman emperor) Surprisingly many leading Roams were willing to work with the vandal and even prepared to make concessions to their Arianism.

The last of the Vandal kings also assimilated their ceremony to

match that of a Roman emperor. There was public fiscal administration in addition to the private property to the royal family. After the collapse of the western empire, the collection of taxes was still carried out by the Vandals with it argues in Procopius1, 5; Victor of vita 2,2 Romans are said to be heavily taxed whilst the vandals were exempt. However in reality it seems the taxes were collected in particular area rather than just the romans (Victor of vita 3, 22).

After the reconquest by the Byzantine Empire, the administrations had new tax registrars made (Procopius 4, 8, 25). The impression implies much of the roman administration survived with official positions still continuing in the area. Another striking example of continuity was the survival of provincial assemblies. Together with some officials of what had been the imperial cult and was now presumably a ceremony of loyalty to the vandal king (on astuis mustelus Christian and flamen perptuus (AD 526).

Furthermore the administration of the vandal Kingdom was far from ‘Primitive’ and this is shown strikingly by the coinage. The Vandal state was the first state after the collapse of the Roman Empire to bring back a stable currency of coins of small and medium quantities. The Vandals were distinguishable from their neighbours due to their religion. The Arian church attracted abuse and was subject to discriminatory legislation in the late roman Empire, which led to bonds within the group to strengthen the internal bonds of the immigrant group.

The vandals considered their church to be the universal one. Sometime Vandals converted to Christianity but this did not mean, they ceased to be Vandals and on the

other side of the spectrum numerous romans converted to Arianism. After the vandals arrived in Africa, the Arians soon were embroiled in a severe conflict with the Catholic bishops. (Victor of Vita) At the same time they confiscated property, the vandals confiscated churches together with property for the use of their own clergy and those who lost their land were exiled.

This caused relations to sour as Catholics began to preach anti-Arian sermons (courtois, les vandals et l’Afrique). As a result the vandals exiled numerous bishops and did not replace the bishops. Victor claims about 60 years after the invasion, there were no more than 3 bishops officiating. The vandal king’s policy toward the Catholics were no different from that of Emperors, whether Catholic or Arian made no difference but against hearsay. The Arian church did create a real division between the Vandals and the bulk of the population.

Paradoxically, after the vandals are overthrown, Arian Christianity was to serve as a bond between those in the army and the Vandal enabling them to fully integrate in to the empire. The vandal occupation of Africa is a story of barbarian conquerors sharing the country with its native inhabitants (Libyans who were once Roman and Moors who were formally rulers of the federate appointed by the emperor). The kingdom of the Vandals was a military power. The administration of the kingdom relied on the roman system of administration, thus must have been mainly run by Romans.

The Vandals were a distinct grouping of people from the romans mainly due to the religious differences which was more persistent in the vandal kingdom than any other successor state. In reality there

must have been a great deal of compromise and cooperation than the source imply. The Vandal king was king to both romans and vandals, with some romans converting to Arianism in order to please the King whether it be in court or in administration. Romans also wore Vandal dress whilst some leading Vandal took up the way of life of members of the Roman ruling classes but even so tensions still remained.

To counteract this issue, this required a dynastic loyalty and above all a strong leadership of the king such as Geiseric who has been argued to have enabled to kingdom to survive during his reign and his successors could not live up to the job thus enabling it to have weakened. LIEBESCHUETZ ultimately argues that once the Vandals had become settled and accommodated to Roman society, they soon became as helpless… as the romans has been in the face of the Vandals themselves. This meant the Byzantine Empire had not trouble in capturing the Vandal Kingdom in