Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels
Antonio Santosuosso
Number of quotes: 19
Book ID: 38 Page: 7
Section: 3E
It began in the 370s when about 200,000 Goths, moved by hunger and fear, crossed the Danube River that separated them from the Empire. The invaders were a crowd of half-starved individuals whose lands had been taken over by the fearsome Huns. In their minds, the Empire was the land of plenty, luxuries, and wealth of which they could only dream.
Quote ID: 800
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 38 Page: 10
Section: 3D2
In 476 a barbarian leader named Odovacar took control of the Italian peninsula, sending the symbols of the empire to Constantinople. He would not last long, In 488 the emperor in Constantinople gave Theodoric, the leader of the Amals, an Ostrogothic tribe, permission to enter Italy and remove Odovacar from the throne. Five years later the Amal chieftain defeated Odovacar and later killed him with his own hands.So by 500 the Roman Empire of the West had disappeared (Figure I.I)
Quote ID: 801
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 38 Page: 11
Section: 3D2
Figure I.I Byzantines and Barbarian Peoples in the Early Sixth CenturyPastor John’s Note: Donna {See Map[1]}
Quote ID: 802
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 38 Page: 14
Section: 3D2
Unlike Roman society, based on the concept of peace at home and defense or aggression at the frontier, the barbarian kingdoms – the Franks, for instance – lived in an endemic state of war both internally and externally. Normally the original inhabitants of the barbarian kingdoms were, more likely than not, to be excluded from war participation. This was the case in Ostrogothic Italy, where the Goths were the warriors. Yet in that case the “Romans” – that is, the former citizens of the vanished empire – still kept important positions in the administration of the kingdom and monopolized the Catholic hierarchy because the Goths subscribed to the Arian heresy.
Quote ID: 803
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 38 Page: 14
Section: 3D2
The Italian population did not consider Odovacar’s rule as oppressive when he deposed the last Roman emperor of the West in 476. True, they were despoiled of one-third of their lands, or of the shares of tax assessment of those lands, which were distributed among Odovacar’s followers.4 But Odovacar revealed himself to be a strong defender of the old Roman Senate and a guardian of the basis on which the empire had rested.
Quote ID: 804
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 38 Page: 15
Section: 3D2
The new ruler brought no meaningful changes to the Italian peninsula. As the contemporary Greek historian Procopius writes, Theodoric enforced just laws, kept Italy safe from invasions, and did not change the old customs or abuse his power over the subjects. Even the lands that he distributed among his population were only those that already had been taken over by Odovacar’s men. “Theodoric was a tyrant i.e., an illegitimate ruler by name, but in fact he was a true and real emperor.”
Quote ID: 805
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 38 Page: 15
Section: 3D2
What he tried to do was to keep the two people divided, each under their own laws. The “Romans” kept the civilian posts of the kingdom’s administration, while the Goths formed its army. What existed was the creation of a state in which Goths and Italians were “distinct” but “codependent.”8 Generally the ruling groups in Italy accepted their new ruler because he defended their interests, even those of the Church, in spite of the fact that the Ostrogoths were not Catholics but Arians.
Quote ID: 806
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 38 Page: 16
Section: 3D2
the Goths had assimilated many of the values that we associate with either Rome or Constantinople. Yet they still differed on matters of religion; they were Arian Christians and, as such, a threat to the Christianism of the empire. This would be an element of conflict for two reasons: the empire looked at Christianity as a state religion, and thus all dissenters were considered potential internal enemies.
Quote ID: 807
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 38 Page: 48
Section: 3D2
Now that the original Italian upper classes had been either destroyed or rendered powerless like the Catholic clergy, the invaders organized a state in which the local populations were “servants” of a warrior class, their “master” being Longobards [PJ: Lombards, or "longbeards"] or those who had come with them from Pannonia. Probably for the Italian lower classes this did not mean a radical change from the past. The only different thing was that the masters looked physically different.37 When the upper clergy began to regain social primacy, they too were different from the past. Mostly of Longobardic origin, eventually accepting Catholic orthodoxy, they were tied in kinship and ideology with a worldview based on war.38The Longobards, like all Germanic peoples during the early medieval period, were a nation in a constant state of war. The kings were ultimate warriors,
Quote ID: 808
Time Periods: 6
Book ID: 38 Page: 49
Section: 3D2
The Longobard invasion represented a crucial break in the history of the peninsula.52 The newcomers were ferocious defenders of their ethnic primacy and constituted the basis of the aristocracy for future generations, at least for a few centuries.53 Even during the Renaissance, nearly 800 years later, it was not unusual for some of the leading Italian families to claim distant origins to Germanic ancestors.
Quote ID: 809
Time Periods: 6
Book ID: 38 Page: 50
Section: 3D2
In 774 the Longobard domination of most of Italy came to an end before the army of Charlemagne.
Quote ID: 810
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 38 Page: 51
Section: 3D2
Over about two centuries, the Franks had already become accustomed to the landscape when they finally moved to what is modern France in larger and permanent numbers during the fifth century. They would establish the most successful of all barbarian kingdoms, France, that in succeeding centuries would become one of the playmakers in Western civilization. The key was that the Franks, unlike the Ostrogoths and the Longobards in Italy or the Visigoths in Spain, assimilated easily into the existing Gallo-Roman aristocracy and became champions of the religion that would become the trademark of the Middle Ages: Christianity as interpreted by Rome.
Quote ID: 811
Time Periods: 67
Book ID: 38 Page: 53
Section: 3D2
Figure 4.I The Kingdoms of the Merovingian Franks in 561Pastor John’s Note: Donna {see Map[2]}
Quote ID: 812
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 38 Page: 53
Section: 3D2
Clovis was the son of Childeric I, a shady man who at one time had been forced from his throne for his intimacy with the daughters of the kingdom’s magnates (so says Gregory of Tours). He became a symbol of all the ethnic groups living in Gallia.
Quote ID: 813
Time Periods: 56
Book ID: 38 Page: 62
Section: 3D2
The Merovingian Dynasty, which had ruled France from 481 to 747, faded. Childeric III, the last Merovingian king, was shut inside a monastery, his flowing hair, the symbol of royalty, shorn.
Quote ID: 814
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 38 Page: 62
Section: 3D2
At the time of Childerich’s deposition in 751, Pepin the Short was mayor, an office that his grandfather and father had held. And to him, on the authority of the Bishop of Rome, was granted the title of king.
Quote ID: 815
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 38 Page: 65/66
Section: 3D2
Unlike in Longobard Italy, technically all able-bodied freemen age twelve and above, of any ethnic background, had the duty to serve in the army when the Frankish kingdom was under threat.
Quote ID: 816
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 38 Page: 72
Section: 3F
Einhard comments that Charlemagne was unaware of what had been planned. If he had known, he would have refused to enter church that day.85 Whether we believe Einhard or not, what is important is the role usurped by the pope in investing Charlemagne with the imperial crown.
Quote ID: 818
Time Periods: 7
Book ID: 38 Page: 72
Section: 3F
Even if proskynesis had been performed, the actual authority of the coronation rested in the pope’s hands: the pope had become the “creator” of the emperor, and until the end of the Middle Ages emperors were crowned at St. Peter’s.86Insert Map
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Quote ID: 819
Time Periods: 567
End of quotes