QUOTE (EnlightenmentHK @ Jan 29 2009, 16.54)

Without a doubt the most dreadfully boring books on history are the ones that deal with the plight of the common folk. They deserve a summary byline, not a treatise. I mean who gives a shit?

I give a shit. While the Marxist school of history has produced some truly unreadable tomes, there are equally important works that, in fact, do focus on what life was like for people who weren't your Kings and Princes, Dukes and Earls. A good writer with good research can make the three-field system sound interesting (I've found that it is, in fact). Knowing the components and motivations of the labor force is essential to understanding the economic and socio-political structure of a time. Diet, life expectancy, living conditions, etc. all round out our picture of what the world looked like in prior times. You say that "the plight of the commonfolk is only relevant insofar as it influenced [great people, historical forces or institutions]." The point is that the life of the "common people" ALWAYS influences these things.

QUOTE (palaeologos @ Jan 29 2009, 16.10)

What's this notion of "progress" you're raising here? One thing any professional historian learns very quickly is that progress (as formulated by Enlightenment thinkers) is an illusion. There's technological progress, certainly, and that's demonstrable; but what exactly do you mean by "the progress of humanity"? Do you really see some kind of teleological grand narrative at work in history?

I mean the expansion and more effective application of human knowledge. Sometimes this is represented in new building techniques that lead to greater feats of engineering. Sometimes they're philosophical ideas that find themselves manifested in more efficient forms of government or administration. Not all achievements are better or worse, superior or inferior to the ones before, the arts moreso than most other fields are quite subjective in that manner, but very often progress is clear to see. The Romans knew more, could do more, and did things better in most every respect than their immediate successors. I do not think history is necessarily a linear upward trend with bumps in the road, some 'progress' is most certainly counter-productive or less effective than the ways things were done before. But I think that when we're judging the merits of a particular civilization, that progress, whether they brought it about directly or indirectly, invented or simply spread it, is what we should be looking at.

QUOTE (palaeologos @ Jan 29 2009, 16.42)

Sorry, I wasn't really clear about this : the divine right of kings (or at least the establishment by God of the civil power) was a church doctrine. See Paul's epistle to the Romans for the traditional Christian view of civil authority. And by the Middle Ages, the idea that the monarch in some sense sacramentally embodied the nation had become attached to this theory. The point being, not that King William would care much whether certain Genesis-based assumptions about natural history were challenged per se, but that anything that chipped away at the Church's teaching authority ultimately also endangered his claims to authority.

And I would disagree with this. Merely chipping away at the edges of theological based assumptions doesn't necessarily undermine or threaten divine right. Even challenges to major tenets don't necessarily throw the notion of 'God appointed me' into the woodchipper. I suspect that unless the king were a devout fundamentalist himself, he wouldn't much care if some of the theological details get rearranged a bit. At least insofar as it related to his own God appointment. The reevaluation of Genesis or the cosmic position of the earth need not destroy Christian faith nor the divine right concept. You can have those challenges with the king's right still preserved.

As for maintaining the existing social order via domestic unity, religious and otherwise, which is where this discussion drifted to earlier, yeah I can see the king taking a more hardline, active approach. Different sects have a nasty habit of fighting, killing, burning and persecuting eachother. Better to kill dissent in its infancy. But that's not necessarily tied to the King's authority. And the ultimate culprit for such intolerance, even if acted upon by the monarch, would be the church. If they weren't so anal about heresies, I doubt many others would be either.

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Jan 29 2009, 17.35)

I'd counter that the history of the vast majority of the human population at any time is more than relevant - it's crucial. Fixating on monarchical lineages and notable battles is interesting, but is of comparably minor importance. For one thing, it makes a rather big difference whether said peasants are tenant farmers, serfs, or slaves. "Historical forces", generally speaking, consist of what large groups of people do in aggregate, and the fall of the Western Empire has considerably less to do with "great men" than with mass migrations and changes in the population structure. You can't very well attempt to explain the phenomenon of deurbanization without considering what was happening in the countryside at the time.

Fair enough. To Zazby too. I probably overstated this point a bit. I think my objection is tied to the notion that the peasant's plight has much inherent value or holds any interest on its own disconnected from other factors. I accept that there's merit in studying them for the purpose of divining how their conditions and lifestyle may have affected the direction of history and as Zabzy stated, they affect history all the time to varying degrees. But only so long as the historian makes the study of their historical influence the ultimate, primary end instead of studying them as an end unto itself. Cause that quite frankly bores the living shit out of me. What kind of diet did the average peasant have? Who gives a shit. But 'This was their diet, which likely indicates this, which indicates that, which led to the fall of rome'...that's worthwhile shit.

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Jan 29 2009, 17.35)

I'm still not clear on what was lost specifically by the fall of the Western Empire.

Didn't we already cover this? Knowledge, trade, writing, education, bureaucracy, institutions, agriculture, engineering, building, etc. Of course it was a slow, gradual decline, it didn't suddenly pop into being the moment the last emperor was deposed. But these things were far more prevelant under Rome than after Rome.

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Jan 29 2009, 17.35)

what further "progress" of humanity was provided by the Crisis of the 3rd Century or Diocletian's Great Persecution? That there were a few philosophers around is, I'd argue, irrelevant.

Who the hell knows. (I'm addressing the question as if it were 'What further progress could be derived from the continuation of a Rome that implemented all that shit you mentioned) What we do know is that great knowledge, infrastructure, and expertise was lost. It took centuries for it to be relearned and much longer to be surpassed in most areas. (both geographically and in breadth of subject matters) If Rome persisted or if there was a less devastating transition to something different, we may have developed a variation of our modern society centuries earlier. We may also have stagnated and retarded humanity's overall progress. No idea.

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Jan 29 2009, 17.35)

Once again, what kind of security was available in the Late Empire? Trade had been severely disrupted by the civil wars of the 3rd Century, and never recovered - this may have helped cause the Empire's fall, but it certainly wasn't an explicit result of it (and many have noted here that, contrary to what you're saying, trade got along fine after the Empire's formal collapse). To use a modern example, the British Empire didn't formally end in any sense until after WWII, but it was on a pretty negative trajectory well before that thanks to WWI.

Those many who have noted are wrong. Trade did not get along fine post empire. Sure it was declining as the empire declined, but it all but disappeared on any significant scale after the empire. Trade didn't begin to revive til the Vikings got involved. As for security, a weakening central authority with professional armies is better than none.

QUOTE (Aemon Stark @ Jan 29 2009, 17.35)

"Your average peasant" is furthermore not literate in the first place - why would he notice? The essential problem with the Dark Ages is the lack of any kind of singular cataclysmic collapse - it took a long, long time, and while it may formally have occurred via Germanic invasions, the Germanic migrations into Gaul and the Iberian peninsula began long before that.

This is only a problem because you decided it must be one. Really alot your post seems concerned with what to do with the gray area rather than any actual objection to the existence of a dark age. As you well note, it was a decline rather than an abrupt fall. Like much of history we can't definitively point to a time when things coalesced from civilization to barbarism. But we did have civilization than some time afterwards we had a period of primitive barbarism.

QUOTE (Lord of Oop North @ Jan 29 2009, 17.44)

That said, the whole process of segregating history into "civilizations" and "ages" is retarded, anyway. The world is made up of fluid populations of humans, not isolated groups who act in unity.

Classification is practiced in just about every field of study in existence. Most of the distinctions are artificial, but hardly arbitrary. Its almost always useful and typically necessary.

QUOTE (palaeologos @ Jan 29 2009, 18.21)

There are times and places in the past that were less racist than others, too. We have technological advances, but even those aren't necessarily stable; mostly I just see change, not progress.

And I see a plague of post-modern relativism. Which I guess proves you right...not all change is progress.

QUOTE (Watcher @ Jan 29 2009, 20.25)

This is a very interesting thread. I don't have to time to read it all right now. One quick comment about life after Rome fell. The city of Trier had between 60,000 to 80,000 residence, a coliseum, running water, public baths and all the other accessories of modern life in the 400's. Within a hundred years the population plummeted to a couple of thousand as the Germanic hordes ravished the city and its surrounding area. Things were looking slightly better by the 800s when Charlemagne as in his prime, but then the city was destroyed by the Vikings. It slowly recovered and had around 12,000 inhabitants by the 14 century.

To add to this, Rome at its height had over a million people. At 361AD it had 150,000. At 500AD, 100,000. Dwindling to under 50,000 and less shortly thereafter. By contrast Constantinople hovered between 250,000 to 400,000 throughout that period and by 1000AD Cordoba in Muslim Spain reached 450,000 thousand, both becoming the largest city in the world at various points. Along with places like Antioch, Alleppo, and Alexandria that would reach 100-150,000+ throughout this 500 to 1000 period.

Throughout that time the largest urban centers in Dark Age Europe barely approached 20,000. London was at 5-10,000 from its 60,000 or so Roman high centuries earlier. (it had dwindled a ton once the Romans pulled out and more still after the empire's complete fall) Paris was still at around only 20,000 by 1000AD. It wasn't til the 13th century or so when any non-Byzantine/Muslim European cities started to surpass 100,000 again and almost all of those were in Italy.

Also found this bit from a paper that makes tries to tie the economic resurgence of Europe from 1000 to 1300AD to the standardization of medieval Latin.

http://www.hss.caltech.edu/media/from-carthage/filer/360.pdf

Interesting stuff. Provides ammunition for both sides. In particular it notes how the post-Charlemagne reemergence of writing allowed many of the agricultural techniques commented on here as medieval/dark age improvements to actually be implemented on any significant scale. (for those who asked the question 'Why would farmer Joe miss writing?') And it catalogs the role of the monks and monasteries in spreading these writings and knowledge. It suggests that the return of an educated, literate notary in Italy allowed for written contracts to replace oral, helped to facilitate its economic boom. There's more inside. Its worth a skim.

QUOTE (Matrim Fox Cauthon @ Jan 29 2009, 22.15)

Is it the historian's role to assign value to history?

Yes.

QUOTE (Matrim Fox Cauthon @ Jan 29 2009, 23.21)

Are you in search for history or historiography? Do you want objective facts or just qualitative assessments?

What's wrong with both?

QUOTE (Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt @ Jan 29 2009, 23.48)

Minor correction, the largest city in the world all through this time has always been in China.

No it wasn't. China always had some cities near the top, but for two distinct periods Constantinople than Cordoba were the largest cities in the world.
geography.about.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history

(although to be fair, alot of that stuff is educated guesswork when you've got cities that are fairly close)

QUOTE (Matrim Fox Cauthon @ Jan 29 2009, 18.16)

One is the realm of objectivity while one is not.

That doesn't make them mutually exclusive.

In either case, we're drifting from the point. The point is there's nothing wrong with the historian declaring better or worse, more or less primitive, more or less sophisticated, more or less civilized, more or less just, fair, free or humane. That these conclusions are gonna be inevitably colored by the author's own cultural lens does not mean it will be dominated by it. One can acknowledge their prejudices and explain why their judgment is fair and accurate in as objective terms as possible despite these prejudices. So long as there's a sound, rational basis supported by evidence for the conclusion, what's the problem?

QUOTE (Galactus @ Jan 30 2009, 01.17)

And Baghdad actually was larger than both Constantinopole and Cordoba at one point. (Probably the first city to breach the One Million barrier)

Yep, its in there and credited as the first 1 million. (although some generous estimates of Rome I've read elsewhere suggest it hit that mark some point around the height of the empire, but the links I had didn't seem to think so)

QUOTE (Galactus @ Jan 30 2009, 01.30)

But these things had already started to decline before the Fall of the Western Empire (and declined, to a somewhat lesser degree, in the East as well)

Yes, but I don't really see what that changes about the existence (or non-existence) of a dark age.

QUOTE (Galactus @ Jan 30 2009, 01.30)

Barbarism in some areas, innovation and new ideas in others.

Innovation and new ideas didn't pop up for some centuries anywhere in the Christian west.
Wiki's handy little list of technology from the Middle ages lets us know that almost all of those innovations came after the 10th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
And most of the ones that were from the 'Dark period' were typically not widespread until much later. There was a significant stretch of a dead period everywhere but the east and Muslim areas.

QUOTE (Galactus @ Jan 30 2009, 02.29)

You know, I'm not a byzantine fanatic or anything, but was there actually much of a technological development in the byzantine world? I know the arabs discovered and spread a bunch of agricultural crops and stuff as well as things like the Astrolabe and such, but what did the Byzantine's actually invent? Presumably they kept improving architectural stuff, and there was stuff like the cyrillic alphabet and certain techniques for creating artwork, but I can't think of any really significant invention done by the Byzantines.

They're often viewed as a carrier of knowledge rather than an improver, but their main individual achievements are primarily deemed to be in mathematics, medicine, law and some architecture.

They created what may have been the first approximations of a modern hospital (though more lean to the Muslims getting there first), staffed with the most educated and skilled doctors of the day (some of them even women), and dotted even the provincial areas of the empire. They were known for their highly detailed and accurate medical textbooks, The Medical Compendium in Seven Books in particular was considered one of the fullest repositories of western knowledge of medicine (with many improvements by the author himself as well) and in standard use in both the Byzantine and Arabic world for centuries afterwards. This was one field where they expanded upon previous greco-Roman knowledge and they were influential on even the Arab-Muslim world in this area, but its pretty clear (I think) from existing knowledge that Islam produced far more innovations in this area.

Their universities were for some time centers of scientific and mathematical learning, responsible for transfering many of the greco-roman texts to the Arabs. But overtime Arab scientific and mathematical achievements eclipsed their own and the influence switched from the Arab world to the Greek.

They of course built the Hagia Sophia, one of the greatest architectural achievements of any era and arguably the single most impressive building ever built. (I'm a fan) It required many complex measurements (the primary professions of the 'architects' were mathematician and physicist) and implemented a few new architectural innovations to get the massive Dome set.

And perhaps their greatest achievement insofar as it influenced the modern world was Justinian's Code, which became the base foundation for most civil code traditions throughout the world. In both law and other fields, the Byzantines didn't just accumulate prior knowledge. They organized, condensed it, weeded out redundancies, inconsistencies, and undesirables, clarified, modified, stored and spread it. Creating the Code itself was a massive task, involved pouring over thousands of books of Roman law and organizing them into 50 volumes. One of the most impressive academic undertakings of the ancient or medieval world.

But when it comes down to it, the Code aside, it appears that they didn't develop that much on their own. They never lost the past knowledge and had in depth philosophical discussions of Greek and Roman authors, but had few seminal works of their own. They collected a great wealth of medical knowledge, but most of the innovations in the field came from the Muslims. Had some of the foremost universities heavily dedicated to mathematics and science, but again the real progress in those fields came from the Arabs.

I think its possible that lack of study and interest may have left us without a full understanding of their contributions. After all, despite being the lone superpower of Christendom for half a millennium and a major player in near east and European history for a thousand years, they almost never appear in textbooks. They're not the focus of hardly any history channel specials. Not as many English language books written about them. Being the greatest, largest, and wealthiest city in the world didn't lead to widespread romanticism of Constantinople in the modern western world. Its quite possible that there are contributions waiting to be found, that were perhaps misattributed, whose real source is simply waiting to be translated. Always possible.

In either case, the mere matter of their existence for a thousand years even without being the primary preservers of ancient knowledge played a pivotal role in the development of Europe, mainly the fact that Europe was able to develop at all. Fact is dark age Europe would've been a pushover for the Muslim armies if they wished to bother with it and without the Byzantines standing guard at the eastern gates, its quite possible they may have seen the prospect as too easy and tempting. The Byzantine empire made the survival of Christendom possible. Of course if I want to be consistent with my previous statements, I should suggest that Dark Age Europe would have been better off conquered, since the Arab-muslims were more developed and sophisticated in nearly every respect. But than I wouldn't be able to drink alcohol. Which is more than enough reason on its own to shout 'GO BYZANTINES!'

QUOTE (Elrostar @ Jan 30 2009, 20.38)

So what were those Romans doing?

Greatest.Podcast.Ever.

QUOTE (Cimon @ Jan 30 2009, 20.58)

I'm kind of confused, are you making the assertion that referring to them as the Byzantines is relegating them to a sub-Roman status in history? I apologize if that's not what you were trying to say, but it seems to me that it makes perfect sense to think of them as distinctly different from Romans. I mean, not only was the culture/architecture etc. quite different from the western Romans, but seeing as how the western empire collapsed, and with it any idea of a Rome-centric empire, why would we refer to them as Roman? They thrived on their own merit and not from their status as an entity of the Roman Empire.

The fact is they were Romans. They continued an unbroken line of Roman emperors. They preserved and continued the philosophical, literary, and political traditions of Rome. They implemented the same style bureaucracy and laws. Enjoyed many of the same sports, architecture and arts. They were the direct cultural descendents of Rome and even using the term descendants might be a stretch. Sure they mostly were Greek and Greek was the language, but what is the name of the culture Rome transferred to us? Greco-Roman. An enormous amount of the culture that Rome enjoyed, practiced, studied and eventually transfered to us was derived from the Greeks who they admired and in some respects tried to emulate. Greek influence is inseparable from the later concept of Rome. It was an ever presence influence or inspiration to the empire.

The Arabs referred to them as the Romans, the citizens referred to themselves as the Empire of the Romans. You may say so what, but the Romanized Gauls, Brits and other provincials called themselves Roman. They had the dress, the culture, the institutions and perspective, noone at the time said they were not Romans. When the capitol of the Western empire moved from Rome to Ravenna, citizens in the ancient city and beyond didn't cease to be Romans. They were not called anything different either by contemporaries or historians.

Nobody called them Byzantines. Byzantine is an invention of of 16th century. The negative connotations that go along with the term were the result of our first modern historians of the 18th and 19th century. Gibbon and other contemporaries absolutely savaged any interest in or study of the Eastern Empire. They were ruthless in their denunciation of this empire that held the wealthiest, most sophisticated city in the world for quite some time, that preserved and later translated all the ancient learning that eventually allowed for Europe's ascension, and that protected Europe in its most base and pathetic moment from the Onslaught of conquesting Islam.

The Byzantines are quite possibly the only reason Europe exists in any recognizable Christian form and the reason they were later able to ascend to the top of the global food chain. Yet Byzantine has become a derogatory term synonymous with excessive, needless complexity and petty, duplicitous scheming. They've been ignored or diminished throughout history until recently because of the evisceration at the hands of our most prominent early modern historians. Its more than a bit of a tragedy.

I don't think using the term in the modern day is a problem because that is the label attached, in use for a few centuries, and it ain't going anywhere. But its inaccurate and quite frankly an affront to what they continued and represented.

QUOTE (Cimon @ Jan 30 2009, 21.37)

Fair enough, I understand your point, but it seems to me like history is full of this sort of retroactive naming of peoples, culture/whatever. For example, in a very broad sense, we refer to to anyone who inhabited modern Italy during the Middle Ages/Renaissance as Italians although there was nothing approaching a unified Italy at the time. To term them as Byzantines seems to me more a matter of expedience. It is easier to discern who you're talking about, and also distinguish them as a distinctly different culture, despite what they themselves maintained.

As I've stated above, the term Byzantine is itself retroactive naming. Not even the trumped up Holy Roman Emperors who were neither Roman, nor Emperors, nor Holy referred to the Eastern Empire as Byzantines. It was a construct of historians from the 16th century. Which was well after the fall of the empire. And the Italians thought of a unified Italy all the time. That's where the Roman Empire, the greatest power in history (so they assumed) and still very much in the consciousness of every single Florencian, Venetian, Genoan, and Roman, originated. Reuniting the peninsula and the city states to forge another empire was on the minds of many. Some as strong opponents and some as active instigators.

QUOTE (Red Sun @ Jan 31 2009, 04.33)

That's a hyperbole, but it's true that the North Italian city states did play a major role as actors in the "Holy Roman Empire", be it as staunch supporters of the emperors, be it as their enemies with concepts on their own. Venice is a bit different, because the official memory of Venice starts with Attila and the refugees that founded the city, and historiographic works rarely touch the history before that fondation. Venice has the closest ties to the Byzantines anyway. Venice is also never really interested in forming leagues with other towns.

All I was trying to say was that an idea of a united Italy had never really disappeared. That there were forces that contemplated such a unification and sometimes even made small efforts towards it. Some of them simply wanted to make Italy a greater player in Europe others had dreams of restoring the grandeur of the old empire. (though you're right, Venice was an outsider there. Shouldn't have included them.)

QUOTE (Galactus @ Jan 31 2009, 07.39)

This actually depends on the time-period. While "emperor of the romans" was one of the titles of the emperor in Constantinopole, at times they seem to have favoured Basileios Hellenos: King/Emperor of the Greeks. You're right in that no one called them byzantines, but neither was "romans" a universally applied term (for most of the middle-ages roman and greek seems to be used in paralell)

There was a significant degree of what we'd recognize today as Greek nationalism in the empire, but the most popular term to refer to themselves and to the empire was still Roman. They recognized and celebrated their Greek/Hellenistic heritage, but still saw themselves as the continuation of the Roman Empire. Emperor of the Greeks was a Western European invention that arose around the time the West started crowning its own 'emperors' and caused its share of political conflicts between east and west.

QUOTE (Galactus @ Jan 31 2009, 07.39)

Note that the Holy Roman Emperor was the Roman Emperor becuase he, you know, actually was the emperor of the romans. IE: The people who lived in Rome. At least in theory. (the people around Rome of course never stopped calling themselves romans either. (and quite early on the Conclave of Cardinals was more or less accepted as the heirs of the roman senate)

They had a title, but most were not emperors even in the most liberal definitions of the word. And only for the briefest periods of its history did it every control, occupy, or administer Rome. Most of the territories within it were functionally independent in just about every respect.

QUOTE (Red Sun @ Jan 31 2009, 15.27)

ETA: Btw, how would you define "emperor"?

At the very least the title would imply effective control over the territories that he or she claims to be in the sovereign realm. Or at least the ability to regularly exercise such control when necessary from a central authority. Very few of the HRE's actually had anything close to that. For most of the period the many principalities remain largely independent.