GERMANS• Around 500 BC, Germanic people

began to migrate out of Scandinavia and northeastern Russia and had occupied Germany by 100 BC– Formerly occupied by Celts

• They were primarily a pastoral people who lived off the products of their sheep and cattle– Augmented by hunting– Other favorite activity was

fighting• Some in organized campaigns

to seize land• More often in individual raids

to steal cattle, capture slaves, etc.

BONDS OF PERSONAL LOYALTY

• No formal political organization– They were tied together by bonds of

personal loyalty• Kinship• Lordship

• Kinship was based on the clan– Groups of clans would join together

to form a tribe• Maintained cohesion by making

up myth of a common, heroic ancestor

– Function was mutual protections• Kin expected to get vengence if a

fellow clan member was killed or injured by an outsider

LORDSHIP• Relationship between a leader

and his retinue of warriors– Voluntary relationship

• Leading man would call on any brave young man to go on raid with him– Those who answered call

swore to serve leader faithfully in return for his protection and a share of the spoils

– Transcended clan loyalty– Members form groups of

companions, bond together and to their leader by oaths

CULTURAL DIVERSIFICATION• Before 500 BC, all Germans had a similar language and

culture– But after the migrations, different groups became

isolated from one another and differences in language and culture developed

• Two distinct groups of Germans had emerged by the 4th century AD– West Germans

• Franks, Saxons, and Alemanni• Settled along Roman border on the Rhine River

– East Germans• Goths, Vandals, Lombards• Modern-day Hungary and southern Russia

GOTHS• Divided into two major sub-groups

– Visigoths • Lived along Danube River

– Ostrogoths• Lived in southern Russia

• Developed a more advanced form of political organization than other Germans– United under strong kings– In close contact with the Eastern

Roman Empire• Influenced by Greek/Roman culture• First Germanic tribe to convert to

Christianity• First to become literate and

assume a veneer of civilization Ostrogoth Chest

WEST GERMANS

• More primitive• Large men with long red or

blond hair and blue eyes• Lived to hunt and fight

– In times of peace they drank until they passed out

• No form of central government– War leader might be

selected in an emergency but what little unity they possessed was provided by kinship and lordship

CONTACT• Romans and Germans had

influenced each other since beginning of the empire– Beginning in 3rd century AD,

Germans had enlisted in Roman army

• Joined in units known as foederati

• Given land in border regions when they retired

– Trade also developed between the two

• Germans supplied slaves and cattle in exchange for jewelry, weapons, textiles, and potterty

CONFUSING SITUATION• Peaceful trading alternated with warfare

– Germans constantly pressed against borders of empire

• Confusing situation– Franks occupied both sides of Rhine

River• Those in Roman territory fought as

foederati for Rome against their cousins across the river

• Same situation along Danube River• By the end of the 4th century, Roman army

was nothing more than an army of barbarians fighting under Roman command– Even some high officers were German

by this time

Until 400 AD, Germans had been

satisfied with launching periodic raids into empire

But around 400 AD, entire tribes and nations began to move into the empire at the same time

Captured territory, settled there, and set up independent kingdoms under their own rulers and laws

This massive migration caused

collapse of western Roman Empire

HUNS• Nomadic people from Mongolia

– Expert horsemen– Tried to invade China in 370

AD• Failed and then turned

west– Moved across

southern Russia into Europe where they terrorized German tribes

» Germans migrated en masse in Roman Empire to escape Huns

THE END

• German invasions began in 375 AD when Visigoths crossed Danube River and permanently entered the empire– Followed by many others– Rome unable to

effectively resist them• In 476, the last Western

Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by Ostrogothic chieftain Odovocar and the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist

Numerous barbarian kingdoms established in

old Western Empire

Vandals Ostrogoths

Burgundians

Franks

Visigoths

Angles and

Saxons

Other tribes such as Lombards,

Thuringians, Jutes, and Frisians still

wandering around Denmark,

Netherlands, and Eastern Europe

Some of these new kingdoms would not

last long

Justinian would kick Ostrogoths out of Italy (555)

and also conquer Vandal kingdom in North Africa

(533)

Franks would push Visigoths out of southern

France (507)

Arabs would overrun Visigothic Kingdom in Spain

(711)

RESULTS I

• With establishment of barbarian kingdoms, Europe, as a single unified political unit, was finished forever– Replaced by a multitude of small,

competing entities that would, in different shapes, dominate European history until today

– Politically unified Europe, as it had been under Rome, remains an unfulfilled dream

RESULTS II

• Ancient civilization and culture had been in decline for a long time before the barbarian invasions– People had been frozen in their occupations,

cities had been virtually abandoned, crime had been increasing, trade was falling off, population had been dropping, intellectual activity was stagnant, nothing new in art and literature had been produced, political corruption, irresponsibility, and disregard for civil rights had become normal part of Roman government

• The barbarian invasions accelerated this process of disintegration

RESULTS III• Ancient civilization had exhausted itself by the Late Roman

Empire– Nothing original left in it that could be used to build

something new and better– Barbarians did western civilization a favor by putting the

stagnant and dying ancient world out of its misery• Barbarians held the key to the future

– Though violent and primitive, their culture was alive and vital• Their institutions contained the kernel for future

development• When barbarian institutions mixed with the intellectual vitality

of Christianity (and the way in which barbarians would adapt old Roman institutions), the result was a new world

Emperor Constantine had built a new imperial capital on site of old Greek city-state named Byzantium—called

it Constantinople

Eastern half of Roman Empire with

Constantinople as its capital would survive for

almost 1000 years after fall of Western half

ADVANTAGES I• Eastern empire survived

because it was in better shape than the west– Had a larger population– Its civilization was older

and better implanted – Cities were larger and more

numerous– Small farmers were more

prosperous– Commerce and industry

were more healthy• East was simply more

structurally sound than the west and better able to resist barbarian invasions

Library in Alexandria in Byzantine Empire

ADVANTAGES II• East also possessed important

strategic advantages– Key province of Asia Minor

was protected from invasions by Black Sea to the north and by the virtually impregnable citadel of Constantinople to the south

• Asia Minor also became main source of workers, soldiers, and tax revenue– It held up the east – Loyal troops from region

allowed Byzantine emperors to avoid dangerous policy of recruiting German mercenaries

SURVIVAL AND LEGACY• Constantinople was attacked by

Germans, Huns, Mongols, Persians, and Arabs– And repelled them all

• Byzantine empire would last until 1453 when Constantinople was finally conquered by Ottoman Turks

• But it would, before it gell spread Christianity to new regions, protect Western Europe, preserve a great deal of the ancient heritage, and create many religious, political, and social practices that remain in use today

BYZANTINE CIVILIZATION• Made up three components

– Roman government– Christian religion– Greek culture

• Byzantine government was a direct descendant of the Roman political system as modified by Diocletian and Constantine– Emperors were glorified as

gods, they retained tight control of the church, and they kept the high taxes of the Late Roman Empire

IMPORTANT JOB• Empire saw itself as an isolated

and beleaguered outpost of civilization and Christianity– Surrounded by a swarming and

hostile ocean of barbarians and pagans

• Chief duty of emperor was therefore to protect this island of civilization

– Surrounded by majesty and elaborate rituals to illustrate the important job he had to perform

VIOLENCE• Out of 88 Byzantine emperors total

– 13 resigned voluntarily or involuntarily

– 30 died violent deaths• Starved, poisoned, strangled,

stabbed, decapitated, beat to death, cut into little pieces, or had their eyes gouged out

• Emperors themselves were sometimes pretty bad– Constantine murdered his oldest

son and drowned his daughter-in-law

– Basil III gouged out the eyes of 15,000 Bulgar prisoners

BUREAUCRACY

• Huge bureaucracy provided continuity to imperial government

– Gigantic even by modern standards

– There was a bureaucrat for even the most trivial function of government

– Even had intelligence service called “Bureau of Barbarians”

– Generally efficient

ECONOMIC REGULATION• Bureaucracy produced ever-

growing number of laws and regulations in which it attempted to subordinate individual interests to those of the state– Economic activity strictly

regulated• Prices, rents, and wages

were controlled• Inspectors regulated product

quality• Government had monopolies

in certain industries• Interest rates frozen at 8%

POLICE STATE?

• Unemployed persons forced to work on state projects or not receive any aid

• Taverns closed at 8:00 pm• Punishments for such crimes

as treason, blasphemy, incest, arson, and even some economic crimes were brutal

• Foreigners visiting the empire were kept under constant surveillance

• Spies were everywhere– Forced the historian

Precopius to lead an intellectual double life

SUMMARY

• Two factors must be kept in mind when considering Byzantine policies– Their political system was a direct descendant of the

system originally established by Diocletian• Merely fine-tuned a basically repressive system they

inherited from the Romans– Empire saw itself as an isolated and besieged outpost of

civilization in a fundamentally barbarian world• Believed that any slip in security might open the door

to their numerous enemies and cause the same sort of destruction as had happened in the west

• Believed that the very survival of their society and civilization required repression