Europe 500AD and forward

[Abaddon]

I am currently developing a NES based roughly around the time 500AD. As such the more knowledge about that era the better. I am wiking to my hearts content, but i am hoping to pick some brains here aswell.

Basically what were the conditions under this time in europe?

Rome is in collapse?
The Hun approach?

etc, etc.


Any help much appreciated

 

[Nuka-sama]

Well, in 378 AD, the Huns defeated the Romans at Adrinople, In 402 AD, the Goths invaded Italy, and sacked Rome, pretty much ending the Western Empires power. In 443 AD, Atilla the Hun laid waste to the Balkans, and it took a massive bribe for him to not attack Constantanople, but came back in 477, defeated a enourmus Roman Army, and demanded another huge bribe. In 451, he invaded France with a massive army.

I think it was either 451 or 476, but that was when the western empire "officialy" colapsed.

In other words, if you want a barbarian invasion NES, I'd say set it in the year 400

 

[Abaddon]

No, i want that to have happened.. hense 500AD forwards

and more i mean is what is the general condition of life for your average person..

 

[Che Guava]

Short, miserable and most likely with a painful end?

 

[Head Serf]

Well, Western Rome was already collapsed and was under Ostrogothic rule. Spain was divided between the Visigoths in the East and South, and the Suebi in the northeast. The Franks were the most dominant tribe in Gaul. The Byzantines reconquered much of Italy, Spain, and North Africa in 527 under Justinian I. Life really depended on where you were in Europe. Being a Finn was a lot different than being a Visigoth or being a Byzantine.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

That one is a very difficult but interesting question since it is one of the most unknown ages in western Europe. It is for instance the time of the barbarians, the monks founding Benedictine monasteries where the remains of the old sciences were kept, the time of the King Arthur, paganism over christianity, etc. And one of the most mysterious and fascinating ages in despite of the little amount of documentation about it.

About life conditions in western Europe, there was a STRONG decline in every area, reaching the lowest point at the middle of the 6th century with a incredibly virulent bubonic plague (known as the plague of Justinian) who killed about half of the already declining population. In that time European population reached a historical minimum with almost all the continent mostly unpopulated. So, forests extended again across all the continent, over old roman ways and old towns and cities (it is said a squirrel could cross since south Spain until Siberia without touching the floor, as in paleolithic times), At this time urban centers were mostly abandoned and most people lived in isolated self-sufficient communities, very scattered across the unlimited woods.

I wonder if some of history buffs here can recommend some historical books (even some historical novels would be fine) about the sixth century.

 

[Esckey]

NES?

About 500AD British victory at "Mount Badon" under Ambrosius Aurelianus, the battle keeps the heathen Angles and Saxons for 40 years.
In 597 Augustine and his party sent by Pope Gregory I arrive at the King of Kents court to preach Christianity to the english

 

[Plotinus]

Here's a bibliography I did a little while ago on this period - the focus is on church history during this period, but there's a lot on general conditions then too. As Head Serf says, it really depends on what place you're talking about. Things were better in Spain than in France, for example.

Blair, J. The church in Anglo-Saxon society Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005
Brown, P. The rise of western Christendom: triumph and diversity 200-1000 AD 2nd. Ed. Oxford: Blackwell 2003
Carver, M., ed. The cross goes north: processes of conversion in northern Europe, AD 300-1300 York: Boydell 2003
Chapman, J. Saint Benedict and the sixth century Westport: Greenwood Press 1971
Christys, A. Christians in al-Andalus, 711-1000 Richmond: Curzon 2002
Collins, R. Visigothic Spain, 409-711 Oxford: Blackwell 2004
Cusack, C. Conversion among the Germanic peoples London: Cassell 1998
Daniel-Rops, H. The church in the Dark Ages London: Phoenix 2001
Dunn, M. The emergence of monasticism: from the Desert Fathers to the early Middle Ages Oxford: Blackwell 2000
Fletcher, R. Moorish Spain London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1992
Fletcher, R. The barbarian conversion: from paganism to Christianity Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1999
Gameson, R., ed. St Augustine and the conversion of England Stroud: Sutton 1999
Hillgarth, J., ed. Christianity and paganism, 350-750 rev. ed. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press 1986
Houwen, L. and MacDonald, A., eds. Alcuin of York: scholar at the Carolingian court Groningen: Forsten 1998
Hylson-Smith, K. Christianity in England from Roman times to the Reformation 1. from Roman times to 1066 London: SCM 2001
MacMullen, R. Christianity and paganism in the fourth to eighth centuries New Haven; London: Yale University Press 1997
Markus, R. Gregory the Great and his world Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press 1997
McKitterick, R., ed. Carolingian culture: emulation and innovation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994
Moorhead, J. Theoderic in Italy Oxford: Clarendon 1993
Olsen, T. Christianity and the Celts Oxford: Lion 2003
De Paor, L. Saint Patrick’s world: the Christian culture of Ireland’s Apostolic Age Blackrock: Four Courts 1993
Pelikan, J. The Christian tradition: A history of the development of doctrine 3. The growth of medieval theology (600-1300) Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1978
Richards, J. The popes and the Papacy in the early Middle Ages 476-752 London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1979
Wallace-Hadrill, J. The Frankish church Oxford: Clarendon 1983
Watt, J. The church in medieval Ireland 2nd. Ed. Dublin: Macmillan 1998
Webster, L. and Brown, M., eds. The transformation of the Roman world AD 400-900 London: British Museum Press 1997
Wood, I. The missionary life: saints and the evangelisation of Europe Harlow; New York: Longman 2001

A couple of other books that have very good descriptions of everyday life in this period are:

Smith, T. De Gratia: Faustus of Riez’s treatise on grace and its place in the history of theology (sorry, I don't have publication details for this)

George, J. Vanantius Fortunatus Oxford: Clarendon 1992

 

[Tee Kay]

The Byzantines (Justinian) and Sassanids (Khosrau) dominates Europe and the Mid East. Western Europe in hands of often warring kingdoms of the Visigoths, Franks, Ostrogoths, Lombards etc. Life continues just as much as it had for common people in Roman times (the "barbarians" widely adopted the Roman way of life) there's still ethnic divisions between Germanic migrants and Roman/Celtic inhabitant. There was a plague (the Plague of Justinian) There was apperantly some climatic change around the year 535. And of course there's the Arab invasion of AD 630s.

 

[sydhe]

In 500, Clovis is busy conquering most of France. The southern coast is ruled by the Visigoths in the west and I think the Ostrogoths have Provence. The Kingdom of Burgundy is in what is now southeastern France, northwestern Italy and Switzerland until 534. There's a Vandal kingdom in what is now Tunisia until the reign of Justinian.

 

[Luckymoose]

NES?

Yes a fun game right here on the forums.

NESing Forum

 

[Wolfhart]

In 500, Clovis is busy conquering most of France. The southern coast is ruled by the Visigoths in the west and I think the Ostrogoths have Provence.

In 500 Clovis hasn't really started yet. Aquitaine (southwestern France all the way up to the river Loire) and Septimania (Languedoc) are Visigothic and so is Provence with Arles, and the Visigothic King Alaric II resides in Toulouse (Regnum Tolosanum).

There's a Vandal kingdom in what is now Tunisia until the reign of Justinian.

And northern Algeria, Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic islands were also under Vandal rule.

Very roughly outlined (borders weren't that absolute then, especially outside the Roman empires) you also have the Gepids in Transsylvania, the Herules in Hungary, the Langobards north of the Herules, the Alemannians in northern Switzerland and Baden-Württemberg, the Thuringians in central Germany and the Saxons northwest of them bordering to the North Sea.
The Ostrogoths under Theodoric the Great holds mainland Italy, Sicily, southern Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and parts of Serbia (Sirmium is the eastern outpost).
The Huns are gone, except some minor remnants like the Bittuguric Huns living in Ostrogothic Italy and serving Theodoric.

 

[Wolfhart]

Clovis and his Franks are the prime threat in the year 500 AD. They will soon attack the Alemannians, the Visigoths, the Burgundians and the Thuringians, and crush them all, one after one, except the Visigoths who lose Aquitaine to the Franks, Provence to the Ostrogoths, and the Visigothic capital moves to Toledo in Spain (Regnum Toletanum).

The Langobards (Lombards) start out in a modest scale by moving to Hungary and crushing the Herulic kingdom there.

The Byzantines lay low until the time of Justinian, when they first crush the Vandals (a quick victory), and then the Ostrogoths (a long and hard war that takes some 20 years until the last Ostrogothic defenders surrender). When the Ostrogoths are finally crushed the Byzantines soon lose northern Italy to their former allies, the Langobards who just before that allied with the newly-arrived Avars to crush the Gepids.

All this time the Angles and Saxons (and Jutes if you believe Bede) are conquering England. The Slavs are moving in to central Europe during this time. And I haven't mentioned smaller peoples like the Frisians, and noone really knows what's happening politically in Scandinavia during this time.

It's a busy 6th century!

 

[StarWorms]

Have a look here, there's some information about that period: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Middle_Ages

Although I haven't read it, the gist seems to be that the collapse of the Roman Empire caused the migrations of many different european tribes.

 

[Plotinus]

I think in fact it would be the other way around - the first stage of the Völkerwanderung took place in the third century AD, and the second in the fourth and fifth, and this was a major factor behind the disintegration of the empire. The migrations, which continued until the tenth or eleventh centuries, occurred for a whole heap of reasons, but I'm not sure that the fall of the empire was high among them.