What exactly happened after the fall of Rome?

[civver_764]

I've been interested in this for awhile, but everything I've looked up about it basically just told me that a bunch of barbarians took over the area and united under Christianity. That doesn't really help me. How did all of these countries that were around at the Renaissance(England, France, Spain, Ottomans, Italy) even come about? I know a little bit about Charlemagne and the Crusades, but other than that my knowledge of Western Europe in the Middle Ages is very limited.

Basically I'm asking, from after the fall of Rome(5th century I guess) what happened in Europe that made all of these huge powerful countries rise up. Just a general outline would be good.

 

[Leifmk]

I've been interested in this for awhile, but everything I've looked up about it basically just told me that a bunch of barbarians took over the area and united under Christianity.

Mind you, this was a pretty gradual process; many of these various barbarians were more like immigrants to the Roman empire than invaders, and saw much to admire in the Roman culture, adopting parts of its legal code along its religion, etc. Also, the Empire as such wasn't gone, it had just lost its western and poorer half, and was left with one Emperor instead of two.

That doesn't really help me. How did all of these countries that were around at the Renaissance(England, France, Spain, Ottomans, Italy) even come about? I know a little bit about Charlemagne and the Crusades, but other than that my knowledge of Western Europe in the Middle Ages is very limited.

Basically I'm asking, from after the fall of Rome(5th century I guess) what happened in Europe that made all of these huge powerful countries rise up. Just a general outline would be good.

1. Breakdown of centralized western Imperial authority and trade leading to rise of locally-based feudal authorities. A bunch of ruinous wars large and small with various causes, both between different "barbarian" kingdoms and involving the eastern Empire trying to reassert authority. Three hundred years of petty history where most of the details are of interest to specialists only.

2. Islam shows up after a while, kicks the Eastern empire out of North Africa (which really really hurts said empire) and gets as far as conquering the Iberian peninsula before running out of steam.

3. Charlemagne is definitely key. Powerful, ambitious ruler of the large Frankish kingdom, he extended his rule across nearly all of modern France plus much of Italy and Germany. Was a fan of book-learning and sponsored monasteries and general education heavily; the Latin language wouldn't have been as important for the following thousand years if not for this. He had ambitions of restoring the whole of the Roman empire as a unified entity, but "only" managed to revive the title of Emperor of the west (officially approved by the Pope at the time). Because the Franks still used to split their kingdoms among their sons (when there was more than one), his empire fragmented after his death.

4. By this time most of those feudal barbarian nations from point 1 have become converted to Christianity, and said religion keeps spreading far beyond the previous borders of the Empire. There's still not a really clear political or theological split between the western (Latin-speaking) and eastern (Greek-speaking) churches. The title of (Holy Roman) Emperor remains for a long time, although its political significance is slowly eroded over the coming centuries. More feudalism, Vikings show up and cause trouble for a while (until their homelands are Christianized), people build cathedrals etc. The idea of the nation-state is far in the future, folks owe allegiance to their families or a particular chieftain or baron or king or whatever, but sometimes also to an overarching ideal (see "Crusades" for example).

5. Crusades and increasing transcontinental trade bring and mix different technologies and ideas together. Gradually increasing urbanism, etc. Then comes the Black Death and gives the established economic order a kick in the pants; as the chaos settles a bit, land has become much cheaper and labour more expensive, this eventually sets the stage for more centralization of power and economy as well as the growth of the urban classes.

6. The actual modern nation-state, based on the geographical, cultural and/or linguistic identity of its population, is a very modern concept, as in 19th century modern (with a few earlier precursors). From the point of view of the late Middle Ages it lies on the other side of a whole lot of goobledegook about the Divine Right of Kings (not a medieval concept) and some rather nasty history such as the 30 Years' War, cuius regio, eius religio, the French Revolution, etc.

 

[Plotinus]

3. Charlemagne is definitely key. Powerful, ambitious ruler of the large Frankish kingdom, he extended his rule across nearly all of modern France plus much of Italy and Germany. Was a fan of book-learning and sponsored monasteries and general education heavily; the Latin language wouldn't have been as important for the following thousand years if not for this.

I can't agree with this. Latin was already the language of learning and scholarship before Charlemagne turned up, and there were plenty of monasteries all over the place. Charlemagne's educational reforms were directed not at monasteries (what we might think of as the equivalent of higher education, I suppose) but at educating everyone else (the equivalent of primary education) - hence the establishment of a system of free education for everyone. These reforms did not really make a big impact.

Because the Franks still used to split their kingdoms among their sons (when there was more than one), his empire fragmented after his death.

Actually, of course, the empire fragmented after the death of Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious, who was the one with all the sons. I suppose you could say that the nation state arose gradually after this happened. Charlemagne, and later the Holy Roman Empire, might be thought of as the last gasps of the ancient European obsession with empire. As the Middle Ages progressed, people gradually lost that ideal and converted to a new one, that of the nation state. I don't think it's really true that the notion of a nation state is a modern one; people certainly thought of themselves as English, French, Italian etc at least by the late Middle Ages and were quite capable of having petty squabbles based on nationality (much of the Great Schism of the fourteenth century was about French ecclesiastics and Italian ones hating each other, for example).

 

[Naskra]

Interesting new book on this subject:

www.amazon.com/Inheritance-Rome-Illuminating-Dark-400-1000/dp/0670020982[/URL]

The Inheritance of Rome by C. Wickham.

 

[Agent327]

I can't agree with this. Latin was already the language of learning and scholarship before Charlemagne turned up, and there were plenty of monasteries all over the place. Charlemagne's educational reforms were directed not at monasteries (what we might think of as the equivalent of higher education, I suppose) but at educating everyone else (the equivalent of primary education) - hence the establishment of a system of free education for everyone. These reforms did not really make a big impact.

That may be, but state sponsorship or endorsement would certainly have been beneficial. Charles VIII's and the Reformation's closure of monasteries may not have been as detrimental to education in general, as by the 10th-16th centuries universities were springing up. General education ofcourse is a typical modern idea.

Actually, of course, the empire fragmented after the death of Charlemagne's son, Louis the Pious, who was the one with all the sons. I suppose you could say that the nation state arose gradually after this happened. Charlemagne, and later the Holy Roman Empire, might be thought of as the last gasps of the ancient European obsession with empire. As the Middle Ages progressed, people gradually lost that ideal and converted to a new one, that of the nation state. I don't think it's really true that the notion of a nation state is a modern one; people certainly thought of themselves as English, French, Italian etc at least by the late Middle Ages and were quite capable of having petty squabbles based on nationality (much of the Great Schism of the fourteenth century was about French ecclesiastics and Italian ones hating each other, for example).

The nation-state is most certainly a modern idea. Prior to the 19th century people may have thought about themselves as belonging to a nation, but to most commoners their local surroundings, provinces at the most were paramount in their views. Even today there are in the West many folk who'll identify with their football club, city, province, county, what have you, rather than with the state - and certainly not with a supranational federation. Preferring your own (language) group over another group is certainly not the same as pitting state against state - a privilege reserved for much of history to monarchs, generals - and republics. (Most armies prior to the 19th century were comparatively small; only with the introduction of conscription was it possible to truly speak of a national army and the sizes of armies increased to the scale of the nations.)

 

[Plotinus]

That may be, but state sponsorship or endorsement would certainly have been beneficial. Charles VIII's and the Reformation's closure of monasteries may not have been as detrimental to education in general, as by the 10th-16th centuries universities were springing up. General education ofcourse is a typical modern idea.

I wasn't disagreeing with the claim that Charlemagne's sponsorship of education was important (although I don't think it was as important as people often make out); I was disagreeing with the claim that this influenced the importance of Latin as the language of scholarship.

The nation-state is most certainly a modern idea. Prior to the 19th century people may have thought about themselves as belonging to a nation...

Doesn't your second sentence there just flat-out contradict your first?

...but to most commoners their local surroundings, provinces at the most were paramount in their views. Even today there are in the West many folk who'll identify with their football club, city, province, county, what have you, rather than with the state - and certainly not with a supranational federation.

No doubt, and they are probably sensible to do so. But why's that relevant? You don't have to "identify" with the nation in which you live in order to have a concept of a nation. I don't identify with the nation in which I live in any way whatsoever, at least I hope not, but I think I've got a fairly clear notion of it.

Preferring your own (language) group over another group is certainly not the same as pitting state against state - a privilege reserved for much of history to monarchs, generals - and republics. (Most armies prior to the 19th century were comparatively small; only with the introduction of conscription was it possible to truly speak of a national army and the sizes of armies increased to the scale of the nations.)

It wasn't just a matter of one language group against another; they all spoke Latin most of the time anyway. And while preferring your own (language) group over another isn't the same thing as pitting state against state, I don't see why "pitting state against state" should be viewed as the litmus test of a notion of nation. Once again, I'm not in the habit of going to war against other states, but I still have a notion of what a state is. Why assume that all-out national warfare must be a precondition of the notion of a nation?

 

[shortguy]

As the Middle Ages progressed, people gradually lost that ideal and converted to a new one, that of the nation state. I don't think it's really true that the notion of a nation state is a modern one; people certainly thought of themselves as English, French, Italian etc at least by the late Middle Ages and were quite capable of having petty squabbles based on nationality (much of the Great Schism of the fourteenth century was about French ecclesiastics and Italian ones hating each other, for example).

I think you could plausibly say that the idea of a nation arose in the Middle Ages, but the idea of the nation-state I think more modern. So Italian clerics might have fought with French ones on account of nationality, but this national feeling did not, as far as I'm aware, extend to the desire for a single, unified Italian state.

 

[innonimatu]

I think you could plausibly say that the idea of a nation arose in the Middle Ages, but the idea of the nation-state I think more modern. So Italian clerics might have fought with French ones on account of nationality, but this national feeling did not, as far as I'm aware, extend to the desire for a single, unified Italian state.

I agree with your view. The nation as the state, as a superstructure under which everything else must fit, is indeed a 19th century notion.

But I would call that "nation-state", and still admit the use of "nation" for previous centuries, for a feeling of identity minus the allegiance to a single government. And Plotinus is right that, especially in medieval thinking, having multiple allegiances was the norm, and therefore a "national feeling" could coexist with other loyalties.

 

[frekk]

No doubt, and they are probably sensible to do so. But why's that relevant? You don't have to "identify" with the nation in which you live in order to have a concept of a nation. I don't identify with the nation in which I live in any way whatsoever, at least I hope not, but I think I've got a fairly clear notion of it.

In the Middle Ages there was no concept of nation for the simple fact that such things didn't exist yet. I suppose there were probably notions based on common language and so on, but not any coherent identity - in a thousand years someone will be explaining something similar to someone who can't grasp the notion of a time before continental entitites and identities, can't understand that the English or the French or whoever never thought about "European" as an identity group before the late 19th century, and still didn't have much of a concept of it in the 20th. Even today the EU is attempting to forge a true European identity; someday it will, and succeeding generations will be unable to comprehend the notion of a primarily national identity.

Most of the present day nations were composed of a collection of regional language groupings. France, for instance, had Occitanians, Alsatians, Walloons, Aquitanians, Bretons, and a host of others, none of whom spoke French as a native tongue. French was not actually a lingua franca throughout present-day France either, only in certain parts; the lingua franca of government and trade was Latin, and remained so until 1539 when the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts succesfully legislated French as the new lingua franca. This was part of a conscious effort to forge a unified French identity. The creation of a French identity that extended to the present territory is the result of a conscious, systematic repression of these identities and their languages, that took place during the late Middle Ages and early modern period.

It's the same thing in Germany or even the very insular society of England. England had its local languages too; Cornish in the southeast, Danish throughout most of the northeast, Cumbric in the northwest.

The closest thing they had to a national identity in the Middle Ages wasn't based on the regional patterns that eventually crystallized into nation-states. The closest parallel was a deep sense of the old Roman empire as being the source of legitimate central authority. The Church, the Holy Roman Empire, Kaisers and Czars and so on were all attempting to appeal to this notion.

It wasn't just a matter of one language group against another; they all spoke Latin most of the time anyway.

No, they didn't. Not in everyday life. Latin was the language of the clergy, of bureaucracy, of long-distance trade; you didn't speak Latin ordering cuts at the butcher's or calling your children to supper or chatting about the weather with neighbours. Most people didn't even speak Latin. That was one of Martin Luther's big complaints about the Latin liturgy, only the educated classes knew what was actually in the Bible. The only people who spoke Latin were those who needed to use an international language on a regular basis - long-distance traders, bureaucrats administering multilingual kingdoms, nobles, scholars, and clergy.

Once again, I'm not in the habit of going to war against other states, but I still have a notion of what a state is.

You have a very modern notion of what a state is ... most of your notions probably didn't exist even when nation-states were first being formed as kings finally broke the power of nobles, created national civil services, and set themselves up as absolutist monarchs governing specific (rather than ever-shifting) territories. In the 19th century, Western cultures went through a period of what's called "National Romanticism" which created most of these notions of a consistent historical identity stretching back into pre-modern times and based on attachment to a certain geographical area, an identity that never was. National Romanticism projected modern attitudes onto cultures of the past, in an effort to provide (false) historical legitimacy/continuity to the national state, and to obscure the origins of the national state. National states were artificial creations of the elites, legislated into being and built on the repression of local cultures. National Romanticism attempted to portray the origins of the national state as some sort of pre-existant reality of the people that somehow finally found expression (the Volkisch movement, the idea of the Norman Yoke, "blithe world in England" and all that stuff), but this is now widely known to be wishful thinking.

 

[Plotinus]

In the Middle Ages there was no concept of nation for the simple fact that such things didn't exist yet. I suppose there were probably notions based on common language and so on, but not any coherent identity - in a thousand years someone will be explaining something similar to someone who can't grasp the notion of a time before continental entitites and identities, can't understand that the English or the French or whoever never thought about "European" as an identity group before the late 19th century, and still didn't have much of a concept of it in the 20th. Even today the EU is attempting to forge a true European identity; someday it will, and succeeding generations will be unable to comprehend the notion of a primarily national identity.

Most of the present day nations were composed of a collection of regional language groupings. France, for instance, had Occitanians, Alsatians, Walloons, Aquitanians, Bretons, and a host of others, none of whom spoke French as a native tongue. French was not actually a lingua franca throughout present-day France either, only in certain parts; the lingua franca of government and trade was Latin, and remained so until 1539 when the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts succesfully legislated French as the new lingua franca. This was part of a conscious effort to forge a unified French identity. The creation of a French identity that extended to the present territory is the result of a conscious, systematic repression of these identities and their languages, that took place during the late Middle Ages and early modern period.

It's the same thing in Germany or even the very insular society of England. England had its local languages too; Cornish in the southeast, Danish throughout most of the northeast, Cumbric in the northwest.

The closest thing they had to a national identity in the Middle Ages wasn't based on the regional patterns that eventually crystallized into nation-states. The closest parallel was a deep sense of the old Roman empire as being the source of legitimate central authority. The Church, the Holy Roman Empire, Kaisers and Czars and so on were all attempting to appeal to this notion.

Then what did people think that (say) the king of France ruled? I just don't get the impression that he was thought of merely as a lord who ruled certain disparate territories that had nothing to do with each other apart from being his domains. Rather, he was king of something, although certainly it was viewed as more fluid than modern France would be. I don't have any particular evidence for this to hand though.

I'm well aware that there are aspects to the modern notion of a state that didn't exist in the Middle Ages, such as the idea of the state as something existing over and above its constituents, which I suppose is the basic idea of fascism. People in the Middle Ages had various weird ideals but they were fortunate not to have that or its watered-down version, nationalism.

No, they didn't. Not in everyday life. Latin was the language of the clergy, of bureaucracy, of long-distance trade; you didn't speak Latin ordering cuts at the butcher's or calling your children to supper or chatting about the weather with neighbours. Most people didn't even speak Latin.

I know that. I was talking about the clergy involved in the Great Schism, not about medieval people in general.

 

[frekk]

Rather, he was king of something, although certainly it was viewed as more fluid than modern France would be.

Yeah, and alot smaller too. He was only king of the royal demesne and of his direct vassals, which was just a rather large fief (although in quite a few cases, the royal demesne is not the largest or best fiefdom of all those associated with that crown). Here's a map of territories of the French crown in Phillip II's day; blue is royal demesne. The rest are vassals, church lands, or vassals of the English crown:

The English fiefdoms, at this time, aren't territories conquered in an invasion; the House of Anjou held the English Crown, and they were originally French nobles (Counts of Anjou) and still held a number of fiefdoms in France. The king was not the only one who had vassals, either - through subinfeudation, any landed vassal could himself have vassals, and many nobles became quite a bit more powerful than kings by collecting vassals. Sometimes, they became so powerful they began styling themselves as kings.

And there was no notion of a "natural" or "original" France. It began as Western Francia, only a portion of the Frankish empire that had been broken off, and created by an agreement between rival claimants to the Frankish empire in the Treaty of Verdun. The other two portions were the Kingdom of Lothair or Middle Francia (which included parts of what is today France, Germany, and Italy), which eventually disappeared, and the Kingdom of Eastern Francia, which became the Holy Roman Empire (ie Germany) later on.

Western Francia itself contained a collection of kingdoms and other fiefdoms (Aquitaine, Burgundy etc were kingdoms at this time). Within Western Francia, there was a France ... a Duchy, not a kingdom, in the northeast. It became styled a kingdom under the Capetians (who were originally Dukes of France).

 

[Plotinus]

So where the key to the map mentions "le roi d'Angleterre" (i.e. a king of England, rather than a king who is English), is that anachronistic? Or would that have been understood in a different way in the Middle Ages?

 

[frekk]

Well, you couldn't say "the English king" because they weren't English

 

[Plotinus]

Well, I mean if there was a notion of "England", with a king, then you have a concept of a geographical area (not simply an ethnic group) with a single ruler or government. So how does that differ from our modern notion of England or any other country (ignoring differences of geography etc)?

 

[frekk]

Well, I mean if there was a notion of "England", with a king, then you have a concept of a geographical area (not simply an ethnic group) with a single ruler or government. So how does that differ from our modern notion of England or any other country (ignoring differences of geography etc)?

Geoffrey of Monmouth - does that indicate that Monmouth was a political unit with a single ruler and government? No ... it's just being used to mean that Geoffrey, the one from Monmouth.

Punch in "King from England" in any English-French translator and you'll get "Roi de l'Angleterre".

 

[Agent327]

Doesn't your second sentence there just flat-out contradict your first?

Not really: that's precisely the difference between nation and nation-state (which is a 19th century invention). The official name of the HRE, e.g., was the Holy Roman Empire of [the] German Nation (H. römisches Reich deutscher Nation). Nation (from natio - natus) derives directly from classic Latin, while state derives from Italian stato. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Leifmk]

I wasn't disagreeing with the claim that Charlemagne's sponsorship of education was important (although I don't think it was as important as people often make out); I was disagreeing with the claim that this influenced the importance of Latin as the language of scholarship.

Ah, but what I recall reading/hearing (don't you love those unsourced statements from memory?) is that, at the time, there was a natural tendency in various parts towards the increased use of the local vernacular in writing, especially among those non-clericals/non-monastics who were literate. Charlemagne's sponsorship of general education utilized clerical/monastic manpower and resources and was thus arguably influential in counteracting this tendency by promoting Latin for wider use.

 

[Traitorfish]

Geoffrey of Monmouth - does that indicate that Monmouth was a political unit with a single ruler and government? No ... it's just being used to mean that Geoffrey, the one from Monmouth.

You're forgetting the context in which the the title "King of England" emerged- the title was originally "King of the English", the rule of England being implied by his rule over it's inhabitants, a defined ethnic group who in turn defined the boundaries of "England", the land of the English. It was only as Europe drifted away from the tribal loyalties of the Migration Period into the land-based feudal loyalties of the Middle Ages that it became more important to state the lands controlled by a monarch than the people who defined those lands, and lead to titles shifting accordingly. Political entities began to exist as independent, self-perpetuating accumulations of power and wealth, rather than as collections of people.
This means that a rough, early form of modern nationhood was indeed acknowledge in the medieval period, but it had lost the connotations of political sovereignty that it had once held, and would regain with the rise of nationalism.

 

[frekk]

Political entities began to exist as independent, self-perpetuating accumulations of power and wealth, rather than as collections of people.
This means that a rough, early form of modern nationhood was indeed acknowledge in the medieval period, but it had lost the connotations of political sovereignty that it had once held, and would regain with the rise of nationalism.

You're confusing "nation" and "state". A national state without sovereignty is a contradiction in terms.

France could not have formed, nor the United Kingdom, under these conditions. Vassalage (especially in the case of France), primogeniture, and the fact that sovereignty resided heritably in the royal person, at various stages, were all necessary for the formation of these entities. They did not proceed from any concept of nation or self-determination.

 

[civver_764]

What is the difference between, say, modern day Italy and the Roman Empire? They don't both count as nations?