Introduction to Early Medieval Western Europe, 300-900: The Sword, the Plough and the Book

Chapter 2 – Barbarians, the Roman frontier and the crisis of the western empire

• What roles did cities play in the later Roman Empire? Where were the main cities located and how were they governed?
• How accurate is the idea of a ‘decline and fall’ in civic life under the later Roman Empire? How can a ‘regional’ perspective help us to answer this question?
• Has the concept of ‘barbarian invasions’ outlived its usefulness? Should we rather discuss periods of migration, or ‘assimilation’, with sporadic outbreaks of violence?
• Why do historians discuss ‘national identities’ with reference to early medieval ‘barbarians’?
• How was the later Roman Empire organised and run? How did the divide between ‘civil’ and ‘military’ work on the ground?
• How ‘corrupt’ were the workings of late Roman bureaucracy? How should we define late Roman ‘corruption’: do our modern categories apply? Does payment of money (‘venality’ / ‘simony’) always signal corrupt practices?

Chapter 3 – The fifth-century west and the ‘fall of Rome’

• How did Rome, the ‘eternal city’, change and develop under the Later Roman Empire?
• What kinds of relationships existed between urban and rural economies in the later Roman empire? How do these relationships vary according to place and time?
• What role did literacy play in religious change?
• How important is an understanding of the late Roman army in thinking about ‘barbarian assimilation’?
• How important is an understanding of late Roman taxation in thinking about ‘barbarian settlement’?
• What factors contributed to the ‘sack of Rome’ in 410 and were these forces also at play in other regions of the late empire?
• Did the empire really ‘collapse’ in the West in 476?

Chapter 4 – The western Mediterranean in the age of ‘reconquest’

• How and why did barbarian leaders come to supplant the agents of the Roman state as the rulers of the Empire’s western provinces?
• To what extent were barbarian kings operating within the cultural, legal and political framework inherited from the Roman Empire?
• What were the long-term effects of Justinian’s attempt to re-conquer the West?
• What factors account for the rise of the ‘cult of saints’ in late antiquity?
• How did civic life change in Europe between the late Roman and the early medieval periods?
• What different kinds of social functions did saints and holy men/women fulfil? Were sacred people more important than sacred places in late antiquity?
• How, when and why did barbarians become the rulers of kingdoms outside of the Empire?

Chapter 5 – Arabs, Avars and amphoras: causes and consequences of imperial collapse

• In what senses can we speak of the Roman Empire ‘surviving’ in the East (to what extent, until when, etc.)?
• Was the ‘Byzantine empire’ the creation of Justinian and his successors, rather than of Constantine? When was the term ‘Byzantine Empire’ coined?
• What major shifts in political, economic and social life took place between the reigns of Justinian and (a) Constantine (b) Theodosius II?
• Why did Islam spread so fast?
• What impact did ‘Arab’ conquests have on (a) the Byzantine empire and (b) the Persian empire?
• Who were the ‘Slavs’ and what kind of contact did they have with the Byzantine empire?
• Was the Byzantine empire in the sixth-eighth centuries ‘isolated from the rest of Europe’?

Chapter 6 – Hispania and Italy: contrasting communities

• How and why did barbarian leaders come to supplant the agents of the Roman state as the rulers of the Empire’s western provinces?
• What demands and expectations were made of barbarian kings by their subjects?
• How did the new Italian rulers legitimate their positions with regards to the various groups in Italian society (Gothic followers, Roman senate, Christian bishops)?
• To what extent do the differences in source material for each kingdom reflect their different structures and different fates?
• Why did the Visigothic kingdom collapse in 711?
• Did any groups reject the religious policies and political system created by the Umayyad Caliphs? Who, why, where and when?
• Why did kings issue laws and have them written down?

Chapter 7 – Gaul and Germany: the Merovingian world

• What was the basis of the Merovingian kingdom in Gaul?
• How did Clovis and his successors legitimate their position with regards to the various groups in Gallic society (Frankish and other barbarian warlords and warbands, Gallic provincial elites, Christian bishops)?
• What did an early medieval city or town look like?
• What were the roles and responsibilities of a Merovingian queen? How much power did she actually have?
• How did the system of multiple Merovingian kingdoms actually function? On what was rulership based?
• Were Frankish royal inheritance practices short-sighted?
• Who was Gregory of Tours, and to what extent should we trust him?
• What role did monasticism play in seventh-century life?
• Do saints’ lives tell us more about the authors of such texts than about the people they describe?

Chapter 8 – Britain and Ireland: kings and people

• What type of archaeological record survives from the post-Roman period (5th to 8th centuries) in the areas of ‘Anglo-Saxon settlement’ in England?
• In what ways can we use the archaeology to shed light on early British and Irish social structures?
• What was the relationship between the outbreak of Viking activity in the North Sea in the last decade of the eighth century and into the ninth century, and the growth of trade between England, Francia and Scandinavia over the preceding century?
• Why did some Anglo-Saxon kings convert to Christianity, while others initially rejected it?
• How ‘Christian’ was Britain by the time of Bede?
• What was Bede’s agenda? How does it impact the way we read his Ecclesiastical History?
• How did Viking ‘raiding’ relate to ‘trading’?
• What public image of kingship did King Alfred’s court attempt to promote?
• What do the efforts of Alfred’s court tell us about the processes by which early medieval kings attempted to hold their kingdoms together?

Chapter 9 – ‘The invincible race of the Franks’: conquest, Christianisation and Carolingian kingship

• Were the last Merovingians really ‘do-nothing’ kings? What historical and historiographical factors have shaped this view?
• How did the kingdom of Pippin and Charlemagne function? On what was their power based?
• Do you think Charlemagne genuinely did not want the imperial crown? What was the point of the new title?
• How important was conquest (and ‘plunder and tribute’) to Carolingian success?
• How was the Carolingian army raised and organised?  What forms did warfare take?
• How did chroniclers and courtiers justify Frankish expansion in the late eighth century?
• ‘More a Frankish warlord than a great Christian emperor.’ Is this a fair judgement of Charlemagne?
• What was the role of assemblies in Carolingian politics?
• What were the main directions of trade in the Carolingian Empire?

Chapter 10 – ‘Peace, unity and concord among the Christian people’: Carolingian order and its architects

• What was the ‘Carolingian Renaissance’?
• Why were the Carolingians keen on patronising high culture? What was high culture to different individuals in Charlemagne’s court, in the Carolingian empire at large?
• How important were spiritual leadership and educational reform to the Carolingians?
• Why were Charlemagne and his successors willing to give huge tracts of land and/or extensive legal and fiscal privileges to bishoprics and monasteries?
• To what extent was there such a thing as a Carolingian ‘state’ with an effective, central administration?
• What was the point of the capitularies? How can we tell whether their precepts were heeded?
• How important was literacy and the use of the written word in Carolingian government? 
• How can we best characterise the literary life of Charlemagne’s court? 
• What do written sources reveal about rural life and the structure of society?

Chapter 11 – Paradoxes of empire: western Europe in the ninth century

• Was Louis the Pious a weak ruler?
• Why was Louis’ reign so controversial, and why did his sons rebel against him?
• How would you characterise relations between the Carolingians and Constantinople?
• What issues were at stake in the civil wars of 840–3?
• Which posed a greater problem for the Carolingians in the ninth century: internal dissension or external threat?
• What measures did the king take to resist and accommodate the Vikings?
• What issues are at stake in historical debates over the impact of the Vikings?
• How do narrative sources portray the Vikings? Should we be wary of their outlook?
• What were the institutions of ninth-century Carolingian kingship? How was rule maintained?
• How was rebellion justified, by both Carolingians and non-Carolingians?
• Were the last Carolingian kings inept and weak?
• Why were non-Carolingian kings elected in 888?
• In the long view, what was the achievement of Charlemagne and his successors?

C

M

P

V