Pont du Gard, in Vers-Pont-du-Gard, Gard department, South France. The Pont du Gard is the most famous part of the roman aqueduct which carried water from Uzès to Nîmes until roughly the 9th century when maintenance was abandoned. The monument is 49m high and now 275m long (it was 360m when intact) at its top. It’s the highest roman aqueduct, but also one of the best preserved (with the aqueduct of Segovia). The Pont du Gard is a UNESCO world heritage site since 1985.
By Lisa M. Lane / 10.09.2016
Professor of History
MiraCosta College
Geography of Italy
Italy, 500 BC / Timemaps.com
Like Greece, Italy has sandy, well-draining soil, lots of rocks and good access to the sea, although it also has some interior valleys that are wonderful for agriculture. Also like Greece, most of the area is good for olive trees and grapes, leading to exports in the long-storing versions of these products (olive oil and wine). And as in Greece, because the areas of Italy were separated from each other just enough to cause distrust, there was competition and misunderstanding between the regions.
By the 8th century BC, the Latin tribes in the middle shared the peninsula with the Etruscans in the north and the Greeks in the south, and these two peoples provide the foundation for Roman culture. The Etruscans were excellent engineers and warriors, and the Greeks brought Greek culture and learning. Although we are unsure exactly how much influence each has on Rome in earlier times, by 500 BC it was clear that the combination of Etruscan, Latin and Greek contributions had created something unique.
Much of this contact and cultural combination came through conquest, as Rome expanded to conquer the Etruscans and form alliances with the Greek colonies. As it developed in wealth and power, Rome came under attack by tribes and kingdoms nearby. In defeating each of these, Rome was able to establish a narrative of self-defense. But in practical terms, Rome was expanding, first under a monarchy and by the 6th century BC as a Republic. By then their main enemy was Carthage, a city in north Africa that had been founded as a Pheonician colony.
Despite their expansion, and ultimately the creation of a huge empire, the Romans saw themselves as farmers by nature, making the geography properous. Cato the Censor (243-149 BC), although he served the Roman state as a plebeian in the highest jobs in government, saw himself as a farmer. His book of advice on agriculture is still useful today.
Cato the Censor (Elder): On Agriculture (d. 149 BC)
On where to sow your crops you should work to these rules. A fat and fertile ground, with no trees, can be a wheat field. One that tends to be cloudy should be sown with rape, radish, broomcorn millet, foxtail millet. In rich and hot ground grow pickling olives: choose from radius maior, Sallentina, orcites, posea, Sergiana, Colminiana, albiceres whichever people say does best in your district. Plant this type of olive 25 or 30 feet apart. For an olive plantation the ground must face the Favonius and be sunny: no other will suit, but the Liciniana olive can be planted in a rather cooler and leaner soil. If you plant this last variety in a fat or hot ground the crop will be good for nothing, the tree will exhaust itself in cropping and will be plagued with red moss.
By field margins and roadways plant elms and some poplars, so that you have the boughs for sheep and oxen and wood to hand when you need it. Where these are river banks, or in waterlogged soil, you can plant poplar stands and reed beds. These are planted as follows: turn over with a spade, plant reed rhizomes three feet apart. Plant wild asparagus crowns there too: reeds and asparagus go together in the digging, in the burning and because one shades the other meanwhile. Plant Greek willows around the reed bed, then you will have something to tie the vines to the reeds with! . . .
In a property close to the City orchard planting is especially useful: timber and sticks can be marketed, and are there for the owner’s use too. . . .
Fruit: both strutea and cotonea quinces; Scantiana, Quiriniana and other apples for conserving; mustea quinces; pomegranates, pig’s urine or pig’s dung to be put to the roots to feed the fruit; pears, volaema, Aniciana sementiva, which are good for preserving in must, Tarentina, mustea, cucurbitiva and others; plant or graft as many as you can fit in;orchites and posia olives, which are best preserved, young, in brine, or crushed with mastic. Orchites, black and dried, can alternatively be kept in salt for five days, then, the salt discarded, placed in the sun for two days; or preserved in grape syrup without salt. . .
Marisca figs to be planted on a clayey, open ground. Africanae, Herculaneae, Sacontinae, hibernae, black tellanae with long pedicles, to be planted on a rather fat or well-manured ground.
Let the grass grow long, irrigated if possible, dry if not, for your supply of hay.
Close to the City be sure to grow all kinds of vegetables; all kinds of flowers for wreaths; grape-hyacinths; myrtles, coniugulum, white and black;
Delphic, Cypriot and forest bay; walnuts, filberts, hazelnuts, almonds. A market garden, especially if it is all that one has, must be planted for maximum
productivity.
In well-watered, damp, shady places, near streams, willows can be planted: make sure that they are productive, whether for the owner’s use or for sale. By all means have an irrigated hayfield if you have water; if not, grow as much hay dry as you can. . . .
Autumn Sowing; More Notes on Where to Plant
I return to sowing. Sow first in the coldest, wettest field. The last sowing should be made in the hottest field. Avoid working carious land.
Red earth, grey earth, ground that is heavy, stony, sandy, and also that is not watery: lupins will do well there.
In chalk and mud and red earth and in watery ground, it is best to sow emmer.
Fields that are dry and not weedy, open and not shaded: sow durum wheat there.
Sow beans in fields that are strong and not prone to fail.
Sow vetch and fenugreek in your least weedy fields.
You should sow bread wheat and durum wheat in open, high fields where the sun shines longest.
Sow lentil in stony ground or red earth that is not weedy.
Sow barley in a newly cleared field or in one that can be sown every year.
You should sow three-month wheat in a field that you were unable to sow early, or a field that is fat enough to be sown every year.
Sow turnip, field rape and radish in a well-manured field or a fat field.
Memoranda on Crops and Manuring
Manure for crops:
You can spread pigeon dung on pasture, garden or arable field.
Store goat, sheep, ox and all other dung carefully.
Spread amurca, or water trees with it: around larger heads, dose 1 amphora; smaller, 1 urna; add half of water. Trench beforehand, but not deeply.
Bad for crops:
To dig carious ground.
Chickpea is bad, because it is pulled up, and because it is salty.
Barley, fenugreek, bitter vetch, all suck the field dry; so do all crops that are pulled up.
Do not put olive stones to the crop.
Legumes that feed cereals:
Lupin, beans, vetch.
Sources of manure:
Straw, lupin, chaff, beanstalks, pods, holm-oak and oak foliage.
In Winter
Pull out danewort, hemlock, from the crop, and herba alta and sedge from the willow bed. Lay this stinking foliage as litter for sheep and oxen.
Sieve the debris from the olive stones, put in a tank, add water, turn over well with a shovel. Use this mixture to manure trenched olives; also use burnt olive stones.
If a vineyard is poor, chop up its shoots and plough them or dig them in at the spot.
Roman Politics
Although surrounded by the countryside that fed it, and to which public figures would go for vacations and retirement, Rome was a city. In the Republic, two houses represented the people of Rome. The Senate was comprised of patricians, those who had inherited power through historic land owndership. Plebeians filled the Concilium Plebis, or the Assembly. Plebeians who took part in the Concilium were not poor — they tended to be the most educated, wealthy and respected non-patricians in Rome.
One of the most important things to understand about the development of the politics and political ethics of ancient Rome is virtú or, as it was called then, virtus. Although often translated as “virtue”, the word encompassed a whole perspective. Men with virtus exhibited strength and talent in public life, and were morally upstanding. Model behavior in the service of the state was the goal. We can see this perspective represented in Cicero’s Dream of Scipio. In this excerpt, a man named Scipio meets up with the man for whom he is named, Scipio Africanus, a hero during the Punic Wars over a century before. Scipio Africanus not only gives us a great idea of the Roman knowledge of the world, but he also advises young Scipio on virtus.
Cicero: Scipio’s Dream (d. 43 BC)
Here I had the following dream, occasioned, as I verily believe, by our preceding conversation — for it frequently happens that the thoughts and discourses which have employed us in the daytime, produce in our sleep an effect somewhat similar to that which Ennius writes happened to him about Homer, of whom, in his waking hours, he used frequently to think and speak.
Africanus, I thought, appeared to me in that shape, with which I was better acquainted from his picture, than from any personal knowledge of him. When I perceived it was he, I confess I trembled with consternation; but he addressed me, saying, Take courage, my Scipio, be not afraid, and carefully remember what I am saying to you.
Do you see that city Carthage, which, though brought under the Roman yoke by me, is now renewing former wars, and cannot live in peace? (and he pointed to Carthage from a lofty spot, full of stars, and brilliant and glittering;) to attack which city you are this day arrived in a station not much superior to that of a private soldier. Before two years, however, are elapsed, you shall be consul, and complete its overthrow; and you shall obtain, by your own merit, the surname of Africanus, which, as yet, belongs to you no otherwise than as derived from me. And when you have destroyed Carthage, and received the honor of a triumph, and been made censor, and, in quality of ambassador, visited Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, you shall be elected a second time consul in your absence, and by utterly destroying Numantia, put an end to a most dangerous war.
But when you have entered the Capitol in your triumphal car, you shall find the Roman commonwealth all in a ferment, through the intrigues of my grandson Tiberius Gracchus.
It is on this occasion, my dear Africanus, that you show your country the greatness of your understanding, capacity and prudence. . . . On you the senate, all good citizens, the allies, the people of Latium, shall cast their eyes; on you the preservation of the state shall entirely depend. In a word, if you escape the impious machinations of your relatives, you will, in the quality of dictator, establish order and tranquility in the commonwealth. . . .
Now, in order to encourage you, my dear Africanus, continued the shade of my ancestor, to defend the state with the greater cheerfulness, be assured that for all those who have in any way conduced to the preservation, defense, and enlargement of their native country, there is a certain place in heaven, where they shall enjoy an eternity of happiness. . . .
[They look at the earth from above.]
I perceive that you are still employed in contemplating the seat and residence of mankind. But if it appears to you so small, as in fact it really is, despise its vanities, and fix your attention for ever on these heavenly objects. Is it possible that you should attain any human applause or glory that is worth the contending for? The earth, you see, is peopled but in a very few places, and those too of small extent; and they appear like so many little spots of green scattered through vast uncultivated deserts. And those who inhabit the earth are not only so remote from each other as to be cut off from all mutual correspondence, but their situation being in oblique or contrary parts of the globe, or perhaps in those diametrically opposite to yours, all expectation of universal fame must fall to the ground.
You may likewise observe that the same globe of the earth is girt and surrounded with certain zones, whereof those two that are most remote from each other, and lie under the opposite poles of heaven, are congealed with frost; but that one in the middle, which is far the largest, is scorched with the intense heat of the sun. The other two are habitable, one towards the south — the inhabitants of which are your Antipodes, with whom you have no connection — the other, towards the north, is that which you inhabit, whereof a very small part, as you may see, falls to your share. For the whole extent of what you see, is as it were but a little island, narrow at both ends and wide in the middle, which is surrounded by the sea which on earth you call the great Atlantic ocean, and which, notwithstanding this magnificent name, you see is very insignificant. And even in these cultivated and well-known countries, has yours, or any of our names, ever passed the heights of the Caucasus, or the currents of the Ganges? In what other parts to the north or the south, or where the sun rises and sets, will your names ever be heard? And if we leave these out of the question, how small a space is there left for your glory to spread itself abroad? and how long will it remain in the memory of those whose minds are now full of it?
Besides all this, if the progeny of any future generation should wish to transmit to their posterity the praises of any one of us which they have heard from their forefathers, yet the deluges and combustions of the earth which must necessarily happen at their destined periods will prevent our obtaining, not only an eternal, but even a durable glory. . . .
If, then, you wish to elevate your views to the contemplation of this eternal seat of splendor, you will not be satisfied with the praises of your fellow-mortals, nor with any human rewards that your exploits can obtain; but Virtue herself must point out to you the true and only object worthy of your pursuit. Leave to others to speak of you as they may, for speak they will. Their discourses will be confined to the narrow limits of the countries you see, nor will their duration be very extensive, for they will perish like those who utter them, and will be no more remembered by their posterity. . . .
Do you, therefore, exercise this mind of yours in the best pursuits. And the best pursuits are those which consist in promoting the good of your country. Such employments will speed the flight of your mind to this its proper abode; and its flight will be still more rapid, if, even while it is enclosed in the body, it will look abroad, and disengage itself as much as possible from its bodily dwelling, by the contemplation of things which are external to itself.
The moral values of leadership played a significant role in the Republic. Cicero would ultimately be killed by continuing to support these values in a time of Empire.
From Republic to Empire
Left: Coin of a Roman consul accompanied by two lictors, c.250 BC / British Museum
Right: Coin of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, c.12 BC / British Museum
As the Roman Republic expanded, life changed for the people in Rome, who were primarily of Latin descent. With each new territory came new responsibilities for the government, and new trade arrangements.
The grandsons of Scipio Africanus, the brothers Gracchus, attempted to reform the land laws that favored patricians and left little for the plebeians. Before the late 2nd century BC, land had been obtained by either inheriting it or being granted it. Soldiers could acquire land through service in the early Republic, but over time that became more difficult as land speculators and patricians controlled large areas. As tribunes, the brothers implemented such measures as citizenship for Latins outside the city of Rome and fixed prices for grain. This price fixing was important, because as Rome had expanded, she had acquired grain-growing areas such as Sicily. Sicilian grain was cheaper than that grown near Rome, and could be imported at low cost, undercutting the profits of Roman farmers.
Populist reforms such as those the Gracchi implemented were unsuccessful. Both men were clubbed to death by mobs in 133 and 121 BC, horrible and unusual acts that seemed to set up some kind of precedent of solving political problems through violence.
By 107 BC, it was clear that the dysfunctional Republic was in need of leadership, and generals seemed natural choices. General Gaius Marius, fearing barbarian attack on the expanded territories, worked on expanding the army by advancing on ideas originally proposed by the Gracchi. The army was expanded using lower-class plebeians, who were completely dependent on their generals to provide enough conquered land to reward them. This had the effect of creating “private” armies who were more loyal to their commanders than to the Roman state. Brutal civil war followed, between armies of Marius and those of General Sulla. The Roman constitution had a provision for a “dictator”, a temporary emergency leader who would have full power. In 82 BC, General Sulla took advantage of this provision to enforce reforms designed to balance the power of the patrician Senate and the plebeian Tribunes. He then, in accordance with the constitution, resigned his power.
The prevalence of private armies and civil war as a method for obtaining land to pay soldiers was the background for the death of the Republic. Might became right, and virtus seemed to disappear in the battles for power. The question is when exactly the Republic became an Empire, in terms of leadership rather than territory.
Some say it happened with Julius Caesar, who returned from his far-flung battles against the Celts to march on Rome and obtain power. Caesar engaged in further reforms and expansion of the empire, particularly into Egypt. There he encountered Cleopatra, the descendant of General Ptolemy and co-ruler of Egypt with her brother. Caesar and Cleopatra formed an alliance that allowed her to rule alone, and favored Rome to engage in trade with the wealth of Egypt. Caesar fathered a child with Cleopatra, whom his mother named Caesarion (in case there was any doubt about his parentage).
Although he was proclaimed by the Senate “dictator in perpetuity” (undermining the idea of a constitutional dictator), continued power struggles led to Caesar’s death by stabbing, in the Senate chambers, in 44 BC. Succession was a problem. Caesar had been very popular with plebeians. Mark Antony, his top general, assumed that he was the natural heir, but Caesar had named his grandnephew Octavian as the heir to his name and position. Antony, needing soldiers and money, went to Egypt to create a military base for ultimate action against Octavian’s control of Rome. He fell in love with Cleopatra, whose interests were served by keeping him in Egypt (possibly to defend Egypt against Octavian). When Octavian came, and the Battle of Actium was fought in 31 BC, Cleopatra would turn her ships away from the battle, and Antony would follow, losing Rome forever. Fearing Octavian’s plan to parade her through the streets of Rome, Cleopatra committed suicide.
Octavian became Augustus Caesar, and his power was such that it could force peace among the various factions. Some say there is no Empire until Augustus. Even at the height of his power, however, Augustus insisted that he was only “princeps”, first citizen of the Roman Republic, not emperor. The Pax Romana over which he presided was not peaceful in the sense that war on the frontier was almost constant, but inside the Empire many places (includeing Rome) experienced extraordinary prosperity and stability. The Senate promoted this stability by heaping honor upon honor upon him, even the title “father of his country”. We say his name all the time, when we refer to the month of August, the sixth month in the Roman calendar and renamed for him. (Of course, the calendar itself, which held sway until a few hundred years ago, was called the Julian calendar after Julius Caesar.)
Augustus died in AD 14, and unfortunately the emperors who followed him were not of his caliber. Some, like Tiberius and Nero, appear to have been insane, at least according to historian Tacitus (who wrote from the comparative safety of the early 2nd century, the time of the “good emperors”). Nero was reputed to have built a marble stable for his horse, whom he appointed consul. He was also known for commanding attendance when he played the lyre at concerts, where no one was allowed to leave even if dying or giving birth. Under these Julio-Claudians, the emperors became increasingly removed from all but their own wealthy and private lives.
Roman Technology, Architecture, and Arts
Roman politics is fun, but in terms of the modern West, the leadership styles and political problems don’t provide very good models. With the exception of Roman law, which became highly developed, the main contribution of the Romans was their technology.
Waterwheels
Left: A noria in Spain / Wikimedia Commons
Center: Horizontal Roman waterwheel illustration / Wikimedia Commons
Right: Roman water mill combining the noria and horizontal waterwheel / Wikimedia Commons
The city of Rome was huge by the end of the millenium. About 1/3 of the city of Rome was comprised of the villas of the elite, about 1/3 was the slums where most people lived, and about 1/3 was public spaces. Fires were frequent, and got out of control. Rome’s fire department was privately run. Crassus, one of the consuls with Julius Caesar, would appear with the fire trucks and offer to buy the buildings as they were burning, becoming one of the great Roman slumlords. The public spaces were necessary because of the slums, where people lived in even more crowded conditions than they do in urban slums today. People who don’t have enough space spend a lot of time outside, on the streets.
To prevent urban violence, Rome provided public spaces with baths, fountains, gymnasiums, and places of entertainment. Tickets to the Forum (chariot races!) and the Colisseum (lions eating Christians!) were cheap. The city of Rome also provided flour, for free, to citizens. This “bread and circuses” approach was designed to distract people from their misery, and thus prevent revolt and mobs supporting opposition parties. In providing everyone with flour, Romans developed a technology that had been used in smaller settings: water-powered flour mills. Centuries before in India, the first wheels (noria) had lifted water from rivers onto fields. And small horizontal wheels had used rivers to turn millstones to grind grain. The Romans combined both with gears to allow a vertical wheel to provide more power.
Roman water mill “factories” / Wikimedia Commons
Then they built them one after another, creating a factory to grind grain to feed Rome.
Roman Roads
The Romans built a huge road network around Europe. The important thing to keep in mind is that these roads had only one purpose — getting the army quickly from place to place. They were not built between towns or ports, but rather to connect one fortification to another.
Roman Road network / Explorable.com
Although initially created by laying planks of wood on wooden rails, Roman road technology developed over time to create roads that are so stable they are still used today (though many have been paved over with asphalt).
Left: The roadbed was concave, and filled with stones and gravel in layers to create perfect settling of the roadbed, which consisted of thick paved stones fitted together over gravel. The top of the road was often curved for good drainage to the sides. / Lisa M. Lane, Creative Commons
Center: The Appian Way, leading from Rome to the sea, is one of the few roads used today without asphalt overpaving. / Lisa M. Lane, Creative Commons
Right: In cities, stepping stones not only helped pedestrians get across the street. They also were of standard width, so they controlled the width of carts that could move around the city. This led to smooth traffic and few obstacles within the city. / Lisa M. Lane, Creative Commons
Aqueducts and Architecture
Water was brought into the cities from the mountains via aqueducts. Although fuctional for moving water, the aqueducts crossing the landscape also provided a visual reminder that one was in the Roman Empire and controlled by Rome.
Left: I used to wonder where the water was in an aqueduct. Turns out it is on the inside, run in channels usually sealed with clay. Several channels could be used to more easily divert water to different places. An extra channel along the top could also be used. / Lisa M. Lane, Creative Commons
Right: This aqueduct in southern France, the Pont Du Gard, gives an idea of how huge they were, a continual reminder of who was in charge as well as a source of fresh water. / Wikimedia Commons
In addition to monumental architecture, bridges and roads, the Romans built one building that has outlasted barbarian attack and the ravages of time. The Panthenon gives us an idea of the Roman obsession with perfect forms. The temple is dedicated to all the Roman gods (thus the name), and is so beautiful that according to legend the barbarians were literally stopped in their tracks and didn’t destroy it.
Left: Pantheon northwest view / Photo by Clayton Tang, Wikimedia Commons
Center: Pantheon cross-section / Wikimedia Commons
Right: Pantheon plan / Wikimedia Commons
Literature
As with their other arts, Roman literature frequently harked back to that of ancient Greece. One of the most famous works is Virgil’s Aeneid, an epic story of a warrior journeying from the Trojan War to found the city of Rome. It is the story of a man’s odyssey to become a man of virtus, the universal theme of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey being translated into Roman culture. The lyric poet Horace wrote of politics and poetry. Ovid developed classical mythology with his stories and set up much of what we know of the Roman gods (themselves modelled on Greek gods). Juvenal wrote satire, a Roman genre which commented on social mores. His satire on women is a good example:
Juvenal: Satire on Women (d. 130)
Why tell of love potions and incantations, of poisons brewed and administered to a stepson, or of the grosser crimes to which women are driven by the imperious power of sex? Their sins of lust are the least of all their sins.
“But tell me why is Censennia, on her husband’s testimony, the best of wives?” She brought him a million sesterces; that is the price at which he calls her chaste. He has not pined under the arrows of Venus’ quiver; he was never burnt by her torch. It was the dowry that lighted his fires, the dowry that shot those arrows! That dowry bought liberty for her: she may make what signals, and write what love letters she pleases, before her husband’s face; the rich woman who marries a money-loving husband is as good as unmarried.
“Why does Sertorius burn with love for Bibula?” If you shake out the truth, it is the face that he loves, not the wife. Let three wrinkles make their appearance; let her skin become dry and flabby ; let her teeth turn black, and her eyes lose their lustre: then will his freedman give her the order, “Pack up your traps and be off! you’ve become a nuisance; you are for ever blowing your nose; be off, and quick about it! There’s another wife coming who will not sniffle.” But till that day comes, the Lady rules the roast, asking her husband for shepherds and Canusian sheep, and elms for her Falernian vines. But that’s a mere nothing: she asks for all his slave-boys, all his prison-gangs; everything that her neighbour possesses, and that she does not possess, must be bought. . . .
“Do you say no worthy wife is to be found among all these crowds?” Well, let her be handsome, charming, rich and fertile; let her have ancient ancestors ranged about her halls; let her be more chaste than all the dishevelled Sabine maidens who stopped the war–a prodigy as rare upon the earth as a black swan! yet who could endure a wife that possessed all perfections? I would rather have a Venusian wench for my wife than you, O Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, if, with all your virtues, you bring me a hanghty brow, and reckon up Triumphs as part of your marriage portion. . . . And who was ever so enamoured as not to shrink from the woman whom he praises to the skies, and to hate her for seven hours out of every twelve?
Some small faults are intolerable to husbands. What can be more offensive than this, that no woman believes in her own beauty unless she has converted herself from a Tuscan into a Greekling (Greeks were considered lustful) , or from a maid of Sulmo (birthplace of Ovid) into a true maid of Athens? They talk nothing but Greek, though it is a greater shame for our people to be ignorant of Latin. Their fears and their wrath, their joys and their troubles–all the secrets of their souls–are poured forth in Greek; their very loves are carried on in Greek fashion. All this might be pardoned in a girl; but will you, who are hard on your eighty-sixth year, still talk in Greek? That tongue is not decent in an old woman’s mouth. When you come out with the wanton words [Greek], you are using in public the language of the bed-chamber. Carressing and naughty words like these incite to love; but though you say them more tenderly than a Haemus or a Carpophorus (famous actors at the time) , they will cause no fluttering of the heart–your years are counted upon your face!
. . . If you are honestly uxorious, and devoted to one woman, then bow your head and submit your neck ready to bear the yoke. Never will you find a woman who spares the man who loves her; for though she be herself aflame, she delights to torment and plunder him. So the better the man, the more desirable he be as a husband, the less good by far will he get out of his wife. No present will you ever make if your wife forbids; nothing will you ever sell if she objects; nothing will you buy without her consent. She will arrange your friendships for you; she will turn your now-aged friend from the door which saw the beginnings of his beard. Panders and trainers can make their wills as they please, as also can the gentlemen of the arena; but you will have to write down among your heirs more than one rival of your own.
“Crucify that slave!” says the wife. “But what crime worthy of death has he committed?” asks the husband; “where are the witnesses? who informed against him? Give him a hearing at least; no delay can be too long when a man’s life is at stake!” “What, you numbskull? you call a slave a man, do you? He has done no wrong, you say? Be it so; this is my will and my command: let my will be the voucher for the deed.”
Thus does she lord it over her husband. But before long she vacates her kingdom; she flits from one home to another, wearing out her bridal veil; then back she flies again and returns to her own imprints in the bed that she has abandoned, leaving behind her the newly decorated door, the festal hangings on the walls, and the branches green still over the threshold. Thus does the tale of her husbands grow; there will be eight of them in the course of five autumns–a fact worthy of commemoration on her tomb!
Give up all hope of peace so long as your mother-in-law is alive. It is she that teaches her daughter to revel in stripping and despoiling her husband; it is she that teaches her to reply to a seducer’s love-letters in no unskilled and innocent fashion; she eludes or bribes your guards; it is she that calls in Archigenes (a famous doctor) when your daughter has nothing the matter with her, and tosses about the heavy blankets; the lover meanwhile is in secret and silent hiding, trembling with impatience and expectation. Do you really expect the mother to teach her daughter honest ways–ways different from her own? Nay, the vile old woman finds a profit in bringing up her daughter to be vile.
There never was a case in court in which the quarrel was not started by a woman. . . .
This can also tell us something about how Imperial Rome considered women. As in the other cultures we’ve studied, wealthy women had the opportunity for education and a role in political life, although women were not permitted to vote or hold office. Tacitus tells us how powerful royal women were, even poisoning their enemies to further the political careers of their relatives.
Why Did Rome “Fall”?
As the Roman Empire expanded, Roman armies encountered many different kinds of people. The Gauls in what is now France, the Celts in Britain, and the Germanic tribes of central Europe all were influenced by Roman conquest. As the empire expanded, conquered peoples were offered alliances, and sometimes even citizenship, in return for providing military support at the borders against foreigners just outside the new edges of the Empire. Those military leaders who collaborated with Rome were rewarded with high political position, representation in Rome, and control of their own lands. In their villas in the countryside, these collaborating rulers lived a life that was very Roman.
How they were to be represented in the government was a huge question. Tacitus reports on the conflict in the Senate:
Tacitus: Admitting Provincials to the Senate (AD 48)
In 48 CE the emperor Claudius filled some vacancies in the Senate with some Roman citizens from Gaul. This began the process of extending the Senate to be a body with members from the entire Empire. His activity, and speech on the issue, was recorded by Tacitus. An inscription of part of Claudius’ speech also survives.
In the consulship of Aulus Vitellius and Lucius Vipstanus the question of filling up the Senate was discussed, and the chief men of Gallia Comata, as it was called, who had long possessed the rights of allies and of Roman citizens, sought the privilege of obtaining public offices at Rome. There was much talk of every kind on the subject, and it was argued before the emperor with vehement opposition. “Italy,” it was asserted, “is not so feeble as to be unable to furnish its own capital with a senate. Once our native-born citizens sufficed for peoples of our own kin, and we are by no means dissatisfied with the Rome of the past. To this day we cite examples, which under our old customs the Roman character exhibited as to valour and renown. Is it a small thing that Veneti and Insubres have already burst into the Senate-house, unless a mob of foreigners, a troop of captives, so to say, is now forced upon us? What distinctions will be left for the remnants of our noble houses, or for any impoverished senators from Latium? Every place will be crowded with these millionaires, whose ancestors of the second and third generations at the head of hostile tribes destroyed our armies with fire and sword, and actually besieged the divine Julius at Alesia. These are recent memories. What if there were to rise up the remembrance of those who fell in Rome’s citadel and at her altar by the hands of these same barbarians! Let them enjoy indeed the title of citizens, but let them not vulgarise the distinctions of the Senate and the honours of office.”
These and like arguments failed to impress the emperor. He at once addressed himself to answer them, and thus harangued the assembled Senate. “My ancestors, the most ancient of whom was made at once a citizen and a noble of Rome, encourage me to govern by the same policy of transferring to this city all conspicuous merit, wherever found. And indeed I know, as facts, that the Julii came from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum, and not to inquire too minutely into the past, that new members have been brought into the Senate from Etruria and Lucania and the whole of Italy, that Italy itself was at last extended to the Alps, to the end that not only single persons but entire countries and tribes might be united under our name. We had unshaken peace at home; we prospered in all our foreign relations, in the days when Italy beyond the Po was admitted to share our citizenship, and when, enrolling in our ranks the most vigorous of the provincials, under colour of settling our legions throughout the world, we recruited our exhausted empire. Are we sorry that the Balbi came to us from Spain, and other men not less illustrious from Narbon Gaul? Their descendants are still among us, and do not yield to us in patriotism.
“What was the ruin of Sparta and Athens, but this, that mighty as they were in war, they spurned from them as aliens those whom they had conquered? Our founder Romulus, on the other hand, was so wise that he fought as enemies and then hailed as fellow-citizens several nations on the very same day. Strangers have reigned over us. That freedmen’s sons should be intrusted with public offices is not, as many wrongly think, a sudden innovation, but was a common practice in the old commonwealth. But, it will be said, we have fought with the Senones. I suppose then that the Volsci and Aequi never stood in array against us. Our city was taken by the Gauls. Well, we also gave hostages to the Etruscans, and passed under the yoke of the Samnites. On the whole, if you review all our wars, never has one been finished in a shorter time than that with the Gauls. Thenceforth they have preserved an unbroken and loyal peace. United as they now are with us by manners, education, and intermarriage, let them bring us their gold and their wealth rather than enjoy it in isolation. Everything, Senators, which we now hold to be of the highest antiquity, was once new. Plebeian magistrates came after patrician; Latin magistrates after plebeian; magistrates of other Italian peoples after Latin. This practice too will establish itself, and what we are this day justifying by precedents, will be itself a precedent.”
The emperor’s speech was followed by a decree of the Senate, and the Aedui were the first to obtain the right of becoming senators at Rome. This compliment was paid to their ancient alliance, and to the fact that they alone of the Gauls cling to the name of brothers of the Roman people.
The 3rd and 4th centuries were a time of internal corruption and external violence in the Empire. At the same time a new faith, Christianity, was emerging and uniting large groups of the poor. In 285 Emperor Diocletion divided the empire into two halves, each ruled by an emperor and a deputy (the tetrarchy). This was only the first step in what would become a permanent division under the Emperor Constantine. Over the next century, the western half of the empire was continually under attack by tribal groups, particularly the Goths. In 476 the city of Rome itself was sacked by the Visigoths, and the west would not see another truly Roman Empire. The east would become the Byzantine Empire, predominantly Greek-oriented and Christian.
In deciding what happened to cause this “fall” of Rome, historians have come up with many theories. Edward Gibbon, a 19th century historian, believed the empire had been weakened by Christianity. Modern historians have developed a “lead poisoning” theory that is quite interesting. Wealthy Romans used lead-based makeup on their skin, drank wine out of lead cups (wine leaches lead out of metal), and had their water delivered in lead pipes. Poor Romans couldn’t afford lead items, drank milk (an antidote to lead poisoning) and received water through clay pipes. Lead causes sterility and insanity, and the theory is that the wealthy became insane and infertile, struggling with leadership roles and not leaving enough children to succeed them.
Other historians focus on the overextension of the empire. The army was stretched thin, and the collaborators at the edges of the empire couldn’t hold their areas in the face of the “barbarians” (foreigners). Also, climate change was a factor, since the invaders were in retreat from invaders in their own territories, who were looking for better climate and conditions for their animals.
It is most likely that all the proposed reasons have some truth in them, though none would account for everything.
Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages
The “Fall” of Western Rome
Domitian Stadium on Palatine Hill, Rome / Wikimedia Commons
It is generally considered that the “fall of Rome” was much more complex than just the invasion of an empire. In the first place, only the Western half of the empire “fell” in the sense that it was taken over by entirely different peoples. The eastern half had prospered since Diocletian, and then Constantine, had divided the empire into two areas of rule. Because it was still primarily Greek and Asian, traditions of monarchy made the eastern empire easy for an emperor to rule.
Another complication was inherent in the Western Roman Empire itself. Over several centuries, “barbarians” (foreigners, non-citizens, non-Romans) had collaborated with the empire to rule and patrol the edges of the empire. Their loyalty was one of the justifications the emperor used to argue for their admission to the Senate in the last lecture’s document by Tacitus. In a sense, it was “new barbarians”, those who had never had any connection to Rome (and didn’t want one) who were the problem.
The new barbarians were not just invaders who came to raid Rome’s riches and run back home. They came to stay. New work in climate change history gives us one reason why.
Barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire / Wikimedia Commons
This makes it look like they were an internal, European affair. This map has been shrunk a lot, but at least it includes all of Eurasia:
Barbarian invasions / Wikimedia Commons
Climate change began in China, where pastoral peoples had to move westward to look for better pasture for their animals. Since there were already tribes there, those groups were forced westward into the territory of other groups, and so on across the continent. The Roman Empire is at the edge of the continent, so in a sense the new barbarians were essentially pushed into the Empire by peoples east of them.
So they were coming to settle, not just to raid and run. To me that means that “invasion” isn’t the right word, and other historians have also begun to call what happened a migration instead. These peoples moved militarily to gain control of an area, then to settle it. Since they arrived from many different directions, and in many disparate groups, the Roman military found it hard to defend the very long borders. As these new people arrived, they encountered a Rome that was primarily Christian, which some have suggested made the Romans who were already there less likely to fight. I think it’s much more likely that the Church was pulling all the talent that would normally have gone into political leadership. If you wanted upward mobility in the 4th and 5th centuries, the Church was a better place than government service. Thus the decline of virtus as a principle is also blamed for both the fall of Western Rome and the rise of the Church.
Christianity
Christianity originated in the followers of Jesus, and the term “Christian” was apparently used to define them by AD 50. Our primary source of information for the early era is the New Testament, which began as a collection of texts in the late first or second centuries. In addition to the Gospels narrating the life of Jesus, the letters of Paul provide much information about the Christians, who believed that Jesus was the last Messiah of Jewish tradition, and had been resurrected after his execution to save the souls of believers. The Roman state saw the new sect as threatening, and Christians were persecuted, most famously by the Emperor Nero in the 1st century, who used them as scapegoats for the great fire of AD 64 that destroyed much of Rome.
It was through Paul that Christian ideas achieved a more universal dimension. Paul travelled through the eastern part of the Roman Empire, where there was a combination of religious traditions, including Zoroastrianism and the worship of Isis. By the 2nd century Christians were defining their faith as separate from Judaism (in both its rabbinical and Hellenistic forms), and by the 3rd century Christianity had developed communities and traditions that continued to be seen as threatening by the Roman Empire.
Ironically, persecution, which continued until the 4th century, increased the number of conversions. Christians, as an underground sect, were much influenced by the Hellenistic philosophy of Stoicism. Stoics believe in the individuality of the human soul, and its connection to the cosmos. Real life lies in between, and is an illusion. So, as I’ve mentioned previously, a Christian being thrown to the lions in the Coliseum was not likely to provide good entertainment for the crowd, since he would pray and wait to go to heaven. The audience, instead of witnessing an X Games of emotion and blood sport, would see human strength and dignity. Without much other source in the culture for such personal dignity, many converted.
As with Judaism, Christianity’s mere survival (as well as its foundation in morality) made it a powerful force. In the early 4th century, Emperor Constantine halted persecution, which had really become politically ineffective, and he later became a Christian himself. By then, Christians had organized churches throughout Europe and created territories controlled by bishops. In 325, the First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council, and it decided on the common beliefs that would be the foundation for the orthodoxy of the Christian Church (such as the diety of Jesus and the idea of the trinity). At the same time, the idea of “heresy” was created. Heretics were those who opposed the ideas the council had sanctified. Arius, an elder in the church in Alexandria, Egypt, promulgated the idea that Jesus, as the son of God, was lower than God in the trinity. This “Arian heresy”, which became popular among the Germanic tribes, was denounced by the Nicene bishops. In areas where Christians controlled politics, persecutions of heretics began. Here’s a brief timeline of early Christianity:
Spread of Christianity to AD 600 / Wikimedia Commons
- Late 1st c. BC-Early AD 1st c.: Life of Jesus
- AD 1st c.: Paul and the spread of ideas, universality
- AD 2nd c.: Christianity defined, separated from Judaism, beginning of orthodoxy
- AD 3rd c.: Christianity as an organized order with own rituals, Roman persecutions
- AD 4th c.: Constantine’s imperial Christianity, new Jerusalem, persecutions of non-orthodox Christian sects
Latin Christendom Emerges
The era of western Rome’s decline has often been called the Dark Ages (the term is also used to refer to the Homeric Greek era). This pejorative designation reflects the Roman view. The new barbarians who migrated into Rome had no respect for or interest in “civilization” — that is, society organized in cities. They were farmers, pastoralists, and warriors. Most were not literate, because literacy requires leisure, and they had no leisure. Elite Romans had the leisure to become educated and literate, partly because they had slaves to do the grunt work of life.
At this point we begin referring to the newcomers as “Germanic” barbarians, because the Goths and others spoke a common language. In many ways their society and customs were the opposite of the Romans. Their warrior culture was based on merit and testing in battle, not birth. They were fierce fighters who often engaged in internal battles for tribal dominance. Because they were often at war, and wanted warrior sons, women were respected and expected to become not only healthy, strong mothers but managers of lands and possessions. This was in stark contrast to elite Roman women, who were “protected” and isolated. The Visigothic code on inheritance and the Laws of the Salian Franks make it clear that men and women were equal in law and inheritance. Such laws were, of course, written down much later, but they were based on a vast oral heritage.
We have not seen such legal or social equality for females since the Hellenistic era, or such a social role for women since the Spartans.
The Germanic Middle Ages
In many ways, the Middle Ages (that thousand year period between the classical Greco-Roman past and the Renaissance) are dominated by Germanic traditions of these migrants. And in many ways, our customs today are based on theirs.
The best example of this is our use of witnesses, people who view major life events such as marriages, deaths and trials of civil and criminal cases.
Why witnesses? In pre-literate cultures, memory is important. It is also much better than memory in literate cultures. People who are not literate can retain far more information in their heads. Many of the epic poems of the Middle Ages, which lasted hours in the telling, could be repeated verbatim by their listeners. Most of us today can’t even remember a shopping list of more than seven items. Children in our culture retain huge amounts of learning in their minds, but once they start to write they lose that ability. It’s as if knowing we can write it down means we can forget it. Imagine a pre-literate personal memory on a large scale and you have a major difference between tribal people and ourselves.
Since nothing was written, life events had to be recorded in memory. When land was exchanged, or a treaty between warring parties was made, witnesses were needed to attest to the event years later if there was any question. This meant that (also unlike our culture) tribal cultures not only respected older people, but relied upon them.
Another significant difference between them and us is demonstrated in trial by ordeal. This was used in cases where there were no reliable witnesses, or an unusual crime, where somehow the verdict could not be made clear. An ordeal was designed to give the accused the opportunity to clear his name through appeal to a higher power. In the ordeal by cold water, for example, the accused tried to float in sanctified water (after Christianization, that would mean blessed by a priest). If the holy water accepted him, and he sunk (yes, they would fish him out), he was innocent. Or an ordeal could take place as a battle between accused and accusor, with the victor assumed to be right. Other ordeals were about divine intervention in healing. The accused would be handed a hot iron or coal to hold, then the injured hand would be wrapped, and if it healed after three days he was considered innocent.
The word “considered” is important here. Most modern people see trial by ordeal as “barbaric”, in the derogatory sense. And it was. But it also allowed the community to move forward. Trials serve the same purpose today, even when the public doesn’t agree with the verdict.
An Epic for the Times
The first folio of the heroic epic poem Beowulf, written primarily in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. Part of the Cotton MS Vitellius A XV manuscript. / British Library
The oldest surviving epic poem in old English, Beowulf was written down in the late 10th century, but it was probably composed during the 7th. And it may have been based on real historical events from Scandinavia in the century before that.
The story and personalities reflect both Scandinavian (Viking) and Germanic (particularly Anglo-Saxon) culture. This is the longest reading for the class, but it’s worth doing. We still want in our heroes many of the values shown here.
Beowulf (7th-10th century)
In which Beowulf fights the monster, Grendel, and Grendel’s mother.
Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings,
leader beloved, and long he ruled
in fame with all folk, since his father had gone
away from the world, till awoke an heir,
haughty Healfdene, who held through life,
sage and sturdy, the Scyldings glad.Then, one after one, there woke to him [Healfdane, Beowulf’s cousin],
to the chieftain of clansmen, children four:
Heorogar, then Hrothgar, then Halga brave. . . .To Hrothgar was given such glory of war,
such honor of combat, that all his kin
obeyed him gladly till great grew his band
of youthful comrades. It came in his mind
to bid his henchmen a hall uprear,
a master mead-house, mightier far
than ever was seen by the sons of earth. . . .So lived the clansmen in cheer and revel
a winsome life, till one began
to fashion evils, that field of hell.Grendel this monster grim was called,
march-riever [border-crosser] mighty, in moorland living,
in fen and fastness; fief of the giants
the hapless wight a while had kept
since the Creator his exile doomed. . . .. . .grim and greedy, he [Grendel] grasped betimes,
wrathful, reckless, from resting-places,
thirty of the thanes, and thence he rushed
fain of his fell spoil, faring homeward,
laden with slaughter, his lair to seek. . . .Twelve years’ tide the trouble he bore,
sovran of Scyldings, sorrows in plenty,
boundless cares. There came unhidden
tidings true to the tribes of men,
in sorrowful songs, how ceaselessly Grendel
harassed Hrothgar, what hate he bore him,
what murder and massacre, many a year. . . .Many nobles
sat assembled, and searched out counsel
how it were best for bold-hearted men
against harassing terror to try their hand.This heard in his home Hygelac’s thane [Beowulf],
great among Geats [a tribe], of Grendel’s doings.
He was the mightiest man of valor
in that same day of this our life,
stalwart and stately. A stout wave-walker
he bade make ready. Yon battle-king, said he,
far o’er the swan-road he fain would seek,
the noble monarch who needed men![Grendel enters the great hall in the night to capture more thanes, but Beowulf lies ready]
Now many an earl
of Beowulf brandished blade ancestral,
fain the life of their lord to shield,
their praised prince, if power were theirs;
never they knew, — as they neared the foe,
hardy-hearted heroes of war,
aiming their swords on every side
the accursed to kill, — no keenest blade,
no farest of falchions fashioned on earth,
could harm or hurt that hideous fiend!He was safe, by his spells, from sword of battle,
from edge of iron. Yet his end and parting
on that same day of this our life
woful should be, and his wandering soul
far off flit to the fiends’ domain.Soon he found, who in former days,
harmful in heart and hated of God,
on many a man such murder wrought,
that the frame of his body failed him nowFor him the keen-souled kinsman of Hygelac
held in hand; hateful alive
was each to other. The outlaw dire
took mortal hurt; a mighty wound
showed on his shoulder, and sinews cracked,
and the bone-frame burst. To Beowulf now
the glory was given, and Grendel thence
death-sick his den in the dark moor sought,
noisome abode: he knew too well
that here was the last of life, an end
of his days on earth.Then Beowulf’s glory
eager they echoed, and all averred
that from sea to sea, or south or north,
there was no other in earth’s domain,
under vault of heaven, more valiant found,
of warriors none more worthy to rule!THEN sank they to sleep. With sorrow one bought
his rest of the evening, — as ofttime had happened
when Grendel guarded that golden hall,
evil wrought, till his end drew nigh,
slaughter for sins. ‘Twas seen and told
how an avenger survived the fiend,
as was learned afar. The livelong time
after that grim fight, Grendel’s mother,
monster of women, mourned her woe.. . .And his mother now,
gloomy and grim, would go that quest
of sorrow, the death of her son to avenge.[Grendel’s mother kills a thane]
Then girt him Beowulf
in martial mail, nor mourned for his life.
His breastplate broad and bright of hues,
woven by hand, should the waters try;
well could it ward the warrior’s body
that battle should break on his breast in vain
nor harm his heart by the hand of a foe.And the helmet white that his head protected
was destined to dare the deeps of the flood,
through wave-whirl win: ’twas wound with chains,
decked with gold, as in days of yore
the weapon-smith worked it wondrously,
with swine-forms set it, that swords nowise,
brandished in battle, could bite that helm.Nor was that the meanest of mighty helps
which Hrothgar’s orator offered at need:
“Hrunting” they named the hilted sword,
of old-time heirlooms easily first. . . .[Beowulf finds the lair of Grendel and his mother]
Soon found the fiend who the flood-domain
sword-hungry held these hundred winters,
greedy and grim, that some guest from above,
some man, was raiding her monster-realm.
She grasped out for him with grisly claws,
and the warrior seized; yet scathed she not
his body hale; the breastplate hindered,
as she strove to shatter the sark of war,
the linked harness, with loathsome hand.Then bore this brine-wolf, when bottom she touched,
the lord of rings to the lair she haunted
whiles vainly he strove, though his valor held. . . .
For mighty stroke
he swung his blade, and the blow withheld not.
Then sang on her head that seemly blade
its war-song wild. But the warrior found
the light-of-battle was loath to bite,
to harm the heart: its hard edge failed
the noble at need, yet had known of old
strife hand to hand, and had helmets cloven,
doomed men’s fighting-gear. First time, this,
for the gleaming blade that its glory fell.Firm still stood, nor failed in valor,
heedful of high deeds, Hygelac’s kinsman;
flung away fretted sword, featly jewelled,
the angry earl; on earth it lay
steel-edged and stiff. His strength he trusted,
hand-gripe of might. So man shall do
whenever in war he weens to earn him lasting fame,
nor fears for his life!Seized then by shoulder, shrank not from combat,
the Geatish war-prince Grendel’s mother.
Flung then the fierce one, filled with wrath,
his deadly foe, that she fell to ground.
Swift on her part she paid him back
with grisly grasp, and grappled with him.
Spent with struggle, stumbled the warrior,
fiercest of fighting-men, fell adown.
On the hall-guest she hurledherself, hent her short sword,
broad and brown-edged, the bairn to avenge,
the sole-born son. — On his shoulder lay
braided breast-mail, barring death,
withstanding entrance of edge or blade.
Life would have ended for Ecgtheow’s son [Beowulf],
under wide earth for that earl of Geats,
had his armor of war not aided him,
battle-net hard, and holy God
wielded the victory, wisest Maker.
The Lord of Heaven allowed his cause;
and easily rose the earl erect.
Seized then its chain-hilt the Scyldings’ chieftain,
bold and battle-grim, brandished the sword,
reckless of life, and so wrathfully smote
that it gripped her neck and grasped her hard,
her bone-rings breaking: the blade pierced through
that fated-one’s flesh: to floor she sank.Bloody the blade: he was blithe of his deed.
Then blazed forth light. ‘Twas bright within
as when from the sky there shines unclouded
heaven’s candle. The hall he scanned….
… For now prone he sawGrendel stretched there, spent with war,
spoiled of life, so scathed had left him,
Heorot’s battle. The body sprang far
when after death it endured the blow,
sword-stroke savage, that severed its head.
Here is a modern rendition of what it likely sounded like to listen to the beginning of this epic poem:
The Early Church
In the 4th century, when Rome became the official religion of the Empire, Diocletian set up “diocese”, or large administrative areas run by bishops. These bishops worked alongside the secular rulers of Rome. With the fall of the Western Roman empire in the 5th century, the Roman church became the only power in that region that could claim any authority, even if it wasn’t political authority. The writings of the early Church fathers helped define doctrine, but they also sometimes revealed their own conversion experiences as lessons to others.
In St Augustine’s Confessions, we have such a work. He puts his life in the context of his acquired faith.
St. Augustine: Confessions (AD 397)
I will now call to mind my past foulness, and the carnal corruptions of my soul, not because I love them, but that I may love Thee, O my God. For love of Thy love do I it, recalling, in the very bitterness of my remembrance, my most vicious ways, that Thou mayest grow sweet to me, — Thou sweetness without deception! Thou sweetness happy and assured! — and re-collecting myself out of that my dissipation, in which I was torn to pieces, while, turned away from Thee the One, I lost myself among many vanities. For I even longed in my youth formerly to be satisfied with worldly things, and I dared to grow wild again with various and shadowy loves; my form consumed away, and I became corrupt in Thine eyes, pleasing myself, and eager to please in the eyes of men. . . .
But what was it that I delighted in save to love and to be beloved? But I held it not in moderation, mind to mind, the bright path of friendship, but out of the dark concupiscence of the flesh and the effervescence of youth exhalations came forth which obscured and overcast my heart, so that I was unable to discern pure affection from unholy desire. Both boiled confusedly within me, and dragged away my unstable youth into the rough places of unchaste desires, and plunged me into a gulf of infamy. Thy anger had overshadowed me, and I knew it not. I was become deaf by the rattling of the chins of my mortality, the punishment for my soul’s pride; and I wandered farther from Thee, and Thou didst “suffer”me; and I was tossed to and fro, and wasted, and poured out, and boiled over in my fornications, and Thou didst hold Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou then didst hold Thy peace, and I wandered still farther from Thee, into more and more barren seed-plots of sorrows, with proud dejection and restless lassitude.
Oh for one to have regulated my disorder, and turned to my profit the fleeting beauties of the things around me, and fixed a bound to their sweetness, so that the tides of my youth might have spent themselves upon the conjugal shore, if so be they could not be tranquillized and satisfied within the object of a family, as Thy law appoints, O Lord, — who thus formest the offspring of our death, being able also with a tender hand to blunt the thorns which were excluded from Thy paradise! For Thy omnipotency is not far from us even when we are far from Thee, else in truth ought I more vigilantly to have given heed to the voice from the clouds: “Nevertheless, such shall have trouble in the flesh, but I spare you;” and, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman;” and, “He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.” I should, therefore, have listened more attentively to these words, and, being severed “for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,” I would with greater happiness have expected Thy embraces.
But I, poor fool, seethed as does the sea, and, forsaking Thee, followed the violent course of my own stream, and exceeded all Thy limitations; nor did I escape Thy scourges. For what mortal can do so? But Thou weft always by me, mercifully angry, and dashing with the bitterest vexations all my illicit pleasures, in order that I might seek pleasures free from vexation. But where I could meet with such except in Thee, O Lord, I could not find,except in Thee, who teachest by sorrow, and woundest us to heal us, and killest us that we may not die from Thee. Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of Thy house, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when the madness of lust — to the which human shamelessness granteth full freedom, although forbidden by Thy laws — held complete sway over me, and I resigned myself entirely to it? Those about me meanwhile took no care to save me from ruin by marriage, their sole care being that I should learn to make a powerful speech, and become a persuasive orator.
Even more importantly for history, Augustine developed the idea of the City of God. This was in the early 5th century, at the time of the largest barbarian incursions into the Western Roman Empire. St Augustine’s approach separates holiness from the chaos going on around him (actually a very Stoic thing to do):
St. Augustine: The City of God (AD 410)
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.” And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God “glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,”–that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride,–“they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, “and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.” But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, “that God may be all in all.”
In 479, Clovis I, a Frankish king, coverted to the Roman form of Christianity, ending the conflict between the many Germanic tribes practicing Arianism and the Roman Church. Since this is close to the time of the sacking of Rome by the Goths (AD 476), the decline of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of Latin Christendom create a convenient chronology.
As the western and eastern halves of the empire separated, the diocese in the east lost touch with the main diocese in Rome. The bishop of Rome was isolated from the remaining bishops in the east when the barbarians invaded. Thus the Bishop of Rome became the main administrative figure in the European church. If the Church was the only central authority in the West, since the barbarian tribes ruled locally, then the Bishop of Rome could be seen as the highest authority in the west. The word “pope”, or father, came to be applied to the Bishop of Rome, and the office itself developed its own philosophy. Pope Gregory I (Saint Gregory) was pope from 590-604, and developed the “Petrine Theory”. The idea is based on St Peter’s martyrdom, which took place in Rome. In the gospels, Peter had noted, “I am Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”. In Greek, his name (petra) is the same word as that for “rock”. Thus Peter was the foundation of the church, and his death in Rome meant that Rome was the center of the Christian Church. Thus the “pope” was the center of authority in Europe, although in fact most of the Germanic states ignored the Church as a political entity. To encourage a united Christianity, Gregory sent out missions to those in Europe who had not yet been converted.
The hierarchy of the Roman Church begins with the pope, and goes through the archbishops and bishops down to the priests who served towns and village areas (parishes). But at the same time, there was a long tradition of hermits and ascetics who had been true Christians for generations, some of whom lived in communities designed to serve God through prayer. The Church came to sanction these communities, allowing the founders and abbots (and abbesses) of monasteries to exercise considerable independence.
St Benedict of Nursia was the 6th century founder of the Benedictine order. Instead of withdrawing from the world, Benedictine monks engaged in manual labor. This focus on work as another way of getting closer to God was later picked up by other orders, and made many of them very wealthy.
The Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia (AD 530)
5. Concerning Obedience
The first grade of humility is obedience without delay. This becomes those who, on account of the holy service which they have professed, or on account of the fear of hell or the glory of eternal life, consider nothing dearer to them than Christ: so that, so soon as anything is commanded by their superior, they may not know how to suffer delay in doing it, even as if it were a divine command. Concerning whom the Lord said: “As soon as he heard of me he obeyed me.”
7. Concerning Humility
The sixth grade of humility is, that a monk be contented with all lowliness or extremity, and consider himself, with regard to everything which is enjoined on him, as a poor and unworthy workman; saying to himself with the prophet: “I Was reduced to nothing and was ignorant; I was made as the cattle before thee, and I am always with thee.” The seventh grade of humility is, not only that he, with his tongue, pronounce himself viler and more worthless than all; but that he also believe it in the inner-most workings of his heart; humbling himself and saying with the prophet, etc. The eighth degree of humility is that a monk do nothing except what the common rule of the monastery, or the example of his elders, urges him to do. The ninth degree of humility is that a monk restrain hist ongue from speaking; and, keeping silence, do not speak until he is spoken to. The tenth grade of humility is that he be not ready, and easily inclined, to laugh.. . . The eleventh grade of humility is that a monk, when he speaks, speak slowly and without laughter, humbly with gravity, using few and reasonablewords; and that he be not loud of voice. . . . The twelfth grade of humility is that a monk shall, not only with his heart but also with his body, always show humility to all who see him: that is, when at work, in the oratory, in the monastery, in the garden, on the road, in the fields. And everywhere, sitting or walking or standing, let him always be with head inclined, his looks fixed upon the ground; remembering every hour that he is guilty of his sins. Let him think that he is already being presented before the tremendous judgment of God, saying always to himself in his heart what the publican of the gospel, fixing his eyes on the earth, said: “Lord I am not worthy, I a sinner, so much as to lift mine eyes unto Heaven.”
33. Whether the Monks Should Have Anything of Their Own
More than anything else is this special vice to be cut off root and branch from the monastery, that one should presume to give or receive anything without the order of the abbot, or should have anything of his own. He should have absolutely not anything: neither a book, nor tablets, nor a pen-nothing at all.-For indeed it is not allowed to the monks to have their own bodies or wills in their own power. But all things necessary they must expect from the Father of the monastery; nor is it allowable to have anything which the abbot did not give or permit. All things shall be common to all, as it is written: “Let not any manpresume or call anything his own.” But if any one shall have been discovered delighting in this most evil vice: being warned once and again, if he do notamend, let him be subjected to punishment.
48. Concerning the Daily Manual Labour.
Idleness is the enemy of the soul. And therefore, at fixed times, the brothers ought to be occupied in manual labour; and again, at fixed times, in sacred reading. . . . there shall certainly be appointed one or two elders, who shall go round the monastery at the hours in which the brothers are engaged in reading, and see to it that no troublesome brother chance to be found who is open to idleness and trifling, and is not intent on his reading; being not only of no use to himself, but also stirring up others.
During the 6th century, there were the beginnings of conflict between church and state that would continue for centuries. Monarchs, like their previous tribal chieftains, exacted taxes from those who lived on their land. Some would try to tax churches and monasteries to raise money, but popes and bishops continually objected to this, usually effectively.
Gregory of Tours: Church Exemption from Taxation (570)
At last King Lothar had decreed that all the churches in his kingdom should pay a third part of their income to his fisc. But when all the bishops, albeit unwillingly, had consented and signed their names, the blessed Injuriosus, manfully refusing, disdained to sign, saying: “If you wish to take God’s property the Lord will quickly take away your kingdom; for it is unjust that your barns should be filled through the money of the poor who ought rather to feed at your hands.” And being wroth with the king he departed unceremoniously. Then the king, much perturbed, fearing the spirit of the blessed Martin, sent after him with gifts, craving his pardon, condemning what he had done, and at the same time asking that he would ask the help of the blessed Bishop Martin on his behalf. — Source: J. P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, (Paris, 1849),Vol. LXXI, p. 269, via the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
In 800, an event took place which connected the political rulers of Europe with the Church. Charlemagne was descended from the Frankish ruling tribe, and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the pope. This meant not only that he was seen as having a divine mandate to rule (because the pope crowned him, rather than someone else) but that the pope was seen as being a person who crowns emperors.
The Rise of Islam
From the 7th to the 10th centuries, Western Civilization was influenced by four main groups. The first were the Germanic barbarians, who were settling into organized communities and converting to Christianity. Latin Christendom would consolidate under the Carolingian dynasty. The second was the Byzantine Empire, the empire ruled by Christian leaders and imbued with Greek culture — the old Eastern Roman Empire. The third were the Muslims, who would ultimately impact Europe greatly, particularly in preserving the knowledge of Rome and Byzantium. And the last were the 9th century invaders (Vikings, Magyars and Saracens), whose raids would help explain the advent of feudalism. The medieval economy would expand only after they had also settled in Europe.
The seventh century saw the rise of Islam, starting in Arabia and spreading to the edges of Europe by AD 750.
Muhammad was a member of the Quraysh tribe in Arabia. The Arabian peninsula, going back to ancient times, had been home to traders on the coast and Bedoin tribes inland. Muhammad and his followers would have been influenced by both traditions. They would have had knowledge of Judaism and Zoroastrianism from international trade, and of the hospitality and harsh desert environment of the Bedouins. This environment led Bedouin tribes to always offer hospitality, even to enemies, because the harsh conditions could kill at any time. Many Muslim peoples who live in desert environments continue the tradition to this day.
The Quraysh tribe was responsible for the upkeep of the Ka’aba, a temple in Mecca dedicated to the pantheon of Arabian gods. To tell the story of Muhammad, of course, we get into the legends of Islam. As with the life of Jesus, about which we have information only from the Gospels compiled much later, the life of Muhammad is told through Muslim stories about him. Having grown and married a wealthy older woman, Muhammad began to hear voices, which his wife interpreted as revelations from God. The intermediary was the archangel Gabriel, the same angel who had spoken to Daniel in the Jewish tradition, and who informed Mary of her pregnancy in Christian tradition. Once convinced to share these revelations, Muhummad was considered a prophet in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Ultimately he and his followers travelled to Medina, where he was accepted by the Jewish community there, and returned to Mecca with converts to take over the Ka’aba and sanctify it for the one God. The name “Allah” for God was likely chosen because Allah had been the superior god in the Arabian pantheon, so his name was thus easily understood. As Islam expanded, it did so as a partly political, partly religious force. But it also was an economic tool, as regions that converted to Islam were thus able to access increasingly global trading arrangements and benefit from them.
Wikimedia Commons
Jihad is the spreading of Islam. Although it could take place through force, more often leaders and regions converted voluntarily, but “just war” was acceptable against pagans. Jews and Christians, at first persecuted, were later determined by Mohammad to be “People of the Book”. Jews and Christians had also been blessed by the revelations of the one God, and the prophets of Judaism and Jesus himself were considered important in bringing those revelations to the world. But Muhammad is seen as the last prophet God will ever send. My interpretation is that it’s as if God sent the Jewish prophets, and the Jews tried to be good but were unable to be completely righteous, so He send Jesus and the same thing happened.
Muhammad was sent, not with an interpretive message or narrative story, but with the exact words of God, channeled verbatim through the archangel Gabriel. These revelations were ultimately complied into the Qur’an, which unlike the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament is not comprised of stories or history. For this reason, Muslims are supposed to learn the Arabic language, the original language for these messages.
The Five Pillars
Islamic religious obligations are focused on the Five Pillars. The word “Islam” means submission, as in submission to Allah, and humility before him. As befits a religion that derives from the desert, the pillars also include social responsibility as well as personal worship.
1. Shahadataan: The Declaration of Faith
This is the simple declaration that “There is no God but God (Allah), and Muhammed is his prophet”. The person who believes and states this, even though no one may hear, is considered a Muslim (a practitioner of Islam). Islam thus takes the “portability” of God, which we last discussed in regard to the Hebrews, to its logical extent. There is no need to be a member of a congregation to practice Islam, although community traditions encourage it.
2. Salaah: Prayer
Muslims pray five times a day, at appointed times, facing Mecca. (If you visit a hotel in Indonesia, an island nation where it’s easy to get confused, there are arrows on the ceiling pointing toward Mecca.) The willingness to stop what you’re doing to remember God is an important part of the devotion of the faith.
3. Sawm: Fasting
In addition to fasting for repentence or observation, there is a month of fasting. The annual Ramadan is celebrated with fasting from sunrise to sunset each day. This teaches forbearance, since overeating at night would cause discomfort and sickness.
4. Zakaah: Charity
When one has wealth, one is required to share it. Traditionally, beggars give Muslims the opportunity to fulfill Zakaah, and thus they have standing in the stories and legends of Muslim cultures. The wily beggar is a popular character in tales like The Thousand and One Nights (where stories of Aladdin also come from). In Muslim societies, transients begging money are given alms by people passing in cars. Even the taxation system is part of almsgiving in most Muslim countries — paying taxes is considered a sacred responsibility since the money is redistributed to support social services.
5. Hajj: Pilgrimage
Once in a Muslim’s lifetime, if it is possible for him/her to go, s/he must visit the Ka’aba at Mecca and pray there. Worshippers must remove all signs of distinction from others (jewelry, fancy clothes) and wrap themselves in plain cloth to enter the Ka’aba, where they join others to walk around the temple, believed to have been built by Abraham, the Jewish patriarch. People come daily from all over the world.
After the death of Muhammad, followers were divided as to whether the leader of the faith and the political empire should be descended from Muhammad or chosen by merit. Those who believed that the political leader must be Muhammad’s descendant eventually became known as the Shi’a (from “Shi’at Ali,” or “the party of Ali”, Muhammad’s son-in-law and closest male relative). Thus the division between the Sunni (those who follow the Sunnah, or secular writing of Muhammad, instead of his descendants) and the Shia began very early and Muslim history.
Islam’s Golden Age (8th-9th Centuries)
Astrolabe / Wikimedia Commons
In the 8th century, although the Abbassid caliphs (princes) had connections to Muhammad, they ruled as Sunni and controlled the Arab world from Baghdad in Iraq. We study the Abbassid caliphate and the other Muslim dynasties of that era because this era marks the height of Islamic culture in the Middle Ages. Many of the most influential figures, however, were from Persia or Spain.
For example, the Persian physican and chemist Al-Razi was head of the hospital in Baghdad in the early 10th century. He wrote 200 treatises on medicine and chemistry, including clinical studies of smallpox and measles. He is considered the father of pediatric medicine for distinguishing children’s diseases, and wrote on eye disease. All this plus he wrote philosophy.
Scientific instruments invented during this age included the astrolabe (pictured left). Although invented in classical times, many uses for it were discovered by Muslim scientists, including the calculation of the times of sunrise and sunset (important to prayers) and its use for navigation at sea.
The use of paper, adopted from China during this time, made printing and distributing information more practical. Parchment, made of animal skin, was expansive to manufacture.
Other advances of the era include trigonometry, biological evolution (a good example of lost knowledge that needed to be reconstructed later on), and advances in optics that would later lead to progress in both telescopes and microscopes. And history. Al Biruni, an 11th century scientist, physicist and geologist, saw commonalities among all religions (his specialty was Hinduism, and he had visited India). Here’s his analysis of the flood story:
Al Biruni: The Existing Monuments or Chronology (1030)
Era of the Deluge.
The next following era is the era of the great deluge, in which everything perished at the time of Noah. Here, too, there is such a difference of opinions, and such a confusion, that you have no chance of deciding as to the correctness of the matter, and do not even feel inclined to investigate thoroughly its historical truth. The reason is, in the first instance, the difference regarding the period between the Era of Adam and the Deluge, which we have mentioned already; and secondly, that difference, which we shall have to mention, regarding the period between the Deluge and the Era of Alexander. For the Jews derive from the Torah, and the following books, for this latter period 1,792 years, whilst the Christians derive from their Torah for the same period 2,938 years.
The Persians, and the great mass of the Magians, deny the Deluge altogether; they believe that the rule of the world has remained with them without any interruption ever since Gayomard Gilshah, who was, according to them, the first man. In denying the Deluge, the Indians, Chinese, and the various nations of the East, concur with them. Some, however, of the Persians admit the fact of the Deluge, but they describe it in a different way from what it is described in the books of the prophets. They say, a partial deluge occurred in Syria and the West at the time of Tahmurath, but it did not extend over the whole of the then civilized world and only a few nations were drowned in it; it did not extend beyond the peak of Hulwan, and did not reach the empires of the East. Further, they relate, that the inhabitants of the West, when they were warned by their sages, constructed buildings of the kind of the two pyramids that have been built in Egypt, saying: “If the disaster comes from heaven we shall go into them; if it comes from the earth, we shall ascend above them.” People are of opinion that the traces of the water of the Deluge, and the efforts of the waves, are still visible on these two pyramids half-way up, above which the water did not rise. Another report says, that Joseph had made them a magazine where he deposited the bread and victuals for the years of drought.
It is related that Tahmurath on receiving the warning of the Deluge—231 years before the Deluge–ordered his people to select a place of good air and soil in his realm. Now they did not find a place that answered better to this description than Ispahan. Thereupon, he ordered all scientific books to be preserved for posterity and to be buried in a part of that place least exposed to obnoxious influences. In favor of this report we may state that in our time in Jay, the city of Ispahan, there have been discovered hills, which, on being excavated, disclosed houses, filled with many loads of that tree-bark with which arrows and shields are covered and which is called Tuz, bearing inscriptions, of which no one was able to say what they are and what they mean.
In addition to Baghdad, other Muslim areas also thrived in intellectual progress. Persia was home to Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the west), a 10th century medical scholar whose books became the standard textbook in western medieval universities. His works carried on from Hippocrates and Galen, helping preserve and advance classical medical knowledge.
Islamic works are not just examples of the preservation of classical culture. One of the reasons we study this era is because Muslim cultures during this time not only kept the classical knowledge of Greece, the Hellenistic Empire, and Rome for future generations. Their scholars, supported by rulers who (like Charlemagne in the west) cared deeply about intellectual heritage, advanced significantly on the ideas of previous generations. When medical, astronomical, geographic, philosophical and scientific knowledge was filtered back into Europe, it came in an improved and advanced form.
The caliphs of Islamic states could patronize science and the arts (did I mention this was the height of Islamic art and architecture too?) because they had aquired vast wealth from trade. The networks extended throughout West Asia and the Mediterranean, including northern Africa and Spain. Jewish merchant activity gives an idea of its extent, here recorded by Ibn Khordadhbeh, postmaster-general of Baghdad, in 847.
Accounts of the Routes of the Jewish Merchants to the East (847)
These merchants speak Arabic, Persian, Roman (Greek), the language of the Franks, Andalusians, and Slavs. They journey from west to east, from east to west, partly on land, partly by sea. They transport from the west eunuchs, female and male slaves, silk, castor, marten, and other furs, and swords. They take ship in the land of the Franks, on the Western Sea, and steer for Farama (Pelusium). There they load their goods on the backs of camels, and go by land to Kolzum (Suez) in five days’ journey over a distance of twenty-five parasangs. They embark in the East Sea (Red Sea) and sail from Kolzum to El-Jar (port of Medina) and Jeddah (port of Mecca); then they go to Sind, India, and China. On their return they carry back musk, aloes, camphor, cinnamon, and other products of the Eastern countries to Kolzum, and bring them to Farama, where they again embark on the Western Sea. Some make sail for Constantinople to sell their goods to the Romans; others go to the palace of the king of the Franks to place their goods.
Sometimes these Jew merchants prefer to carry their goods from the land of the Franks in the Western Sea, making for Antioch (at the mouth of the Orontes); thence they go by land to Al-Jabia (?) where they arrive after three days’ march. There they embark on the Euphrates for Bagdad, and then sail down the Tigris to Al-Obolla. From Al-Obolla they sail for Oman, Sind, Hind (Hin dustan), and China. All this is connected one with another.
These different journeys can also be made by land. The merchants who start from Spain or France go to Sous al-Akza (Morocco), and then to Tangiers, whence they march to Kairuwan (Tunisia), and the capital of Egypt. Thence they go to Al-Kamla, visit Damascus, Al-Kufa, Bagdad, and Basrah, cross Ahwaz, Fars, Kirman, Sind, Hind, and arrive at China. Sometimes they likewise take the route behind Rome, and passing through the country of the Slavs, arrive at Khamlij, the capital of the Khazars. They embark on the Jorjan Sea, arrive at Balkh, betake themselves from there across the Oxus and continue their journey toward the Yurts of the Toghozghor, and from there to China.
European Invasion
Over a century before they had to deal with the expansion of Islam in the Byzantine Empire, Europe was subjected to invaders from all sides. In addition to Muslim Saracens raiding southern ports, Magyars were moving in from the east, and Vikings from the north.
The Vikings had an extraordinary impact in the 9th century. They came by sea, attacked coastal communities, plundered the goods, and left again. Unlike the Germanic peoples, they were not yet Christianized, and so considered monasteries and churches, with their vast wealth, a great source of booty. The raids were reported by monks and other literate peoples:
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (981-1001)
A.D. 981. In this year was St. Petroc’s-stow plundered; and in the same year was much harm done everywhere by the sea-coast, both upon Devonshire and Wales. . . .
A.D. 982. In this year came up in Dorsetshire three ships of the pirates, and plundered in Portland. The same year London was burned. In the same year also died two aldermen, Ethelmer in Hampshire, and Edwin in Sussex. Ethelmer’s body lieth in Winchester, at New-minster, and Edwin’s in the minster at Abingdon. The same year died two abbesses in Dorsetshire; Herelufa at Shaftsbury, and Wulfwina at Wareham. The same year went Otho, emperor of the Romans, into Greece; and there met he a great army of the Saracens, who came up from the sea, and would have proceeded forthwith to plunder the Christian folk; but the emperor fought with them. And there was much slaughter made on either side, but the emperor gained the field of battle. . . .
A.D. 991. This year was Ipswich plundered; and very soon afterwards was Alderman Britnoth (47) slain at Maldon. In this same year it was resolved that tribute should be given, for the first time, to the Danes, for the great terror they occasioned by the sea-coast. That was first 10,000 pounds. The first who advised this measure was Archbishop Siric. . . .
A.D. 993. This year came Anlaf with three and ninety ships to Staines, which he plundered without, and went thence to Sandwich. Thence to Ipswich, which he laid waste; and so to Maidon, where Alderman Britnoth came against him with his force, and fought with him; and there they slew the alderman, and gained the field of battle; whereupon peace was made with him, and the king received him afterwards at episcopal hands by the advice of Siric, Bishop of Canterbury, and Elfeah of Winchester. This year was Bamborough destroyed, and much spoil was there taken. Afterwards came the army to the mouth of the Humber; and there did much evil both in Lindsey and in Northumbria. . . .
A.D. 999. This year came the army about again into the Thames, and went up thence along the Medway to Rochester; where the Kentish army came against them, and encountered them in a close engagement; but, alas! they too soon yielded and fled; because they had not the aid that they should have had. The Danes therefore occupied the field of battle, and, taking horse, they rode as wide as they would, spoiling and overrunning nearly all West-Kent. Then the king with his council determined to proceed against them with sea and land forces; but as soon as the ships were ready, then arose delay from day to day, which harassed the miserable crew that lay on board; so that, always, the forwarder it should have been, the later it was, from one time to another; — they still suffered the army of their enemies to increase; — the Danes continually retreated from the sea-coast;– and they continually pursued them in vain. Thus in the end these expeditions both by sea and land served no other purpose but to vex the people, to waste their treasure, and to strengthen their enemies. ”
A.D. 1001. This year there was great commotion in England in consequence of an invasion by the Danes, who spread terror and devastation wheresoever they went, plundering and burning and desolating the country with such rapidity, that they advanced in one march as far as the town of Alton; where the people of Hampshire came against them, and fought with them. There was slain Ethelwerd, high-steward of the king, and Leofric of Whitchurch, and Leofwin, high-steward of the king, and Wulfhere, a bishop’s thane, and Godwin of Worthy, son of Bishop Elfsy; and of all the men who were engaged with them eighty-one. Of the Danes there was slain a much greater number, though they remained in possession of the field of battle. Thence they proceeded westward, until they came into Devonshire; where Paley came to meet them with the ships which he was able to collect; for he had shaken off his allegiance to King Ethelred, against all the vows of truth and fidelity which he had given him, as well as the presents which the king had bestowed on him in houses and gold and silver. And they burned Teignton, and also many other goodly towns that we cannot name; and then peace was there concluded with them. . . .
Political rulers could not respond quickly to such raids — most kings were too far away to mobilize troops and help in time. As a result, government throughout Europe became more localized. Kings granted land (fiefs) to the vassals (the vassal just below the king is called a “lord”). The lords pledged to serve the king militarily when he called. These lords in turn granted some of their land to their own vassals and knights, who would also provide military service to them and thus up the line to the king if needed. Feudalism is the name given by historians to the contractual arrangement between kings/lords and their vassals/knights — military service in return for land. Land, laid out in manors or estates, provided income for the owner by producing surplus agricultural goods. Villagers on a manor thus became serfs, who were “tied to the land” — when a manor changed hands, the serfs stayed put.
Medieval manor / Wikimedia Commons
At first, fiefs were given to a particular male vassal and his immediate family for use during his lifetime. After his death it would revert to his lord, although the family might keep it if they paid some money. But over time, lords and vassals began to consider the land as theirs and the right of their descendants so long as they paid up each time the generation changed. This strengthened the hold of great families on the land, but weakened kings because they eventually could not control the land directly. However, the system meant that all the territory could be defended.