So before the Middle Ages western civilization was at its prime. But after the invasion of the Barbarians and the fall of Western Roman empire everything went backwards in terms of progress. Why? Why did many people suddenly become more superstitious? How come religion took so much power?
I can't understand why people that once liked art, science, were trading, etc. gradually forgot all of what made the prior civilization so "glorious" and went to rely on religion. I mean, people that have tasted the "good" life suddenly chooses to get to the dark ages. The progress happened gradually? Was it lack of infrastructure, bad economy, etc. that caused the coming generations to lack basic needs and education, which led to ignorance spreading?
It feels like in our history we have times of enlightenment only for it to fall down and we enter ignorance and superstition. And then after a period of living through that, we enter a new enlightenment and so it repeats.
Edit: I appreciate the answers coming in. This is so fascinating.
Edit 2: I've made a lot of assumptions and it is mostly due to lack of in depth knowledge about the subject.
Edit 3: Lol, I fell for Roman marketing believing they and those before the Middle ages were superior and civilized.
Edit 4: I'm getting slaughtered here lmao. Keep it up!
Edit 5: Lmao, now I'm listening to medieval tavern music and reading about the Middle ages. My question ended up with me getting curious about the Middle ages...
Edit 6: I really appreciate getting all these in-depth answers.
Edit 7: I also appreciate when people correct me on the way I "humanize" or look at historic actors like the Roman Empire as an "Olympic athlete".
I am interested in what everyday changes there were when after Roman influence stopped and the Middle Ages were beginning...
What is your opinion on the western Rome Society (and the empire too)?
The tactics, the culture, their achievments, the importance of then to the modern world, if we can really critisize people from 2000 years ago, and if we can learn something from them.
I personally like the western roman empire, more especifically the 500BC to 100AC years, i think that they where a really important and fascinating civilization that literally changed the world, they where just a small country that lived in a really important part of the continent and they where able to do things that where thought impossible at the time. They are the ones that really proved first that you dont need to be naturally big or powerfull to rule the world, and they are really inspiring.
An example of where I've seen this sentiment expressed is this Hoover Institute video interview about a projected coming demographic/societal collapse of Europe. But I've seen the basic idea expressed several times over the years, but never with any good sourcing.
Is this an idea with any validity? What might a collapse of civilizational self-confidence in the western Roman empire look like? What signs would there be?
Was the sack of Rome something that could have been prevented with a more self-confident, muscular policy?
In terms of governement, what authority did western emperors have over eastern affairs, and vice versa? Were they two completely different states, or were they one state with two rulers? If a western roman consul was to visit an eastern city, like alexandria, would he override the local eastern authorities?
I know that the power structure in the late western roman empire was not really like the feudal system in medieval europe but i also know that it had similer aspects like ( to put it in a simple way ) how a bunch of farmers would pay tax to a liege lord kinda figure so i wanted to know that did these feudal lord esc figures in the late western roman empire fight eachother like in medieval europe?
caesar travelled into ravena along with his 40,000 gallic legionaries and became roman emperor himself in 451BC, the germanic tribes and huns were invading the western roman empire at the same time could caesar defeat the germanic and hunnic invaders and restore the glory of rome?
Charlemagne's coronation seems like a pretty direct break in recognising the east's romanity, but what changes in western European perception led to this?
Please note: this is not a cry for help, I've now figured out the WRE campaign and I'm doing fine, it's just meant as an interesting discussion.
To me, the WRE's biggest weakness in this game is not the number of enemies, not the public order challenge and rebellions, not the large territory. Instead, IMO it is the hilariously weak units early on.
I know the units get better later and that even the early ones are at least fairly durable, if anything. But their early units are really weak, which to me makes it necessary to race the military tech tree to get better units ASAP and to avoid field battles if possible.
It is an interesting mechanic, too, because IMO in most other Total war games you can usually rely on at least a couple of decent units with most factions. Of course the Roman units in Rome 2, but also eg horse archers or pikemen for other factions. The WRE in contrast has like no units to rely on early. If only you had better units, the campaign would be fairly easy. In all TW games, holding cities even with small numbers is possible if you have some reliable troops.
Beyond the general narratives of decline and fall vs continuity of elite practices, this is prompted by a half-remembered fact regarding nutrition - that the average peasant was better fed and healthier following the fragmentation and fall of the Western Empire. Was this indeed the case, and at the end, did the burdens of being an Imperial citizen outweigh any benefits that remained for the lower classes.
Basically, I'm curious to what extent there was shared governance (in the form of policy, institutions, etc) over the entire empire, vs them being effectively different states that paid lip service to the idea of being unified for political reasons. Did the "senior" government in the East still have significant control over what went on in the West?
So, if I am not wrong, the Franks were able to subjugate other Germanic polities really fast, over the course of the 5th and the 6th centuries, but more importantly, they were capable to actually hold on theses conquests.
But why ? Why could they do that and, progressively passify the territories of the ancient Germanic limes and beyond if the Romans couldn't ?
I mean, if we were talking about conquest by the Frankish Empire in, I don't know the 9th or 10th centuries, I guess enough time would have passed for things to be so different from the time of the Roman Empire that the answer would be just "Well centuries passed, things just changed"
But in the 5th and 6th centuries we are immediatly after the end of the Western Roman Empire.
If I am not wrong, the Franks were largely a loosely connected pseudo federation of people lagely Romanized if not literally Roman, and ex member of the Roman military, and so with Roman militaries tactics etc.
So why could they do something that the Roman Empire wasn't able to do, if they were largely the same people anyway ?
As i understand even in its later years the roman empire still heavilly relied on enslaved labour to fuel it's economy. what happened to all those slaves when the authority of the state started to crumble and the places they worked we're destroyed ?
Let's assume that, for whatever reason, the Western Roman Empire held on while the East collapsed (maybe due to alternate Germanic migrations?).
Letβs say Otto and his sons failed to conquer Italy and the former Western Roman Empire was back to its original size of just the Italian Peninsula pre Imperial era.
Do you think the system of choosing Emperors would still act as it always had or become hereditary like a monarchy?
Would Charlemagne be able to go against a united Italy?
How would the Middle Ages play out?
Age of Exploration?
War with North Africa and or Ottomans?
Napoleon?
More importantly would the people be called Italians or stick with Romans?
Also how would this affect relations with the Eastern Empire?
The Pope?
In this essay in Time magazine, Edward J. Watts (professor of history at the University of California, San Diego) says,
>Although everyone from schoolchildren to scholars now learn that the Western Roman Empire fell in 476, 5th century Romans did not see anything particularly special about Odoacerβs coup.
Instead, he says that Marcellinus invented the idea to help Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian justify invading Italy.
>Marcellinusβs manufactured fall of Rome helped create conditions that permitted Justinian to launch a war that killed hundreds of thousands and destroyed the prosperity that Roman rule had once created in the West.
Thus, the actual fall of the Western Roman Empire is not in 476, but at some point in the 560s:
>The Eastern Roman Empire had recovered Italyβand destroyed much of it in the process.
>The Western Roman Empire had clearly fallen by the 560s.
Is this interpretation of the events a popular one?
As I recall, How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower by Adrian Goldsworthy and The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians by Peter Heather (which I read some time ago) both more or less proceeded with the premise that the Western Roman Empire fell in 476.
Creating an empire is funny etc, but, surviving as one? It could be something exciting and against the time like, idk, endsieg in HOI4? And if you actually manage to survive you can made a totally different Middle Ages. Just imagine how interesting it could be the formation of new mixed cultures (Roman + Barbaric)
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On September 4, 476 AD, which was 449,029 glorious days after the traditional founding of the city of Rome by Romulus, the recently coronated emperor and 11-year-old boy Romulus Augustulus was forced to write a letter of resignation to Emperor Zeno in Constantinople while under the thumb of the Ostrogothic king Odoacer who went on to establish a kingdom of his own in the Italian peninsula which was nominally a client of the Roman Empire but which realistically was entirely independent of it. This event is generally, though not uncontroversially, seen as the end of the Western Roman Empire. In truth, the western empire had been in terminal decline for some time and Odoacer was not truly the first Germanic politician to essentially rule it, though others like Stilicho had not gone so far as to abolish the western imperial office. Odoacer would himself rule in the Roman style though not with a Roman title and at least officially he considered himself aligned to the eastern emperor. By the time of Justinian in the next century, the Ostrogothic kingdom would be a clearly foreign one and the Roman Empire would briefly retake it--twice. Regardless of whether Western Rome really fell in a day or sometime in the vague time period of the 400s and 500s, the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire meant a sea change for the geopolitics of Europe. Decades later the Franks would consolidate and the mighty Ostrogothic, Visigothic, and Vandalic kingdoms who formed in the period where emperors were still kicking in the west became important regional powers in the Western Mediterranean before they themselves were snuffed out either by the Eastern Roman Empire or the Umayyad Caliphate. That the Roman Empire changed the course of world history in innumerable ways is known to all of us and I don't think anyone would debate it. But as students of history I think we should all reflect on the fall of the Western Roman Empire and its meaning for the history of the world.
On that intense note, contest winners! Our fall-of-the-Western-Roman-Empire contest had a large number of delicious entries. In first place, by u/mcflymikes, we have this post about how Majorian will save the empire... or not. In second, by u/BanthaMilk, we have this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/RoughRomanMemes/comments/peh0wx/
... keep reading on reddit β‘I've read a lot about what was going on for the 100 years or so after the Western Roman empire fell and it sounds a lot like a post-apocalyptic movie.
As I understand it (and I definitely could be wrong) major technologies were lost, buildings were stripped of their stone and lead because no one knew how to mine lead and dress stone, former Roman legions were roving around terrorizing the country side stealing whatever they needed to survive. Roman armor was highly valued by tribal chiefs because they couldn't produce anything of that quality anymore and the chieftains that remembered things like phalanxing won major battles because the art of war the Romans had developed was lost.
I'm curious as what technology was lost after the fall to the western inheritors of the former empire and what life was like after the collapse of the empire.
