Successor Kingdoms

Goals for this week (October 20th)

By the end of this week, what should students know, be able to do and understand?

• students will learn about the 'transition' to the post-Roman world in Western Europe, arguing against the idea of "Barbarians at the Gates" idea of the end of the Western Roman Empire

• students will learn about the new polities (political communities) that emerge from the 5th to 10th centuries in Western Europe

• Students will continue to read, annotate and compare secondary sources with primary sources to understand how historians make sense of this time period;

Online Time

On Tuesday, October 20th, we'll be discussing the rise of the successor kingdoms (often called "Barbarian Kingdoms". We will touch on the debate among historians between the "Barbarian Invasions" vs "Internal Change" approach to this period. We will focus on France as a case study for this period - we will explore a gravesite of a Frankish leader, look at the variae of Cassiodorus and Einhard's Life of Charlemagne as evidence of the new societies forming under the Franks.

Read/Watch/Listen

What do students need to read this week?

• Rosenwein's textbook is organized chronologically, so that you can read about three different regions (Europe, Byzantium, Dar-al-Islam) in temporal chunks. I'm asking you to take a read these chapters differently - this week, looking at "Europe" as a whole in chapters 2-4.

Question for textbook readings:

• When considering the cultural, economic, political and religious life in the "Successor Kingdoms" what does Rosenwein see to be new or different from the Roman Empire?

• The primary sources you will read this week attempt to show the nature of politics during the early Middle Ages.

  • extracts from the state papers (Variae) of Cassiodorus (an advisor to Gothic kings)

  • an extract from the Life of Charlemagne by Einhard.

Questions for primary source readings:

1. Look for evidence of cultural transition or blending of Roman and not-Roman (Gothic/Germanic/Barbarian). How do ideas or symbols of the Roman Empire continue under the new political leaders?

   • Cassiodorus' Variae are miscellanous documents/ letters from his time as a "Roman" administrator serving under a Gothic king. How does he represent the political world he belongs to – as something new, or as unchanged from Roman times?

   • Einhard represents Charlemagne as the most perfect leader. Again, how does the idea of the Roman Empire live on in this text? To what degree do we see Charlemagne as heir to both Frankish and Roman traditions?

• (optional) You can watch an episode of a German documentary series (presented in English here) on the Germanic Peoples. Be critical as you watch it. While quite recently made, the history it tells is antequated. It is quite useful, however, for demonstrating how even academically-informed retellings of the Early Middle Ages can show only a partial picture.

Practice

In this week's optional discussion group, Vanessa will highlight the most important steps to take in writing a document analysis paper – what information to focus on, what to ignore, and how to make it look just right!