The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000

This is an exceptionally detailed and well thought out book on what used to be called the 'dark ages', but more accurately is now thought of as the early middle ages. The title of this book reflects Wickham's view that the period from circa 400 to 1000 C.E. represented a transition from the political and social institutions of the Western Roman Empire to an entirely newly set of institutions that yet contained threads of the former empire. It is a fascinating story well told. Wickham provides an excellent account of the disestablishment of the Western Roman Empire and the reinvention of the Eastern Roman Empire as moved from a Roman to a Byzantine (Greek) institution. Unique among historians of the early Middle Ages, Wickham also devotes considerable space to discussing the raise of Islam and the treatment of the roman heritage by Islamic rulers. He also provides important insights into those European societies that were never incorporated into the Roman Empire, but were nonetheless influenced by it. Wickham also makes a particularly important point by noting that European Society in his time period was far from homogenous and the social economic and power structures very much reflected the strong regional differences between even ethnically similar peoples. He notes the role of the Catholic Church in this period in providing cultural unity and for a period during the "Carolingian Century" (751-887) a unique type of political morality. As the11th Century progressed, a new more homogenous social order based on a feudal social structure with the Catholic Church providing a common morality developed. Along with the stability and security provided by this new order came more widespread and complex economic systems. By Wickham's account the "dark ages" were politically confused and economically diverse, but far from "dark."

The period 400-1000 is a blank spot in the minds of most people, even for those who know a great deal about Rome and medieval Europe. What we do tend to know are a handful of decontextualized names (e.g. Charlemagne) and some stock images of bearded men in leather armor killing each other. Wickham, then, was faced with a formidable task: not just to introduce his readers to the Ostrogoths, the Merovingian kingdom, etc., but also to disabuse us of popularly held notions, like the precipitous fall of Rome in 476 or the discontinuities between Rome and its 'barbarian' successor states. It's for this reason that I strongly disagree with the reviews complaining that this book has too many details, and should not have been marketed to a general audience. The many details are not the intended "takeaway" of this book. Rather, Wickham presents us with such rich anecdotes so that long after the names and events vanish from memory, readers will be left with a deep (and accurate) feel for post-Roman culture, society, and government. Given how shallow (and inaccurate) my feel for post-Roman Europe was before reading Wickham's book, I consider his book extremely effective. On the dust jacket, a reviewer describes Wickham's writing as "pointillist." I think this description is apt. As with pointillist paintings, this work's intent can only be comprehended after you take a step back from the anecdotes. Wickham's prose is only difficult if you get too worried about remembering that Sidonius Apollinaris was so-and-so's son-in-law, lived in Clermont in the 5th century, etc. General readers need not worry about the details - Just keep on reading, and be confident that you will finish the book with a different understanding of 400-1000 AD than when you started.

There is most likely a negative correlation between the amount of historical evidence for any given period and the degree of its interpretation by historians. So the "Dark Ages" (although we no longer call it that) following the decline of the Roman Empire of the West -- the period between the mid fifth century and the year 1000 -- have always been the subject of intense speculation by historians because there is such paltry evidence. Edward Gibbon, with his Decline and Fall published from 1776 through 1789, posited a number of hypotheses impossible to verify; for example, that the decline was due to moral decay from the gradual introduction of Christianity into the Empire. Henri Pirenne, the Belgian historian writing in the early 1920s, theorized that the Empire didn't so much collapse as "morph" into new structures, until at least the rise of Islam and the conquest of Al-Andaluse in Spain. And many countries of Western Europe have used this period as the source of their "establishment myths". The French have appropriated the Merovingians as the "founders" of France even though the latter reigned over a loose confederation which included south-east Germany and the Low Countries, with the center of gravity closer to what is today Luxembourg. Into this forbidding historical swamp strides Chris Wickham with "The Inheritance of Rome -- Illuminating the Dark Ages". This book is absolutely outstanding in bringing together all the available evidence, both ancient and recent, from written sources to coins, pottery shards and other archeological remains, and piecing it all together into a coherent view of the period. I am by no means an historian (although I read history extensively) but I have been devouring his book. For the first time I have discovered a rational overview, untainted by mythology and by nationalist hindsight; what I have found is that this period was much more complex (and less calamitous) than I had thought, although it is indeed true that both the standard of living and population declined in Western Europe. Societies become more localized, and most importantly, militarized. Whereas the aristocracy in the late Roman Empire were for the most part civilians, by the seventh century all aristocrats were military or religious, or both (indeed, many aristocratic titles are direct descendants of Roman military grades -- Duke from Dux, for example). In the West the highly sophisticated centralized Roman tax system was replaced by local levies and in-kind contributions, including labor; trade, which had covered thousands of miles in the early fifth century, shrank to local exchange of products, with some exceptions (in coastal Spain for example); women's rights declined although some remarkable women do stand out. And the Eastern Empire, increasingly Greek, drew away from the now mostly Germanic kingdoms of the West. Mr. Wickham is careful in avoiding speculation, perhaps excessively so in some cases. He writes clear prose that

Many people refer to the period of 400-1000 as the "dark ages." After the fall of Rome, when society in Western Europe shut down, people went back to simple, primitive ways - terms like savages and barbarians are often used - as they squabbled and fought against each other, killing mercilessly for a bit of land; the only beacon of hope the growing light of Christianity. I've never been a fan of the term "dark ages," or all the connotations, thoughts, and ideas that people - historians and laymen alike - infer from it. Thankfully there is Chris Wickham: a Chichele Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford and author of Framing the Middle Ages. Wickham has worked hard to educate those who are unsure or simply don't that the period from 400-1000 was one of the most important growth period of ideas, invention, and thought in the history of Western Europe. The Inheritance of Rome does a fantastic job of explaining this in comprehensive detail with viewpoints from all of Western Europe, including the Near East with the Byzantine Empire. I won't lie to you; this isn't an easy summer read; it's a heavy book in every sense of the word; but if you're looking to educate yourself on what exactly was going on between the fifth and eleventh centuries in Europe, after reading The Inheritance of Rome, you will have amassed an impressive amount of knowledge and be able to defend yourself and the period against anyone who attempts to call it the "dark ages." Wickham begins with a concise wrap up of the waning centuries of the Roman Empire, setting the stage for the focus of the book, which is divided into four parts: "Part I - The Roman Empire and its Break-up, 400-550"; "Part II: The Post-Roman West, 550-750"; "Part III: The Empires of the East, 550-1000"; and "Part IV: The Carolingian and Post-Carolingian West, 750-1000." While the time periods of each part do overlap, this doesn't prove to be a problem as Wickham is analyzing different areas, but also does a great job of linking what's happening in a particular location with what was going on in another location in the previous chapter. The author uses maps, illustrations, diagrams, and photographs to illustrate points about the constant trade, migration and commingling of societies, cultures, and kingdoms that continued to thrive during this period and were instrumental in setting a foundation for the eventual High Middles Ages and beginning of the renaissance. Wickham does have a theme and clear point to make, which is in the title: most of Western Europe had at one time been either a part of or bordered with the most dominating and impressive empire the world has ever seen, so it makes perfect sense that most of these different cultures would try to maintain and emulate the ways of Rome, which helped spark a genesis for new forms of writing, new ways of trade and negotiation, new forms of farming, a new judicial system of laws and ways, and forced societies that had been sheltered,