Part 3: Discussion
Developments in the Late Roman period
It is clear that, as in the Roman
Empire, the third century brought big changes to Germanic-speaking barbaricum. Many features have been noted as
distinguishing the Late Roman Iron Age from its predecessor. One of the most important, from the
perspective of a ‘banded barbaricum’,
is the increase in contact between Scandinavia and the Roman Empire, above all
the eastern Roman Empire. Glassware
replaces bronze vessels as the most frequent import and such objects are found
more widely throughout Scandinavia than before.[1] This may reveal an increasing importance of
the (possibly misleadingly-named) ‘amber routes’ from the Baltic to the
Mediterranean. The distribution of many
objects reveals the importance of this artery (or cluster of arteries) of
communication and, in turn the political value of controlling such a route. The spread of political authority and
identity up and down these routes is an important element of the patterns of
migration in the Late Roman Iron Age.[2] One effect of this increased power may be a
more secure local power of the regional élites.
Note that the distribution of ‘lavish burials’ in Germanic-speaking barbaricum shifts noticeably westwards from
the valleys of the key ‘amber route’ rivers to the ‘intermediate’ zone behind
the western ‘frontier zone’ in the Late Roman period.[3]
Fourth-century archaeology
generally reveals steadily increasing socio-political complexity in barbaricum, especially in the ‘frontier’
zone and Scandinavia, where it is visible across a wide range of data. Settlements manifest a trend towards greater
organisation and hierarchy. Several
features can be noted, including a degree of planning in settlement lay-out, as
at the famous North Sea Coastal ‘terp’ of Feddersen Wierde, whose farms apparently
follow a radial lay-out. Feddersen
Wierde also shows another trend: the appearance of the Herrenhof (see above). Whether
this relates to more rigid stratification has been questioned.[4] Might it have represented a more communal
settlement focus, for example? Whether
greater building size necessarily correlates directly with the wealth of the
owners can be debated. Nonetheless, set
alongside other features of the archaeology of Germania Magna, it seems most plausible to see these buildings in
terms of changing social hierarchy.
Possibly in line with this and the indications of organised planning,
the late Roman period saw more frequent indications of the fencing off of
individual farmsteads, plausibly demonstrating enhanced ideas of private,
inheritable property. Increasingly
effective political organisation can also be seen, as noted, in the Danish
bog-finds. The rare and scattered fourth-century
use of funerary ritual as a focus for local competition also suggests more
settled social structures. Relations
with the Roman Empire were doubtless central to this, as noted earlier. Although it would be as mistaken to view
these as uniformly harmonious (or to downplay the seriousness of warlike
interactions) as it is to see them as constantly confrontational, it is likely
that peaceful social, political and economic relations were, proportionately,
more normal than military. A fairly
tightly organised pattern of relationships and interactions with Rome is
probably the most important element to emphasise in explaining the steady
increase in trans-Rhenan barbarian socio-political complexity.
A similar picture might be
posited for northern Britain. Although
the archaeological evidence is less plentiful and varied than in Germania, written indices of new
confederations, the concentration of Roman imports in particular points and the
emergence of large high-status sites suggests some parallels. Close study has suggested the Empire’s ability
to build up and knock down powerful groups here, just as east of the Rhine.[5]
Again, the northern frontier was, more
often than not, fairly calm and the existence of an established order within
which relationships could be structured must be underlined.
Ireland was drawn more tightly
into the Roman orbit in the fourth century as archaeological evidence makes
clear. One element was doubtless the
raiding referred to by contemporaries.
This should probably be seen alongside the possible élite distribution
of late Roman imports. Whether these come
from such attacks, or from Roman payments, or from Irish leaders being able to
organise exchange relations with Roman traders, they underline the increasingly
important contacts across the Irish Sea.
As noted several times already, though, raiding was rarely the sole form
of political relationship between the Empire and its neighbours. Other links might have included recruitment
as federate troops or into the élite auxilia
palatina, two regiments of which are named ‘Attecotti’.[6] Who the Attecotti were and where they came
from are mysterious but they were certainly associated in some way with the
Iris h. Irish settlement in western
Britain may have begun within the Roman period, although the evidence is
nebulous. Another form of Roman
influence was, of course, Christianity. Attempts
to evangelise the Irish were made during the fifth century, but possibly began
earlier.[7]
This thickening network of connections doubtless lies at the root of the
changes beginning in this period. Here,
however, such change may have involved the break-up of old, loose but extensive
kingdoms. It certainly seems reasonable
to envisage more political stress in Ireland than in northern Britain or Germania in this period.
Fifth-Century Change
The fifth century is obviously crucial
to considering the ‘late antique problematic’ beyond the limes. As has been stressed,
barbaricum was not a separate world,
but the imperium’s increasingly
intimately-connected periphery.[8] The crisis into which the Western Empire was
plunged from the 380s, after Magnus Maximus’ usurpation, lasting until c.420,
and – more so – the failure to weather that crisis inevitably and profoundly affected
the territories beyond the frontiers.
Closest to the limes, where
local kings were apparently propped up by further Roman gifts and payments
during the civil wars, this crisis had no immediate effect. Franks and Alamans were only minimally
involved in this period’s incursions.
Archaeologically, in some areas the period continues fourth-century developments,
especially in settlements around the lower Rhine frontier.[9]
Real problems arose further into barbaricum, however. Here, contact with Rome was more precarious,
although every bit as important in underpinning political authority and
stability. The late fourth- and early
fifth-century civil wars ended the carefully managed frontier system. This had ensured a rough parity between
groups, and barbarian leaders in the interior had often been paid to counterbalance
the frontier peoples. When the managed
system of diplomatic relations ended, and especially as the distracted Romans
simply shored up their allies on the frontier, political stress was
inevitable. As mentioned, it had long been
the case that the losing parties in barbarian political conflict took
themselves to Roman territory and accordingly it is very significant that the barbarians
who invaded Gaul in the early fifth century were from the ‘intermediate band’
of barbaricum: Sueves, Vandals and
Burgundians. The political stress in
these regions may have led some factions to ask for support from the newly-hegemonic
Hunnic leaders north of the Danube, which may have been decisive, propelling
defeated elements towards the Rhine.
Nonetheless this crisis arose from internal Roman political difficulties
from the 380s onwards and we should be very careful before assuming a general,
exogenous Hunnic ‘push’ factor.
The early fifth-century crisis is
most visible archaeologically in the North Sea Coastal regions. The ‘Saxon Homelands’, although a frontier
zone in some regards, in others have features of the interior band. The socio-economic crises affecting the
north-western Roman provinces at this time, very clearly visible in settlement
abandonment, economic decline and changes in burial, doubtless impacted seriously
upon the closely connected Saxon regions.
We noted this above in discussion of settlement change and abandonment
and transformations in burial rites.
Saxon archaeology shares numerous features with the archaeology of
Britain and northern Gaul, underlining the analytical usefulness of the concept
of a North Sea cultural zone. This
period saw the re-emergence of Frisian, Anglian and Jutish identities,
suggesting a break-up of the Saxon confederacy.
Migration to Britain was a crucial product of these developments. Related to these changes are those mentioned
in the heart of the interior band of Germania. The Elbe Valley had been a crucial artery
linking barbaricum and the Empire and the Roman crisis around 400 doubtless had
a knock-on effect there. By the end of
the century the new Thuringian kingdom had established control of the river and
spread its authority along it.
The changes around 400 had
effects on the archaeology of Scandinavia.
Certain forms of import began to dry up for example. By the sixth century something of an
archaeological ‘Dark Age’ is noted in some parts of the region. It does not, however, seem to be the case
that this necessarily implied social or economic decline. Many specialists believe that the relative
archaeological invisibility of ‘Early Germanic Iron Age’ Denmark may attest
more to a slow consolidation of power and social hierarchies. It may be better to think of a longer term
readjustment in response to Roman political change, rather than the short-lived
but dramatic crises seen elsewhere.
Settlement patterns may intensify rather than decline, and new forms of
agriculture were introduced.[10] Nonetheless, bursts of larger or more lavish
inhumations around 400 and 500 imply some crises during the period in some
regions.[11]
Similar dynamics are visible in
Britain. Possible changes in Roman Britain’s
governance meant that the frontier band, north of Hadrian’s Wall, became more
like an interior zone. This produced
some archaeologically visible signs of crisis, such as the abandonment of
hillforts, like Traprain Law,[12]
and changes in burial rite, wherein funerals became important in local
community politics. As with the Saxons,
fifth-century crisis apparently led to a break-up of the Pictish confederacies
and, while one group retained (by the seventh century at least) the name of
Picts, other identities reasserted themselves.
Earlier tribal names like the Votadini and Maetae resurfaced. In Ireland, the break-down of the imperial
links that had been developing earlier, and which had probably lain behind a
certain amount of political change and stress, doubtless only emphasised the
latter and, as elsewhere, produced migration into former Roman territory.
Along the Rhine frontier, crisis
came later, with the Roman government’s failure to re-establish its authority along
the limes and thus continue to back
frontier kings. This, as noted, is
detectable in the archaeology of the Frankish and Alamannic areas. The political stress produced led to
incursions into northern Gaul and elsewhere.
Eventually the situation was resolved when the Frankish faction that
controlled the Roman army on the Loire established its dominance first over the
Paris Basin and then over its northern rivals.
This group, the Merovingians, extended its hegemony over the Alamanni,
Thuringians and Saxons, as well as, by the 530s, removing the other barbarian
kingdoms from Gaul. Frankish
overlordship extended well beyond the Rhine, though, and down the Danube. The Empire’s demise had completely changed the
relationships between the trans-Rhenan peoples and the territories west of the
Rhine. Although the Merovingian kingdom
in some ways inherited the Empire’s role in what had been Germania Magna, the situation differed significantly. Its relationships with Saxons, Thuringians,
Hessians, Alamans, Bavarians were unlike those between the Empire and the
barbarians, not least because Frankish territories straddled the old frontier. Leaders of non-Frankish groups were often
closely involved in Frankish politics, having marriage and other ties with
Frankish aristocrats. The Merovingian
realm, although able to maintain a more or less effective trans-Rhenan hegemony
during the sixth century, lacked the Empire’s prestige. Consequently, the relationships that had
cyclically produced migration from barbaricum
to imperial territory ceased with the Empire’s collapse. The fall of the Roman Empire ended the
‘Barbarian Migrations’.
Changes around 600
Change in the latter part of the
sixth century and in the period around 600 has been mentioned in almost all the
areas from Scandinavia to the Rhine and from Ireland to Bavaria. We have seen changes in burials in several
regions, with the increasing importance of above-ground monuments in many –
northern Britain, Ireland, the Rhineland and Scandinavia. If the archaeology of some areas, like
Denmark, becomes less visible, this too must be seen as an important
change. New high-status settlements
appeared in northern Britain whereas the number of small fortified farmsteads
(raths, cashels and crannogs) in Ireland underwent something of an
explosion. Trading patterns changed,
connecting Ireland and northern Britain with France. This hardly exhausts the transformations of
this important period. Their explanation
is complex and regionally varied but one element may, not insignificantly, have
been internal political crises in the lands west of the Rhine, in Gaul. Another, again significantly, was probably a
further alteration in the nature of the relationships between the surviving,
Eastern Roman Empire and the West.
The Merovingian kingdom
experienced a profound political crisis from the 570s to the 620s, with royal
minorities and civil wars. As with the imperial
civil wars 200 years previously, this produced faction-fighting and a
slackening of control over peripheral peoples.
Within Gaul, the circumstances produced an increase in local
aristocratic power and more rigid social stratification. The very analogous archaeologically-visible
changes in southern Germany suggest similar developments. By the mid-seventh century Merovingian
hegemony east of the Rhine was in tatters and this must have affected local
social structures.
These events surely cannot lie
behind the changes in Scandinavia, northern Britain and Ireland, however. Indeed they are unlikely entirely to explain
the Gallic changes. We should perceive
some broader shifts under way, doubtless connected to the fall-out from the Emperor
Justinian’s wars of reconquest, launched in the mid-sixth century. These terrible and destructive conflicts
failed to restore imperial hegemony and had effects far beyond the areas fought
over. They were, furthermore,
accompanied by a terrible outbreak of plague, adding to the period’s generally
apocalyptic feel. These changes, which
did much to rupture long-standing patterns of life in the Mediterranean, doubtless
played a significant role in producing the change in economic patterns
mentioned earlier, leading to closer links between Ireland and northern Britain
and mainland Europe. Those shifts in
long-distance trade patterns were probably an important element in political
change in northern Britain and Ireland, perhaps producing, as elsewhere, more
intensive local authority and a break-up of earlier, looser hegemonies. These Mediterranean crises may even have affected
Scandinavia, where the Eastern Empire had been an important source of precious
metals and other prestigious imports.
A shift in ideas may have been as
important as any of this. The Roman
Empire had been an overwhelming presence for the people beyond the frontiers, moulding
all sorts of ideas about power and authority.
Imperial frontier policies had formed the system within which kings and
other leaders interacted. Diplomatic
payments and gifts carried enormous importance, because of their connection
with the emperor at least as much as for their intrinsic worth. Some bracteates derived their models from
depictions of the Emperor on much earlier, fourth-century Roman coins.[13] Therefore, even after the Western Empire’s
collapse, ideas continued to be shaped by notions of Rome and the emperor. In the former imperial provinces, the fiction
endured for some time that the new rulers were still encompassed within the imperium, deriving their authority from
official Roman political and administrative titles. Connections with a Frankish king’s imperially-bestowed
honours, possibly even including a consulate of some sort, with a Burgundian
king who was a patricius or with an
Ostrogothic king who was a magister
militum had much the same cachet as earlier relations with a governor, vicarius or Praetorian Prefect. The Justinianic wars changed this. Justinian based his wars on a strident proclamation
that the Western Empire had been ‘lost’ to barbarian invasion and thus needed
to be reconquered. The ultimate failure
to reintegrate all the western territories resulted in a formal boundary being
drawn around the imperial territories in southern Spain and Italy. It is thus no surprise that on the Rhine
frontier the centuries-old dynamic, whereby losing political factions headed
for and crossed the river into Gallic territory, came to an end. A new, more integrated zone with what might
loosely be called ‘inward-looking’ relationships and political dynamics developed
within Germania Magna. From this, eventually, the polity of
‘Germany’ emerged.[14]
Awareness that the Roman Empire
no longer existed in western Europe produced a profound crisis in the former
imperial territories there. No more
could legitimacy be based on an allegedly official position in imperial
bureaucracy or a claim to represent the Emperor. The Emperor himself had made it clear that
his writ no longer ran in the West. ‘Barbarian’
territory’s integration within the imperial orbit made this crisis as visible
beyond the old limes as within
them. New ideological underpinnings were
sought. In the former provinces these
largely came from the Old Testament and it may be no accident that this was a
period when Christian (and again Old Testament) ideology became more
influential beyond the old frontier – most obviously in Ireland but also in northern
Britain. Christian foundations spread
into Germania Magna and, further away,
shifts in the ideological bases of power apparently occurred.
The study of late antique barbaricum has very important points to
make. The experience of the peoples of
northern Europe contradicts the view of Late Antiquity as a period of
continuity or steady, uniform development in a particular direction. There was constant change, and, frequently,
periods of considerable upheaval. North-western
European archaeology shows, furthermore, that the fifth-century demise of the
western Empire was a dramatic series of events producing crisis throughout barbaricum, as well as within the
western provinces. However, one thing
that remained constant between c.300 and c.550 at least was the Roman Empire’s dominant
influence in these regions. In that
sphere, the collapse of the West made little immediate difference and there the
traditional framework of Late Antiquity would seem to be underlined. It was the mid-sixth-century dramas and their
fall-out in the century or so afterwards that made a huge difference, perhaps
as much in these far northern and western regions as in the Mediterranean
itself. One reason for this was the
awareness, finally, of living ‘after Rome’.
In that sense the period c.300-c.650 has a unity in barbaricum, very much a Late Antique unity, based perhaps
ironically around the enduring influence of the Roman Empire.
Bibliography
[1]
E.g. Hårdh (2003).
[2]
Halsall (2007), p.131.
[3]
Quast (2009). Compare Gebühr (2009) and Becker
(2009).
[4]
Von Carnap-Bornheim (2015); Memorial Colloquium Haarnagel (2010). Nicolay
(2014) sees Herrenhöfe as indicative of hierarchy, reasonably enough.
[5]
Hunter (2007)
[6]
Not Dig. occ. 5.197, 200.
[7]
Ó Croínín (1995) pp.23-27
[8]
Halsall (2014)
[9]
Theuws & Hiddink (1997), pp.77-80.
[10]
Robinson & Siemen (1988); Jensen, J., (2003).
[11]
Fischer (2014).
[12]
Feachem (1955-56).
[13]
Magnus (1997), p.196; Pesch (2007), esp. her Formularfamilien A and C. On the
chronology of bracteates, see Axboe (2004).
[14]
Halsall (2014)