Book review — Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe by Peter Heather
Peter Heather’s book is very enjoyable if you really enjoy history. And it is a serious history rather than a pop history book. I love pop history books, but Empires and Barbarians is the sort of history book that challenges received wisdom and argues its case forcefully rather than just being a fun chronological history or arguing that Brexit Is Just Like The Break Up Of Austo-Hungary Or Whatever. Taking in eleven lengthy chapters, this book is a thorough look at how the diverse tribes of Rome’s barbaricum ultimately destroyed Rome and reshaped Europe into a patchwork of states which, if you squint, are pretty obviously the precursor states of today’s Europe. [1]
And what a transformation it was. Until the 4th century Rome reached deep into northern Europe, by the 5th century the western empire was gone and barbarians were forming kingdoms across old Roman territory. The suddenness of this change belies a process that had roots hundreds of years before (and hundreds of miles away) and which would continue operating for hundreds of years more uniting a continent from the Atlantic to the Volga, and the Baltic to the Mediterranean. All in only a thousand years. That’s relatively speedy, all things considered. The real strength of Heather’s book is approaching this question without an end point in mind, without a teleological approach as we say in the biz, and his reliance on comparative migration studies to inform how and why people moved. Comparisons with Boer Voortrekkers or Rwandans fleeing into the Congo in a book about the Visigoths could look out of place, but are deployed well to bolster his case.
The key argument is that development and migration are intimately linked. This is widely accepted now and its unsurprising that this was true in the past, but Heather does a good job of describing how subtle differences in development impact the forms and flows of migration. For example, at the beginning of the Viking era Denmark had a stable monarchy; its relative poverty compared to Britain and Carolingian Europe induced Viking raiding parties to leave, their subsequent return with wealth was transformed into a fighting force which ultimately destabilised the monarchy. The interaction of migration and development continued though and the political fragmentation only lasted until local resistance to Viking raiding parties improved. This lead to the Great Armies phase of Viking conquest as fragmentation and small scale raids are s replaced by larger scale assaults, with warriors numbering in the 10,000s rather than 100s. Similar patterns are observable in the Roman Core/Periphery/Semi-periphery, in the movements of the Ostrogoths to Italy, Vandals and Alans in Spain and North Africa, Anglo-Saxons in England.
To reach Greenland, turn left at the middle of Norway, keep so far north of Shetland that you can only see it if the visibility is very good, and far enough south of the Faroes that the sea appears half way up the mountain slopes. As for Iceland, stay so far to the south that you only see its flocks of birds and whales.
Viking directions to Greenland
Particularly intriguing is his description of how the collapse of the Hunnic Empire ultimately caused such chaos that people faced no better choice but to invade Rome. The Huns weren’t Romes direct neighbours, and the historical sources around the illiterate nomads are pretty poor, but they established a loose empire in central Europe away from Rome’s centre of power. Attila’s death threw authority to whoever could catch it and led to widespread destruction and death. That drove people west, towards the wealth and relative stability of 5th century Rome. One question asked is, if Attila had been better at succession planning would Rome have fallen when it did? Indeed, this leads to another question, if the exodus of armed men from Germanic Europe into old Roman grounds had not occurred on such a grand scale could Slavs have later moved in and become the dominant group of Eastern Europe? Europe without widespread Slavic settlement is almost impossible to imagine, but it could have happened. [2]
One of the books strengths is its rejection of Marxist interpretations of what happened in Europe in this period. The book is very materialist and certainly it argues that material factors impact behaviours and outcomes, but the simplistic slavery and manoralism and feudalism and modernity schema of vulgar Marxist development theory is absent, and widely mocked. So too is the old idea of “peoples” made up of men, women, children and the elderly flooding over Roman frontiers, bringing down the empire and generally milling around Europe. This idea has been out of fashion academically for a long time since it was popular with 19th century nationalists. But Heather also skewers those who go to far the other way and imply there was no migration and that people just upped and changed culture occasionally without any migratory influence.
Another great aspect of the book is the whimsical asides. Being a historian of this period is not easy, the sources as bad, the archaeology ambiguous, the debates are thus viscous and so Heather’s good-natured approach is welcome. On dealing with gaping holes in the evidence on the gender balance after a period of migration we are met with this:
Nothing indicates, for instance, that they formed a numerical majority of the male population; and given their obviously privileged position, I would be willing to bet quite a lot of money that they did not.
This is how historical argument should be done! And “the so-called Gallic Chronicle of 452 (so called in a fit of wild scholarly fancy because it was put together in Gaul in 452)” gives the impression of an author who loves his subject, including its funny little ways. Likewise he sums up the benefits of studying the Carolingian Empire thusly: “Those who study the first millennium AD have a distinct advantage when it comes to the age-old game of Name Five Famous Belgians.” There are several more, each one amusing enough on its own but also building a picture of an author who not only really knows his stuff but also really enjoys his work, down to the fact the Vikings sacked Lindisfarne on his birthday.
One criticism of this book is the lack of anyone but men in it. The historical and archaeological sources for women and children in the period are limited, but its a pity what is there isn’t engaged with more. The only time women feature prominently is when discussing precisely who the Vikings were marrying. In this DNA evidence from Iceland suggests Vikings were picking up wives along the way (some relatively peacefully, but more likely not). Sexual violence is ever present, but rarely touched upon in any detail. Likewise DNA evidence is sparingly used in the text, and an updated one bringing more up-to-date information could help inform more of the darker areas of the first millennia timeline.
That said I still think this is an excellent book because it humanises the barbarians of Europe. By presenting things through the lens of comparative migrations this book makes it much easier to understand why and how it seemed like a good idea for Theodoric the Amal to spend years leading the Visigoths up and down the Balkan peninsula, sack Rome and settle in southwest Gaul. The mixture of political push and economic pull is recognisable to everyone, and by showing the pattern repeating and the conditions required Heather brings us closer to seeing our ancestors as much more like us than we sometimes imagine. His description of why people moved also answers the other question implied, why they stopped. They stopped because economic development shepherded early state formation to the point where people would prefer to stand and fight than run away; and that rootedness too is also easy to sympathise with.
[1] I’ve already mentioned this book here when I reflected on the changing face of nationalist academics.
[2] Likewise, spring winds brought Vikings to Great Britain and in autumn the winds reversed and brought them home to shelter over winter. If trade winds had been the other way round would Picts have been raiding the Vikings? If
