5. INTO THE "DARK AGES"
THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
A GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES |
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The Middle Ages begins with the final stage of the decline of
civilization in the Western half of the Roman Empire sometime during
the 400s AD. This period lasts about 900 to 1000 years – until
the beginning of the Renaissance in about 1400 AD. All of this
time gets lumped together as "The Middle Ages" because of the
intellectual legacy of commencing in the late 1600s and early 1700s –
"The Age of the Enlightenment." Scholars at that time could
gladly celebrate the rapid rise of the West's material culture in the
two to three centuries since the onset of the Renaissance (French for
"rebirth") in Italy in the 1400s (but even showing signs of this
development in the early 1300s) The grandeur of ancient Rome was
supposedly being recaptured: the revival of urban culture, the
growth of the great learning centers, the revival of ancient
science. Even the restoration of pagan philosophy was celebrated.
Thus it was that eventually (the 1800s) in looking at that thousand years or so since the decline of the grandeur that was once Rome's – and the rebirth of a similar material culture in the 1400s, Western scholars came to the point in the where they simply described everything in between as being the of the "Middle Ages."1 That was when they were being kind. When many spoke of how they really thought about that time they referred to it as the "Dark Ages."2 Why the decline?
Moral-Spiritual crisis: The loss of affection for the very idea of Rome itself. The co-opting of Christianity as the moral-ethical underpinning of the Roman Empire did not hold off the disintegration of the Empire. In fact the very theological ardor of imperial Christianity probably hastened its demise. Christianity had made great advances among urbanized Romans … at first among the poorer Romans who had flocked to the cities, or who had simply been part of the rapidly expanding landless class of Romans born and raised in the extensive urban slums of Rome. But over time, Christianity had also reached into the hearts of many of the upper classes of Romans … even into the Senatorial class. But the rural and small-town parts of the Empire (which Rome had depended heavily on to support its extensive military presence everywhere) were still more closely attached to their former pagan ways … and found urban Rome less and less easy to identify with – or have any continuing affection for. Military loyalties. From the earliest times, the strength of Rome had been its independent, prosperous, pious and fiercely patriotic farmers and urban middle classes who had filled the ranks of the Roman armies – making for a fierce fighting machine, one that succeeded in conquering the Western world. But over time, the ranks of the military had become filled with foreigners, mostly Germanic tribesmen, whose loyalties rested not with the abstract idea of Rome but instead with their personal commanders … who fought with each other constantly in the effort to command the Empire. These ongoing civil wars did nothing to create a unified sense of "Romanness" … but did quite the opposite, draining Rome not only of its material assets but also its social and spiritual assets as well. The crushing economic burden placed on Rome's citizens. Added to this loss of popular support of the Roman "idea" was the immense and wasteful cost of maintaining the huge Roman administrative, military and now also religious bureaucracy. The imperial bureaucracy (as all bureaucracies) grew in size and cost to the Empire, requiring the raising of taxes from those who created the Empire's source of wealth – the humbler social orders. Slowly, wealth gravitated to the bureaucracy (especially the Emperor and his friends) and drained away from the middle classes. With the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire in the early 300s – and the confiscation of the wealth of the pagan temples and treasuries – the flow of wealth to the imperial rulers and their bureaucracy (which now included the Church) created an inflation which destroyed the real wealth of the middle classes. Taxes were now ruinous and lands were confiscated – or abandoned. Finally things got so bad that it seemed wiser for these humbler classes simply to abandon their farms and shops and go into service to the ever richer nobility. Eventually laws had to be passed to keep them from doing this, for the countryside was depopulating and the empire needed their services. Thus they were forbidden to leave their work and homes except with imperial permission. But these laws served only to remove the last of their political rights. Basically, they were now serfs – unwilling captives to the system. Consequently, the commoners who once built the Roman empire now were alienated from this same empire. Indeed, they saw themselves increasingly as living within an alien world. Resentment increased – and revolts broke out – and were cruelly repressed. In the East, revolt tended often to take the form of rallying behind one or another Christian "heresy" which served to galvanize the frustration and anger of the humbler social orders. Thus by the early 400s – the Empire was ripe for treason. In the West this came to fruition during the time of the German invasions. The people of the land simply refused to offer resistance to these alien intruders (who actually came in relatively small numbers) – having little love for the old imperial system. The place of the Church in the breakdown of the old Roman Order. It was a Dark Age not because of the Church and its teachings – as so many during the Enlightenment would imply. The Church did not cause these developments, but like the Germanic tribesmen, moved into the moral vacuum that these developments created. And the Church survived this catastrophe, when little else of the Roman legacy did, because it was able to touch the hearts of the people the way the Imperium no longer could. Indeed, about the only thing of old "Rome" that survived during this collapse of the social order in the Western half of the Empire was the Christian church. The Church gave what little bit of cultural unity to the West that it could. Even that was relatively little, at least during the first half of the Middle Ages. Yes, there was a pope based in the city of Rome – and little else by way of authority in this once proud center of the great Roman Empire (the Roman imperial political center, such as there still was one in the West, had been moved to the city of Ravenna in the north of Italy). Actually, beyond Rome the pope originally had little real influence or authority. The power of the Church rested – as with all things in those days – with whatever powers it possessed at the local level. Monks and priests managed to preserve what portion of the Church there was that was still intact. In this they acquitted themselves fairly honorably, especially once the monastic movement had been reshaped by Benedict (early 500s), whose rule was widely honored throughout the West. Indeed, missionaries sent out by the Irish monasteries3 helped to bring to the Germanic tribesmen to the East of them in Britain and the European mainland aspects of the Roman Latin Christian legacy that otherwise would have been lost entirely to Western Europe. The infighting within Rome's leadership. What really brought down Roman power – at least the increasingly unprotected Western half of the Empire once leadership had moved to the Byzantine East – was the constant infighting among those who sought Roman leadership. Of course this had been going on for some time. But it reached particularly catastrophic proportions after the reign of Theodosius at the end of the 300s. And it was at this point not just unhappy troops making and unmaking Rome's leadership … but also conspiracy and murder occurring within the families that did succeed to put themselves in power that crippled Roman leadership so badly. The invading Germanic tribes. Taking advantage of the collapse of Western Rome's social-political morale were the various Germanic tribes at the Rhine-Danube borders – anxious to get themselves across these borders not merely to take advantage of the greater glory of Roman civilization … but also to get away from the invading Asian tribes pressing down on them from the East. Compared to the size of the huge Roman population, the Germanic tribes were quite small. But they possessed the political determination that Rome now lacked … making a huge difference in the balance of power. And in particular, they were led by some of the most determined warriors of the day. Even Rome understood this and opened the door for those of semi-Germanic – even full Germanic – origin to fill political and military positions that the Roman citizens themselves were failing to fill. Thus when during the 400s the Roman Empire fell apart in Western Europe – when Germanic tribes ranged widely across the Western Empire – there was almost nothing of the Old Roman Order stopping them. The Pax Romana or Roman peace simply ceased to function in the West. There were no more Roman magistrates backed up by the Roman legions to stand behind the Roman social order. Whatever social order existed did so at the mercy of local tribal lords acting in accordance with Germanic tribal customs. Beyond or among these local, mostly tribal, principalities, there was no authority to enforce order. Consequently cross-European or even regional commerce and shipping came to a halt … as the highways and the sea routes became infested with brigands and pirates. In turn, cities, whose life blood existed around either commerce or public order, lost their function – and their population. But even the countryside became depopulated. The Germanic "barbarians" did not produce this cultural vacuum. They merely moved into it once they understood that it was there … that there was no longer any real Roman counter-pressure to hold them back as they scrambled for grazing and farming lands for their own growing populations. When they did move into the Roman domains, they attempted to capture the glory of the Rome that they once envied. But it was no longer there to be grasped. In consequence their own traditional tribal ways took over where they settled. The Arian infusion of the Germanic tribes. However – and critical for the future of the Western world – Christianity had been already received by many of the German "barbarians." But it was Arian or "Unitarian" Christianity they received, not orthodox Trinitarian or Catholic Christianity. Arius, in order to escape the very strong opposition within the empire to his Unitarian views of Christianity, had journeyed to Illyria of the Visigoths – there to make many converts to Christianity (Arian Christianity, that is). Then in around 325, Ulfilas (also Arian) undertook a mission to the Visigoths, bringing that all important tribe into Christianity via the Arian route. This it was that Christianity would not crumble the way the older Roman social order did when the Germanic tribes pushed into the dying Roman Empire (in the West anyway). But nonetheless, Germanic Christianity would be quite problematic for Trinitarian or Catholic (and Orthodox) Christians trying to preserve what they could of the old Roman-Catholic order. The dwindling days of Hellenistic philosophy (400s to 500s). Despite the fact that the Empire was officially "Christian" in religion in character, this did not prevent on going non-religious philosophical inquiry. To be sure, any such activity had to do so with the thought of not overstepping any orthodox religious boundaries. Two of the major such philosophers during the dying days of Roman civilization in the West were Proclus and Boethius. However … "Rome" survives in the East as the Byzantine Empire
In the Eastern or Byzantine Roman Empire – which except in small parts of Italy and Sicily was no longer in touch with the West and its troubles – Roman life (now fully Greek rather than Latin in culture) seemingly continued as usual. Indeed, eventually under Justinian (Emperor 527-565), Roman power was considerably revitalized in the East … at least temporarily. Justinian was even able to retake large portions of the Western Empire, particularly in the areas immediately surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. But such success came at great expense to the Byzantines – an expense they really could not afford. The ancient and ongoing wars with the Sassanid Persians to the East had reached new levels of violence and were draining the energies (and tax sources) of the Byzantine Empire. [These wars were also draining the energies of Sassanid Persia.] Subject peoples within the Byzantine Empire were getting very restless under this heavy tax burden. This situation was made only worse by the tendency of the imperial capital Constantinople to want to stamp out various Christian "heresies" widespread around the further reaches of the Empire – especially among the non-Greek peoples of the Eastern and Southeastern Mediterranean borderlands. A large number of Christians in these regions held philosophies or theologies not quite "Trinitarian" or Orthodox enough to suit the tastes of the imperial authorities in Constantinople. But the effort to stamp out these heresies resulted only in alienating the people of these regions all the more. As a result, by the beginning of the 600s much of the Eastern Roman Empire was exhausted and restless – physically, morally and spiritually. This, in turn, would open the door for a rapidly rising Islam to finish off the largest portion of Byzantine Rome … in quite short order. 1Latin: medium aevum for "middle ages" – from which we get the word "medieval" – appears as early as the beginning of the 1600s ... although the term "medieval" really comes into full use only in the 1800s.s 2The term "Dark Age" goes back at least as far as the early 1300s, when the Italian scholar Petrarch used this term to describe the time-period that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. 3Ireland, until the Vikings came along in the late 700s, had escaped the worst of the northern migratory disruptions.
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