ostrogoths encountered a well-preserved system of roman government when they invaded italy in 489 ad...
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OSTROGOTHS• Encountered a well-preserved system
of Roman government when they invaded Italy in 489 AD– King Theodoric was determined to
preserve this system• Program of civil government,
called civilitas implemented under his leadership
– Aimed to preserve Roman administrative system, economy, and culture
– Roman tradition of orderly government was maintained more successfully by Ostrogoths than in any other Germanic kingdom Theodoric
CIVILITAS• Theodoric retained Roman
administrators in order to continue the preexisting system– Did not entrust these jobs to his
fellow tribesmen• Ostrogothic warriors given a
purely military role– Supported by land given
to them by wealthy Italian landowners who were required to set aside portions of their estates for the use of the Ostrogoths
Ostrogoth coin
SOCIETY AND CULTURE• Ostrogoths lived alongside the
Romans but separately from them– Under the leadership of their
own chieftains and governed according to their own customs and traditons
• Also practiced their own religion– Arianism
• Believed Jesus was inferior to God the Father because God the Father had created Jesus
• Theodoric tolerated the religion of his Italian subjects and governed them impartially
Theodoric
DIPLOMACY• Theodoric’s ultimate ambition was to
blend Roman and Germanic traditions and provide peaceful environment for the growth of culture– Used marriage diplomacy to achieve
peace• Arranged marriage between
Vandal king and his sister• Married sister of Clovis, king of the
Franks• One daughter married king of the
Burgundians and another married the king of the Visigoths
– Created an intricate system of alliances that involved the leaders of most of the German tribes
Clovis
LEGACY• Theodoric’s legacy of good government
did not last long– Shortly after his death in 526, the
armies of Justinian besieged Italy– A few decades later, the Lombards
invaded Italy• Much of what Theodoric had
accomplished was lost• But some of the Roman cultural
legacy that he had tried to preserve survived
– Notably the Roman system of education with its emphasis on the 7 Liberal Arts
» Logic, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music
Theodoric’s tomb
CLOVIS• Rise of the Franks is closely tied to the parallel
rise of one Frankish chieftain, Clovis– Started as just one of many petty Frankish
chieftains but, by his death in 511, he had become the powerful barbarian rule in the West
• Extraordinarily ruthless in achieving this goal
– Also successful in enlarging Frankish territory• Took southwest Germany from the
Alamanni and drove Visigoths out of southern France
• Controlled most of what is modern-day France and modern-day Western Germany by 511
– As well as Belgium, Luxembourg, and southeastern Netherlands
CONVERSION
• Converted to Christianity– Historians doubt the sincerity of
his conversion because it had no impact on his violent behavior
– But it did open the way for the Franks to be genuinely converted to Christianity by bishops and missionaries over the following century
– Conversion also gave Clovis a political advantage
• Gave him a justification to attack the Arian Visigoths
ADMINISTRATION
• All higher levels of Roman administration had collapsed before the conquests of Clovis and he had no idea of how to preserve what still existed– Appointed loyal followers to rule
areas of his kingdom• Called “counts”• Appeared as though he
preserved semblance of old Roman administrative practices
– But his kingdom remained a primitive German monarchy
MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY• Claimed to be descended from some pre-
Christian god and thereby had a divine right to rule– Real power rested on the loyalty of the
counts• Basically illiterate warriors who knew
nothing of Roman law and government• Viewed kingdom as private property of ruler
and his family– Divided up among surviving sons when a
king died• Roman tradition of maintaining order
through efficient corps of highly trained administrators did not survive under these conditions– Rational administration based on law was
replaced by one based on personal ties
Childeric, Merovingian king
Kingdom divided among four sons when Clovis
died in 511
Only one son, Clothar I, survived ensuing civil
war
When Clothar I died in 562, kingdom was again
divided between his four sons—resulting in
the creation of four more-or-less independent
subkingdoms
These four sons also continually fought among themselves
Ultimate victor was Clothar II of Neustria,
who became sole ruler of reunited kingdon
A LITTLE HOPE
• Violent time– Also possible to glimpse another
world where poets and intellectuals still tried to preserve Latin culture and where saints maintained high standards of Christian life
• Like tiny islands of peace, culture, and piety in a vast ocean of savage violence
• But they were there to preserve a little piece of civilization and culture in a world dominated by vicious and bloodthirsty rulers
FUSION
• Slow fusion of Franks and Gallo-Romans also took place during Merovingian Period– Two cultures would gradually merge together to
eventually produce an entirely new nation and civilization
• Frankish language and Gallo-Roman Latin merged to eventually become French
• Roman Church gradually modified the more brutal and crude Frankish traditions and customs
• But fusion did not take place in government– Roman institutions replaced by Frankish ones
• Formed the foundation for early medieval government everywhere in Western and Central Europe
ROMAN THEORY OF THE STATE
• Roman idea of the state was that the fundamental duty of sovereign authority was to promote and protect public welfare– Enacted appropriate laws
and collected taxes to do this
• Taxes used to maintain army, a professional civil service, and a program of public works
– In return the citizen was expected to be loyal to the state
FRANKISH SYSTEM
• Frankish kingdom was only united by the personal loyalty of warrior-nobles to their king and through their ability to command loyalty from their followers– No concept of king as public official
• He was a war leader• Had no bureaucracy
• Counts were different from old Roman administrators– Maintained order within their territory but were not paid
by the state– Lived instead off income king provided for them– Relationship with king was based on personality loyalty
• When a king was unable to retain this loyalty, counts tend to become independent and defied the ruler
THE LAW• Frankish “law” was radically different from
Roman law– Roman law based on the assumption that
individual laws should reflect universal principles of justice
• Franks did not believe this• Frankish laws were simply the ancient
customs of the tribe– Unwritten, handed down from
generation to generation by word of mouth
• No concept that law of the conqueror should be imposed on the conquered
– A man’s law was part of his inheritance and not to be tampered with
SALIC CODE• Every crime, from smashing someone’s
head in, to adultery, to murder was punishable by a fine
• Why?– A crime against an individual had
traditionally involved the relatives of both the criminal and the victim
• Duty of relatives of murdered man was to get vengence on murderer and his relatives
– But these sort of vendettas and blood feuds often weakened the fighting strength of the tribe
• Fines were devised to provide an honorable alternative to wiping out entire families or clans
GUILT OR INNOCENCE• Only way to determine
guilt or innocence was to appeal to the supernatural
– Compurgation
• Bunch of men would swear oath that the accused was not guilty
– Ordeal
• Ordeal of hot iron
• Ordeal of cold water
• Trial by combat
LEGAL EVOLUTION
• Frankish legal institutions common to most Germanic tribes– Use of compurgation and
ordeal would be the dominant way to determine guilt all the way to the beginning of the 13th century
• At that point, the Church prohibited priests from participating in such trials and alternative methods of determining guilt or innocence had to be devised
CHURCH AND STATE• Frankish rulers realized that alliance with the Church
was valuable– Made generous gifts of property and privileges to
the clergy • Huge tracts of land• Right to try clergy in Church courts• Immunity
– Church gave up some independence in exchange for gifts
• Most rural churches had a lay patron who could appoint local priest
• Kings began to appoint bishops– No longer elected by lay people
• Hierarchy of Church became increasingly Germanic
– Accompanied by decline in clerical literacy and religious discipline
A DARK AGE?• Complex economic organization of old Roman Empire fell apart under
the Franks– Mainly through neglect– Franks were basically warriors and had little interest in trade,
commerce, and urban life• Kings did not consider the encouragement of commerce to be
their job– Did not keep up roads and bridges, did not police trade routes,
and did not protect merchants– Trade almost completely disappeared in the interior of Europe
as a result» Some seaborn trade along Mediterranean coast survived
• France became a predominantly agricultural region with a localized, self-sufficient economy
– Little money in circulation and few merchants– A Dark Age
RISE OF MAYOR OF THE PALACE
• Last strong Merovingian king was Dagobert (629-638)– Kingdom split up again after his death
and kings came and went with alarming frequency
• During this period of royal weakness, real power passed to the Mayor of the Palace
– Chief officer in the king’s household• Under King Dagobert, Pepin of Landen
made position of Mayor of the Palace hereditary to his family
– Family known as the Carolingians
Dagobert
CAROLINGIANS ON THE RISE• Pepin of Landen’s grandson, Pepin of
Heristal, reunited kingdom– In name of King Theodoric III
• But Pepin was real ruler of the kingdom as Mayor of the Palace
• Charles Martel became Mayor of the Palace in 714– Increased size of kingdom by
defeating the Frisians and Bavarians
– Strengthened hold over puppet Merovingian ruler
– Carolingian family was on the rise and the days of the Merovingians even as puppet rulers were numbered
Charles Martel
SUMMARY• A mingling of Roman and Frankish cultures took place during
the 6th and 7th centuries AD
– But it was accompanied by a terrible decay in the standards of civilization
• German kingship and primitive customary law replaced the institutions of the Roman state
• Roman order gave way to frequent internal warfare
• Christianity was generally accepted but in a debased form
• Tendencies towards local self-sufficiency and a primitive agrarian economy were greatly accentuated
• In language, Frankish German mixed with the Latin of Gallo-Romans to become French