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THE COMING DARK AGE
Newsletter
May, 2004
1. INTRODUCTION
This month's edition contains a description of the sources available to
historians with respect to the last European dark ages, i.e. for the
first two or three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire
in AD 476. Past editions of the newsletter are at the following
address: http://www.darkage.fsnet.co.uk/Newsletter.htm I welcome all
comments, suggestions and contributions, especially the latter. Please
forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested. Marc
Widdowson
2. DARK AGE SOURCES
The history of the post-Roman dark ages is the history of a number of
'barbarian kingdoms', which established themselves in the territory of
the former Roman empire. The main ones were the Anglo-Saxons in
Britain, the Franks in Gaul, the Visigoths in Spain, and the Ostrogoths
(up to the mid-sixth century) and Lombards (later sixth century
onwards) in Italy. To unravel their history, we can draw on two types
of material: (1) narrative sources, which tell a story, and (2)
everything else, such as wills, letters and law codes.
Narrative sources are the most direct since they relate events in
sequence, telling us who did what to whom and, if we are lucky, when
they did it. They are histories in essentially the same way as a modern
history book, though to be recognised as original sources they are
histories that were written closest in time to the events they
describe. For example, Bede is normally recognised as the historian of
the Anglo-Saxons, Gregory of Tours as the historian of the Franks,
Jordanes as the historian of the Goths (Visigoths and Ostrogoths), and
Paul the Deacon as historian of the Lombards. These are perhaps four of
the most famous, as they have the liveliest styles and wrote at the
greatest length, but there are others. For example, Isidore of Seville
wrote a 'History of the Goths', while Fredegar wrote a 'Chronicle' of
the Franks and there is an anonymous 'Book of the History of the
Franks'. The quality of these narrative sources varies considerably.
The 'Histories' of Gregory of Tours are almost like a novel and can be
witty and engaging. Others, which tend to be called 'chronicles', give
a year-by-year, bare-bones description of major events like battles and
deaths of kings. Each year gets a sentence or two at most, and
sometimes nothing at all.
Overall, there are possibly no more than a couple of dozen narrative
sources originating in the barbarian kingdoms from which we can
construct their history, and most of these give very little
information. It may be three dozen if we include the works of a few
Byzantine (eastern Roman) historians, who sometimes mention events in
the west (recalling that the eastern Roman empire did not collapse at
the same time as the western empire, but continued in existence for
another thousand years). One could also add numerous biographies of
saints, of which there are hundreds. However, they are not usually very
good as narrative sources because their main aim is to glorify the
saint who is the subject of the biography, not to tell a coherent
history of the time. They are often full of miracle stories with just
the occasional detail giving away some important insight into events.
They are also biased, putting a particular spin on events in order to
show their chosen saint in a good light, and perhaps blacken the
reputation of his enemies. Historians have come to realise that the
same is true of the other narrative sources, though perhaps in a way
that is not so blatant. Most of the authors of the narrative sources
were churchmen and that gave them a particular agenda, such as to
promote the authority of the bishops over that of the kings, and this
agenda finds its way into their writings. Furthermore, the writings
were often modified when they were copied in later centuries, depending
on the agendas of the people of those times. For example, a great
family might encourage a history to be rewritten with an emphasis on
its own ancestors' contribution, thus giving a distorted picture.
Indeed, the reason we have so few sources from the dark ages is that
those which did not suit the agendas of later centuries were simply
dropped and no longer copied for posterity. It is also important to
recognise that some of the authors were writing about things that
happened a hundred or more years before their time, but we are forced
to rely on them, because there is simply nothing better. Occasionally,
we can cross-refer to different sources - and that sometimes shows that
the authors distorted or confused events - but much of the time we are
forced to rely on them alone. We have to take everything they say with
a pinch of salt, often reading between the lines to see where they
might be misleading us, deliberately or otherwise.
Turning to the other type of material - non-narrative sources - these
have their own problems. They give just a snapshot of a particular
incident or a particular person, and there is the obvious danger of
generalising too much from just one or a few examples. These sources
were even less concerned about building an overall picture of events
than saints' biographies were. For example, imagine if someone tried to
construct a history of the world in the twentieth century just from
your letters and emails. Do you mention all the major events and
personalities of the twentieth century in your correspondence - World
War Two, Marilyn Monroe, the Bretton Woods agreement? Perhaps, perhaps
not. Most of your letters are likely to be concerned with the everyday
details of your personal life. If they mention major historical events
it will not be in a systematic way, and it will probably miss out lots
of background information that you and your correspondent take for
granted. With law codes there is the perennial bug-bear - if a law
existed against something, does that prove the problem in question was
a common one? The answer is probably, sometimes, sometimes not, and it
can be very difficult to tell which is which. We can glean all sorts of
interesting information from letters, wills and law codes, but they
often produce as many questions as answers.
The upshot is that for the two or three centuries of dark ages
following the fall of Rome, the history is confused, distorted, full of
gaps and sometimes self-contradictory. When modern historians write
about the period they often hedge their arguments with 'perhaps',
'possibly', 'might have been' and so on. The same will be the case for
the dark age we are about to enter. As truth becomes increasingly less
respected, as standards of scholarship decline, as war and conflict
make it harder to gather data and to communicate with other scholars,
history will become a rare and precious commodity.