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By Peter Heather

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Western world went through a turbulent and dramatic period during which a succession of kingdoms rose, grew, and crumbled in spans of only a few generations. The wars and personalities of the dark ages are the stuff of legend, and all led toward the eventual reunification of Europe under a different kind of Roman rule — this time, that of the Church. Below, historian Peter Heather selects ten moments from the period upon which the fate of Europe hinged.

• March 15, 493 AD: King Odoacer slain by Theoderic

   

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  Theoderic, king of the new Ostrogothic coalition created since the death of Attila the Hun in 453, slices Odoacer in half after dinner in Ravenna to take complete control of Italy and the Adriatic coast of Dalmatia. He subsequently adds to this Sicily, a large part of modern Hungary, southern France and most of Spain to relaunch Empire in the west, consciously styling himself as the head of a fully and legitimately Roman state.

• January 1, 519 AD: Eutharic becomes consul

   

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  Theoderic’s chosen heir and son-in-law, Eutharic, receives the Roman consulship with the full blessing of Constantinople, seeming to guarantee that Theoderic’s Empire will last into the next generation. But Eutharic dies before Theoderic, and, on the latter’s death, Constantinople encourages the centrifugal forces which break the Empire up once more into separate Gothic kingdoms in Italy and Spain.

• January 18, 532 AD: Massacre at the Nika riots

   

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  The Emperor Justinian turns loose his General Belisarius and his trusted soldiery on a crowd in the Hippodrome, which has been baying for his replacement, after a sequence of military defeats against Persia. At the end of the day, thousands are dead and the ceremonial centre of Constantinople a burnt out ruin, but Justinian has clung onto power. (Pictured: the Hippodrome today.)

• September 14, 533 AD: The battle of Ad Decimum

   

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  Desperately seeking renewed legitimacy, Justinian sends Belisarius to North Africa this time to exploit political division in the Vandal kingdom. In the battle, Belisarius wins a stunning victory over the Vandal king Gelimer, and Carthage swiftly falls. This unexpectedly easy victory leads Justinian to adopt a more general policy of conquest in the west which will add Italy, Dalmatia and parts of southern Spain, as well as North Africa, to his Empire by the mid-550s.

• June 8, 632: The prophet Muhammad dies

   

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  Muhammad perishes on the eve of the great Islamic conquests which will engulf the Near East, North Africa, and much of Spain within the next hundred years. They utterly destroy the Persian Empire and deprive Constantinople of between two-thirds and three-quarters of its territories and tax revenues. The old East Roman Empire is reduced from world to regional power, and its domination of the western Mediterranean, reasserted under Justinian, destroyed forever.

• Christmas Day, 800 AD: Charlemagne is crowned emperor by Pope Leo III in St. Peters

   

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  The Islamic destruction of Constantinople’s capacity to influence western events has combined with transalpine economic and demographic development to allow a restoration of Empire in the west based for the first time on a north European powerbase. Contrary to his own propaganda, Charlemagne has been actively seeking the imperial title for at least a decade, and it is no coincidence that, the day before, he had convened a synod which cleared the Pople of some very embarrassing allegations, with no questions asked.

• June 25, 841 AD: The Battle of Fontenoy

   

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  Charlemagne’s grandsons fight a bloody engagement at Fontenoy, kickstarting the process of Carolingian imperial fragmentation. Unlike its Roman predecessor which used large-scale taxation to maintain professional military forces, the capacity of Charlemagne’s state to wage war was based on militarised gentry and aristocratic landowners whose allegiance had to be bought – largely by grants of land - in each generation. This made it extremely difficult to maintain centralised supra-regional power in the long-term, as wealth tended to leech away from monarchs, especially in the context of civil war, where military support was at a premium.

• February 12, 1049 AD: Coronation of Pope Leo IX

   

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  Bruno of Egisheim-Dagsburg is crowned Pope Leo IX, marking the moment when the products of the Christian cultural revolution instigated by Charlemagne took possession of the Roman Papacy to further his ideals of Christian reform. Emperors and Kings had previously provided the Church with the necessary resources and enforcement structures to make reform work, but Latin Christendom (increasing in size as conversion continued) was now divided between too many rulers for any one to be the source of the united leadership that the common culture of Latin Churchmen, the product of Charlemagne’s libraries and reforms, desired.

• December 28, 1210 AD: Approval of the Compilatio tertia, the oldest official compilation of Papal legal decisions, or decretals

   

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  When Leo IX became Pope, the Papacy enjoyed great prestige, but little practical authority. This was transformed by a legal revolution – beginning with Gratian’s Concordance of Discordant Canons in c. 1150 – which used the legal principles and techniques of old Roman imperial law systematically to resolve disagreements in Church teaching on the principle that existing Papal rulings carried greatest authority, while simultaneously requiring that any new or currently unresolved issues be addressed by new Papal decrees.

• November 11, 1215 AD: Fourth Council of the Lateran

   

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  Seventy-one metropolitans, four hundred and twelve bishops, and nine hundred abbots and priors gather in Rome for the opening of Lateran IV, then the largest Christian council ever held. It defines required standards of Catholic lay and clerical piety which last down to the twentieth century. Equally important, it symbolises the transfer of ecclesiastical authority from emperors to Popes. Four hundred years earlier, it was Charlemagne who had called the ecclesiastical shots, but, in the meantime, the legal structure of one Roman Empire had been used to create a new one.

Peter Heather is Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London. He is the bestselling author of The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe, and numerous other works on late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

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Image credits: 1. Coin with profile of Odoacer. Permission via Creative Commons by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. Via Wikimedia Commons. 2. 16th century statue of Theoderic. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 3. The Hippodrome of Constantinople today. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 4. Mosaic depicting Justinian. Permission via GNU license. Via Wikimedia Commons. 5. 18th century Turkish depiction of Muhammad ascending to Heaven. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 6. “Coronation of Charlemagne” by Jean Fouquet, c. 1460. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 7. “Battle of Fontenoy” by Pierre Lenfant, c. 1747. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 8. Statue of Pope Leo IX in Altorf, France. Permission via GNU license. Via Wikimedia Commons. 9. Pope Innocent III, whose decretals comprised the Compilatio Tertia, depicted in a fresco c. 1219. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 10. “Lateran Palace” by Giuseppe Vasi, c. 1752. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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REVIEWS by Adèle Geras

ECHOES FROM THE DEAD by Johan Theorin Black Swan pbk.
The decade we’ve just left has been remarkable for the number of wonderful Scandinavian crime/thriller writers who have been brought to the notice of British readers. This last year ended with the Stieg Larsson trilogy (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and its sequels) sweeping all before it in terms of sales and attention. These books are terrific and I recommend them to anyone who’s missed them. But...and it’s a big but...they are only the tip of a Nordic noir iceberg and the cliché seems appropriate in the circumstances. We are in very chilly territory with a great many of these writers. My favourites are Arnaldur Indridason, Hakan Nesser, Karin Alvtegen, and Karin Fossum. There’s Henning Mankell, of course, creator of Wallander and the Daddy of the genre but I have to confess to liking this particular detective better in both his screen interpretations than in print. Maybe I was too young when I tried him and ought to give him another go, but meanwhile, there are so many others that I’ve not done so.

I found Johan Theorin through a recommendation on a blog. I then went to Amazon and read a whole lot of rave reviews and bought his first novel. I couldn’t resist buying his his second and I’m waiting for the next most eagerly. Theorin is a journalist and his books are set on an island off the south-east coast of Sweden called Öland. ECHOES FROM THE DEAD concerns the disappearance and presumed death of a young boy in the alvar (look it up on Google...it’s an amazing landscape of miles of treeless flora, windswept and rocky and completely fascinating). Many years later, his mother goes back to the island to visit her father, now in an old people’s home. He used to be a sea captain and his hobby is making ships in bottles. He’s also something of a detective and when a parcel arrives with a shoe in it which seems to be the one his grandson was wearing on the last day of his life, the hunt is on for his abductor and killer. The story (in the past ) of the person we suspect may be the guilty party runs parallel to the present -day mystery and by the time all is revealed, we get not only a cracking good tale but also a sort of history of this amazing place with its people and customs and their struggles to make a living in a habitat that is anything but hospitable. The sea is never far away and its sights and smells pervade the narrative without lengthy paragraphs of nature description. It’s very skilfully done. The book has photographs in the back to give you some idea of what the place looks like (rather in the manner of WG Sebald) and this is something I wish more publishers would encourage. I can’t recommend this crime novel too highly. Do try it.

You will then, I’m sure, want to go on to Theorin’s second book, THE DARKEST ROOM (Doubleday trade pbk) just as I did.
This will appear in mass market pbk in March. It won the prestigious Glass Key Award for the best Nordic crime thriller of 2008 and was a number one bestseller in Sweden. We’re still on Öland but this time round it’s a place called Eel Point where the lighthouse stands. We have a house, which has a history and which may or may not have a haunted barn attached to it. We have a family busy with renovating it, just before Christmas. They, too, have a history which will become important later on. A tragedy occurs and although it’s presented as an accident, the rest of the book concerns the attempt of a brave policewoman ( who believes it might be a murder) to discover what really happened. Other people, both from the past and from the present, are caught up in the drama. There are children to worry about. Characters from ECHOES FROM THE DEAD recur and there’s an exciting race to find everything out and prevent other crimes before the arrival of a dreadful blizzard that everyone knows is coming. The dénouement is not only dramatic but also very snowy and cold and ghostly and I can’t help

The Coming of Dragons
The Darkest Age: Book One

by A.J. Lake

Two children, Elspeth and Edmund, are shipwrecked together with a mysterious chest. Elspeth is the daughter of the ship's captain, and Edmund is the son of the King of Sussex, traveling incognito. During the storm which wrecked the ship, Edmund saw a dragon; but more than that, he saw through the dragon's eyes.

The two children and the chest are found on the beach by on old man, Aagard, who turns out to be more than he seems. Aagard was one of the council of the King of Wessex, called the King's Rede, before the Rede was betrayed by an evil, power-hungry man called Orgrim. Orgrim was a ripente, someone who has the capability of entering anyone's mind and seeing through their eyes. Aagard tells Edmund that the reason he could see through the dragon's eyes is that he is a Ripente also.

The chest contains a crystal sword, a sword coveted by Orgrim. If Orgrim gets the sword, he will be unstoppable. The sword chooses Elspeth and bonds itself to her hand. Edmund and Elspeth just want to go home, but fate has another destiny in store for them. The two children may have no choice but to use their unwanted gifts to try to defeat Orgrim.

The Coming of Dragons is set in a land which closely resembles England of the Dark Ages, but in this England, things such as magic and dragons are real. The story is exciting; kids who like swords and sorcery adventures will enjoy it. I liked the strong-willed Elspeth a little better as a character than the cautious Edmund, but even Edmund develops some spirit as they go along and as he learns better how to use his gift. The protagonists act stupidly a little too often for my taste, but hopefully as the series progresses they'll grow into their responsibility.

In spite of the title, there's not much of dragons here; the one dragon appears only twice in the story. However, the next book, The Book of the Sword, promises to have more about the dragon. I'll find out soon: I have a copy of The Book of the Sword and will read it as soon as I can get it away from David.

Technorati Tags: book review | childrens books | young adult books | fantasy | swords | dark ages

A new show about the dark ages will be premiering on the History Channel this Sunday. As part of the promotion leading up to the premiere, they have an interactive game to create your own dark ages character. You get to choose things like gender, role, and clothing, and it generates a character name for you based, using some mysterious algorithm, on your name.

I chose "Viking" for my role, and my character is named Geira the Ash Tree. You can see her here:

Check out my Dark Ages profile!

And yes, that's really my face! It lets you upload a photo to use for the face.

I had a lot of fun playing with this, although the gender limitations frustrated me. After I selected female for my gender, I was presented with four options: Lady, Viking, Nun, or Peasant. Lady? Bo-oring. Nun? No way! Peasant? Too hard. So I opted for Viking, which sounded pretty exciting to me. Unfortunately, I should have remembered from reading Viking Warrior that the life of women in Viking culture was not very exciting. So Geira is stuck caring for the children and supervising the servants, when I'd much rather go out viking! Oh, well, it could be worse: at least I'm not one of the servants! And while I wish it could be otherwise, the gender-based roles made sense in a game which is meant to teach you about the dark ages.

Edited to add:

My son David also created his own dark ages character: he opted to be a monk. He also cracked the name code and figured out how to pick his own name rather than being stuck with a randomly selected one.

See Godomar the Wandering Scholar