Barbarian tides : the migration age and the later Roman Empire / Walter Goffart.

By:

Goffart, Walter, 1934- [author]

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Middle Ages seriesPublication details: Philadelphia, Pa. : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2006.Description: x, 372 pages ; 25 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9780812239393
0812239393
9780812221053

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

937.09

Contents:

Introduction -- 1. A clarification: the three meanings of "Migration Age" -- 2. A recipe on trial: "The Germans overthrow the Roman Empire" -- 3. An entrenched myth of origins: the Germans before Germany -- 4. Jordanes's Getica and the disputed authenticity of gothic origins from Scandinavia -- 5. The great Rhine crossing, A.D. 400-420, a case of Barbarian migration -- 6. The "techniques of accommodation" revisited -- 7. None of them were Germans: Northern barbarians in late antiquity -- Appendices: 1. Alexander Demandt on the role of the Germans in the end of the Roman Empire -- 2. Chronicle evidence for the Burgundian settlement -- 3. The meaning of agri cum mancipiis in the Burgundian Kingdom.

Summary: "The Migration Age is still envisioned as an on rush of expansionary "Germans" pouring unwanted into the Roman Empire and subjecting it to pressures so great that its western parts collapsed. Further developing the themes set forth in his classic Barbarians and Romans, Wlater Goffart dismantles this grand narrative, shaking the barbarians of late antiquity out of this "Germanic" setting and reimagining the role of foreigners in the later Roman Empire. The Empire was not swampted by a migratory Germanic flood for the simple reason that there was no single ancient Germanic civilization to be transplanted onto ex-Roman soil. Since the sixteenth century, the belief that purposeful Germans existed in parallel with the Romans has been a fixed point in European history. Goffart uncovers the origins of this historical untruth and argues that any projection of a modern Germany out of an ancient one is illusory. Rather, the multiplicity of northern peoples once living on the edges of the Empire participated with the Romans in the larger stirrings of late antiquity. Most relevant among these was the long militarization that gripped late Roman society concurrently with its Christianization."-- Back cover.

List(s) this item appears in: New Titles

Holdings ( 1 )
Title notes ( 3 )

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds	Course reserves
Reserve - Overnight loan	CYA Library Reserve	937.09 GOF (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		00000011420		Tsivikis, Nikos

Total holds: 0

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"The Migration Age is still envisioned as an on rush of expansionary "Germans" pouring unwanted into the Roman Empire and subjecting it to pressures so great that its western parts collapsed. Further developing the themes set forth in his classic Barbarians and Romans, Wlater Goffart dismantles this grand narrative, shaking the barbarians of late antiquity out of this "Germanic" setting and reimagining the role of foreigners in the later Roman Empire.
The Empire was not swampted by a migratory Germanic flood for the simple reason that there was no single ancient Germanic civilization to be transplanted onto ex-Roman soil. Since the sixteenth century, the belief that purposeful Germans existed in parallel with the Romans has been a fixed point in European history. Goffart uncovers the origins of this historical untruth and argues that any projection of a modern Germany out of an ancient one is illusory. Rather, the multiplicity of northern peoples once living on the edges of the Empire participated with the Romans in the larger stirrings of late antiquity. Most relevant among these was the long militarization that gripped late Roman society concurrently with its Christianization."-- Back cover.