Invasions spread across Gaul and Britannia. This map indicates the routes of these “barbarian” invasions. As the administrative structure of the Western Empire deteriorated in the fifth century, it became increasingly susceptible to invasion from outsiders. Centralized imperial authority in Western Europe gradually diminished during the fifth century. Suffering from incursions of Pictish and Irish raiders, southern Britain succumbed to Germanic invasions during the mid-400s. They revolted in Brittany against Roman rule while Celtic Britons failed to protect previously Roman dominions south of Hadrian’s Wall from a variety of invaders. Meanwhile, different groups of Celts also took advantage of western imperial weakness. Germanic chieftains had already carved out areas of control in parts of modern-day Italy, Germany, France, England, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The Western half of the Empire had always fewer and smaller cities than the Eastern portion, and this structural difference weakened the Western Emperors’ ability to fend off mounting pressures from invaders.įollowing the catastrophic loss to the Vandals in the naval battle of Cape Bon off the coast of North Africa in 469, the Eastern emperors realized that they could no longer afford to subsidize the military operations necessary to maintain political stability in the Western Empire. This instability along the western frontiers contrasted with the Eastern Empire, which had maintained fairly stable borders until the early seventh century and could draw tax revenues from a larger number of cities to maintain the central imperial administration. Chapter 14: The Early Middle Ages IntroductionĪs the centralized imperial authority in the Western Empire gradually deteriorated during the fifth century CE, the previously stable boundaries between the Romans and the Germanic tribes, who had mostly remained north of the Danube and east of the Rhine rivers, became increasingly porous.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |