the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul were spared, for the Visigoths were Arian Christians. All else was subjected to the wrath of the barbarians. Rome, the eternal city, capital of the greatest empire in history, was captured for the first time since 390 BC.
The winter of 406‐407 was unusually cold in Europe. The Rhine River froze over. Many of the Roman soldiers along the Rhine had been recalled to defend Rome threatened by the Gothic king Alaric (c. 370–410). A mixed group of Germans including Vandals, Suevi, and Alans crossed the Rhine near Mainz. A flood of Germans, followed by the Huns in the middle of the fifth century, began plundering and carving out petty kingdoms in the western half of the Empire. Rome was sacked again in 455 by the Vandals. Roman emperors remained on the throne in the West at the pleasure of German warrior‐kings until 476.
Julius Nepos (430–480) was appointed emperor in the West in 474 by Leo I (401–474), emperor in the East. Nepos was deposed by the commander of his army, Orestes (d. 476), who named his teenage son Romulus‐Augustulus (b. 460) emperor.6 His reign was brief, only 10 months. He was deposed on September 4, 476, by Odoacer (433–493), an army commander who led a revolt against Orestes. Odoacer was proclaimed king by his army. The young Romulus‐Augustulus was granted an annual pension and retired under a kind of house arrest in Campania. The Roman Senate, still in existence, accepted Odoacer as king. The Senate sent a delegation to Constantinople to inform Emperor Zeno (c. 425–491) that an emperor was no longer necessary in the West. Thus, the year 476 is regarded as the “official” end of the Roman Empire, at least in the West.
By the end of the fifth century, the Roman Empire in the West existed as a patchwork of Germanic kingdoms – The Vandals in North Africa, the Visigoths in Spain, the Ostrogoths (East Goths) in Italy, the Franks in Gaul and the Rhineland, and the Angles and Saxons in Britain. In each case, the Germanic kings pretended to govern under the authority of the emperor in Constantinople, but in practice ruled alone. The Roman Empire in the East lived on as the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire until 1453. In the West, the memory of a universal state survived in the Christian Church, the medieval concept of Christendom, and after 961, in the Holy Roman Empire.
References
1 Nicgorski, W. (2017). Cicero and the Natural Law. Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism. http://www.nlnrac.org/classical/cicero (accessed 18 October 2019).
2 Wright, D.F. (2015). 313 The Edict of Milan. Christianity Today. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1990/issue28/2809.html (accessed 18 October 2019).
Notes
1 1 “Thomas Jefferson explicitly names Cicero as one of a handful of major figures who contributed to a tradition ‘of public right' that informed his draft of the Declaration of Independence” (Nicgorski 2017).
2 2 The popular story that the Romans sowed the soil with salt so that nothing could grow there in the future is only a modern myth. It was said that Scipio Africanus wept while the city burned and wondered if the same fate would one day befall Rome.
3 3 The Romans destroyed Corinth in 146 BC, the same year they destroyed Carthage.
4 4 Matthew 22:37-40. ESV
5 5 John 13:35. ESV
6 6 Since Julius Nepos was appointed by Leo I, Nepos was the de jure emperor in the West.
Part II Europe in the Middle Ages: An Overview
When the last Roman Emperor in the West was deposed in 476, any semblance of central government vanished with him. A plurality of Germanic kingdoms replaced what was the Roman Empire in the West. By the beginning of the ninth century, a strong Frankish kingdom appeared to be assuming the role of the former Roman imperial authority. Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800. Charlemagne unified much of what today comprises France, the Low Countries, Germany, and Italy down to Rome.
Charlemagne established a palace school at his court in Aachen (Aix la Chapelle) that is credited with stimulating a revival of learning known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The Frankish Kingdom fragmented following Charlemagne’s death in 814. The successor kingdoms were unable to provide protection from the Viking raids during the ninth century. The need to provide for law and order and livelihood at the local level in the absence of any central government gave rise to feudalism. A feudal pyramid with the king at its peak and levels of warrior nobility owing personal loyalty to one another in exchange for land emerged throughout Europe.
The legacy, or myth, of a universal Christian empire was kept alive by the emergence of a Western Christian faith unified theologically and with a governmental administration centered in Rome. Where there was once an emperor, there was now a pope, and where there was once a Roman civil administration, there were archbishops, bishops, priests, and monastic abbots, all answerable to the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter and vicar of Christ on earth. The people looked to the church for guidance more than to any secular feudal lord.
During the High Middle Ages, the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, central political authority began to reappear in the form of feudal monarchies in England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, where the imperial title was revived after 961. A thirteenth‐century Renaissance created a synthesis of the Judeo‐Christian religious tradition with Classical Humanism and the Germanic traditions resulting in what became known as Western Civilization.
4 The Birth of Europe
Chronology
c. 500Ambrosius Aurelianus Wins Battle of Mons Badonicus in Britain506Clovis I Converted to Christianity527–565Byzantine Emperor Justinian Codifies Roman Law532–537Church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) constructed in Constantinoplec. 610Muhammad Begins Preaching New Muslim Religion732Charles Martel Defeats Arab‐Muslim Army in Battle of Tours714–768Pepin III, First Carolingian King of Franks753Pope Stephen II Grants Pepin III Title, Patrician of the Romans781Alcuin of York Becomes Head of Court School in Aachen793Monastery of Lindisfarne Destroyed by Vikings800Charlemagne Crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III843Treaty of Verdun Divides Charlemagne's empire865Twelve‐year Viking Invasion of Britain Begins878Treaty of Wedmore between Alfred the Great and Danes1016–1028Cnut the Great Unites England, Denmark, and Norway1042Edward the Confessor Becomes King of England1066Battle of Hastings1066Duke William of Normandy Crowned King of England
The collapse of the Roman Empire in the West marked the end of the classical, or Greco‐Roman, period of history. The last emperor in the West, Roumulus‐Augustulus, was deposed in 476, but the myth lingered on. A patchwork of Germanic kingdoms emerged, ruled by tribal chiefs, or kings, who pretended to rule in the name of the successors of the Caesars now resident in Constantinople. The Italian peninsula was ruled by Ostrogoths (East Goths). The Visigoths (West Goths) established a kingdom in Spain, having driven the Vandals into North Africa. The Angels and Saxons crossed from northern Germany to Britain, where they established
