Why is there no Roman state in western Europe?

[ray245]

While it can be strongly argued that the various "barbarian" kingdoms that arises from the ruins of the western Roman empire, such as the Frankish kingdom, the Visigoths, the Vandals and even the Ostrogoths are all successor states to the Roman Empire, none of them readily identify themselves primary as a Roman state.

These kingdoms never adopt the Roman culture outright, and in some cases, often have clashes with the Roman population under them. So I was wondering if there are any studies devoted to understanding why the new ruling class in post-Roman Europe were not fully assimilated into Roman culture and perceive themselves as Romans?

Is there a good explanation why the Roman identity eventually gave way to all the new identities in the medieval age?

[lord Martiya]

Just a theory: maybe because the Romans, for them, were those who we call Byzantines?

[ray245]

Just a theory: maybe because the Romans, for them, were those who we call Byzantines?

I'm talking primary about why there aren't more states like the Domain of Soissons in modern day France, Spain and Britain.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

There's a reason we call them "Romance" languages. Celtic and Iberian culture was virtually obliterated and almost entirely replaced with Roman culture. It's just that we call it French, Occitan, Catalan, Castillian, and so on today, because, well, it's been 1500 years and they've evolved a bit since then.

As for Britain specifically, Roman culture didn't catch on there like it caught on in continental Europe. The Romano-British were short-lived compared to the Celts (Picts, Brythonics, Welsh, Scots, etc) and Germans (Saxons, Angles, Vikings, etc). By 500 years down the line, Roman culture would have been too diluted to be considered "Roman" anymore: William the Conquerer, for instance - Some elements of Roman culture are there in the form of d'oil French, but there's a Germanic cultural lineage of Viking and Frankish culture as well.

[ray245]

There's a reason we call them "Romance" languages. Celtic and Iberian culture was virtually obliterated and almost entirely replaced with Roman culture. It's just that we call it French, Occitan, Catalan, Castillian, and so on today, because, well, it's been 1500 years and they've evolved a bit since then.

As for Britain specifically, Roman culture didn't catch on there like it caught on in continental Europe. The Romano-British were short-lived compared to the Celts (Picts, Brythonics, Welsh, Scots, etc) and Germans (Saxons, Angles, Vikings, etc). By 500 years down the line, Roman culture would have been too diluted to be considered "Roman" anymore: William the Conquerer, for instance - Some elements of Roman culture are there in the form of d'oil French, but there's a Germanic cultural lineage of Viking and Frankish culture as well.

I think people are misunderstanding my position here. I understand that the modern European culture was heavily influenced by Latin/Roman culture, even if no one identify themselves as Romans any longer.

What I am trying to understand is why is there no kingdoms in post-Roman western Europe that identify themselves primary as Romans? What is the reason why the people in Roman Gaul ended up viewing themselves as Frankish as opposed to viewing themselves as Romans? When is the people of Briton starts to view the Romans as foreigners?

I hope I am making my position a little clearer.

[Dominus Atheos]

The Roman Catholic Chrurch, did identify itself as Roman, and by extension most Catholic countries viewed themselves as connected to Rome. Don't forget that in the beginning of the middle ages the Pope (AKA Archbishop of Rome) was considered a higher authority then Kings and Emperors. I don't know the right word to use, but all rulers technically owed (Fealty/Homage/something) to the ruler of Rome.

[fgalkin]

The Holy Roman Empire, anyone?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Dominus Atheos]

The Holy Roman Empire officially claimed to be the successor to Rome, but that was in name only. No one in or around the HRE believed it, or probably even heard of it. Both the Ottomans and the Russians claimed to be the legitimate successor to Rome in their titles, despite the fact that no one believed them.

[ray245]

Not to mention the subjects of the Holy Roman Empire never adopted or retained a Roman cultural identity.

[Coop D'etat]

The Holy Roman Empire officially claimed to be the successor to Rome, but that was in name only. No one in or around the HRE believed it, or probably even heard of it. Both the Ottomans and the Russians claimed to be the legitimate successor to Rome in their titles, despite the fact that no one believed them.

Under the Saxon dynasty who turned East Francia into the HRE the rulers believed quite firmly that they were restoring the Roman Empire. Which is why they called it a Roman Empire. This was made far more credible a claim than the Turks or Russians due to the age in which it was made and that they did in fact rule Rome (at least in name, it remained an unruly mobster state that had too be periodically repressed).

They just couldn't make it stick.

[Thanas]

They also had a better claim than any of the Russians due to marriage. Theophanu was a much bigger deal back then than the Russian marriage later on. However, they didn't really try to change their society to make it more Roman even though they adopted a lot of Byzantine things.

[ray245]

They also had a better claim than any of the Russians due to marriage. Theophanu was a much bigger deal back then than the Russian marriage later on. However, they didn't really try to change their society to make it more Roman even though they adopted a lot of Byzantine things.

True...it does begs the question of just how did the non-nobles view the Saxon's dynasty attempt to revive the Roman Empire.

[Thanas]

I doubt they cared. People those days (and even during the Roman Empire) probably were more focused on survival instead of bothering whether the tax collectors called themselves Roman, Byzantine, Saxon. It only mattered in the context of "the world is ending if there is not a Roman Empire" ideologies but these tended to be spread among nobles, not among the farmers.

[Irbis]

They also had a better claim than any of the Russians due to marriage. Theophanu was a much bigger deal back then than the Russian marriage later on.

Except for the pesky detail the only son of that union died childless taking any HRE claims to anything to grave while Russians managed to keep the blood and claim alive past Byzantium's fall.

Plus, IIRC marriage with Theophanu was an attempt to legitimize older claim, dating to Charlemagne some 200 years earlier, claim based only on the fact Pope didn't liked woman as Empress so basically nothing whatsoever except blatant misogynism.

[Thanas]

They also had a better claim than any of the Russians due to marriage. Theophanu was a much bigger deal back then than the Russian marriage later on.

Except for the pesky detail the only son of that union died childless taking any HRE claims to anything to grave while Russians managed to keep the blood and claim alive past Byzantium's fall.

So what? We are talking about legitimized existences of states here, not claimants per se. A Byzantine empire at arguably the height of its power and influence recognized the HRE as being only second to themselves. Something which was never done with the Russians.

Plus, IIRC marriage with Theophanu was an attempt to legitimize older claim, dating to Charlemagne some 200 years earlier, claim based only on the fact Pope didn't liked woman as Empress so basically nothing whatsoever except blatant misogynism.

No, claim was based on the fact that the Pope didn't like Byzantine lordship in general. The coronation of Charlemagne was just the culmination of several contests of power over Rome and the papacy between the Emperor and the Pope.

[Simon_Jester]

A "Roman" state would have one or more of the following:
1) A characteristically Roman cultural identity.
2) A characteristically Roman political order, probably something similar to the late Imperial period.
3) Some kind of continuity-claim explaining how it 'descends' from the original Roman Empire, whether by blood, by papal coronation, or by political continuity.
4) Possibly physical control of Rome itself, which isn't really necessary but can't hurt.

The Byzantines had all of (1) through (3), with occasional options on (4). (1) and (2) began to change and evolve over time, but then realistically we'd expect that anyway, since it's not like the real Roman Empire would have remained totally static if it had continued to exist undisturbed by the events of the 5th century.

In Western Europe, (4) was sometimes attainable, (3) was available only to the Holy Roman Empire. (2) was useless, because the social conditions of Dark/Middle Age Europe were different enough that trying to run the political system the same way would make it actively harder to govern anything. Specific bits of legal code might be copied, but institutions like the Senate simply had no place.

(1) was... the catch is that the distinctively 'Roman' culture was in large part overwritten and transformed by Christianity. On even some fairly basic questions like the relation between the state and the gods, or the role of (or lack of) slaves in society, Christianity changed the ground rules. And the Roman Empire's explicit transition into a Christian state in the 4th and 5th centuries meant a new phase of cultural evolution that was almost bound to make any real revival of distinctively Roman culture impossible. It would be like trying to revive the Antebellum South, in a world where abolition exists, or like trying to revive classical Athenian democracy in a Greece dominated by Hellenistic-era kingdoms.

Without the institutional underpinnings and context that make a certain cultural structure sensible, you cannot revive that structure and expect it to work.

They also had a better claim than any of the Russians due to marriage. Theophanu was a much bigger deal back then than the Russian marriage later on.

Except for the pesky detail the only son of that union died childless taking any HRE claims to anything to grave while Russians managed to keep the blood and claim alive past Byzantium's fall.

So what? We are talking about legitimized existences of states here, not claimants per se. A Byzantine empire at arguably the height of its power and influence recognized the HRE as being only second to themselves...

Besides, if we count by claimants, then no one could realistically hope to hang on to a claim to be 'Roman' ruler for long. Because the Romans (and Byzantines, if you distinguish between them) themselves routinely staged coups and deposed old rulers, in favor of new rulers unrelated to the old ones. If anything, having the king in 800 AD be a descendant of the kings of 400 AD would be actively un-Roman, because it implies a kind of unchanging, ornamental dynasticism which is more typical of places like feudal Japan.

[Thanas]

A "Roman" state would have one or more of the following:
1) A characteristically Roman cultural identity.
2) A characteristically Roman political order, probably something similar to the late Imperial period.
3) Some kind of continuity-claim explaining how it 'descends' from the original Roman Empire, whether by blood, by papal coronation, or by political continuity.
4) Possibly physical control of Rome itself, which isn't really necessary but can't hurt.

The Byzantines had all of (1) through (3), with occasional options on (4). (1) and (2) began to change and evolve over time, but then realistically we'd expect that anyway, since it's not like the real Roman Empire would have remained totally static if it had continued to exist undisturbed by the events of the 5th century.

A few points here - up until 751, the Byzantines did have physical control over Rome. Which is a very long time, far longer than any medieval empire held Rome. Second, papal coronation was not a legal concept used by the Romans at all. It is a purely medieval invention.

As to your points regarding Roman culture, I fail to see why Christianity would change it into something un-Roman. Un-pagan, but Pagan =/= Rome and a lot of elements of christianity were and still are Roman in nature.

[ray245]

(1) was... the catch is that the distinctively 'Roman' culture was in large part overwritten and transformed by Christianity. On even some fairly basic questions like the relation between the state and the gods, or the role of (or lack of) slaves in society, Christianity changed the ground rules. And the Roman Empire's explicit transition into a Christian state in the 4th and 5th centuries meant a new phase of cultural evolution that was almost bound to make any real revival of distinctively Roman culture impossible. It would be like trying to revive the Antebellum South, in a world where abolition exists, or like trying to revive classical Athenian democracy in a Greece dominated by Hellenistic-era kingdoms.

Without the institutional underpinnings and context that make a certain cultural structure sensible, you cannot revive that structure and expect it to work.

Like Thanas said, if you argue that Christianity is something that is non-Roman, then this would meant the late Roman empire is no longer Roman. Let's not forget the fact that Christianity is a religion that was created in the Roman Empire.

However, my main issue here is trying to understand why did the Roman identity die out among the lesser nobles and the common people in France, Spain and Italy to an extend. Why didn't people there retain their Roman identity after the fall of the western Roman Empire when we have many other cases of people retaining their traditional culture despite being occupied by a foreign power.

There are many instances of occupied people launching rebellion against their occupiers decades after they were conquered. So why is there no such cases for the lands that were occupied by the Franks, Goths and Vandals ( I know the Vandals did have trouble ruling over their roman subjects)?

[Thanas]

Well, for one, you have to consider that Roman nobility shrunk a bit during late antiquity, a process similar to what we find in the renaissance - more and more inheritances fell to fewer families, which meant that a lot of power was concentrated in a few hands. When those families either relocate to Constantinople or to Rome, that means that the provincial aristocracy is weakened or eradicated.

Second, the image of the aristocracy doing nothing is blatantly false. The Roman nobility survived and continued to exert substantial amounts of power. Just look up the popes - almost all of them are from old Roman families. These families transcended state lines and the only thing which changed is that they might even have become more powerful with the abscence of Imperial authority.

Third, by all accounts the Visigoths and Franks, who occupied most of the Roman west (including the two strongholds of regional aristocracy, Gaul and Spain) were quite happy with integrating the nobility and Roman administration. In Spain, where most Roman nobles in the west outside Italy lived, the Visigoths (and to a lesser extent) intermarried, kept them in powerful positions etc. The Visigoths had no interest in destroying civilization after all. One must not overlook the church in this, an institution almost dominated by Roman upper classes which served as a great melting pot and bridge between the Romans and the tribes.

So it is not like the Visigoths or Franks exterminated them or subjugated them. Sure, a lot died in the invasions but overall, one cannot say that there was a widespread program to eliminate the local aristocracy or some such. To say that the Roman identity was lost is also false. It wasn't lost, it transformed, influenced by germanic ideals.

And btw, why should the local people feel any more loyalty to Constantinople by, say, 800, than to the local king who ruled over them for 300 years at this point? Why should the nobles of Rome feel loyalty to a Greek Emperor who favored Constantinople over them? Keep in mind that ideas of national identity like "we are all [insert ethnic group here] so we must stick together" are an invention of modern times.

[ray245]

So it is not like the Visigoths or Franks exterminated them or subjugated them. Sure, a lot died in the invasions but overall, one cannot say that there was a widespread program to eliminate the local aristocracy or some such. To say that the Roman identity was lost is also false. It wasn't lost, it transformed, influenced by germanic ideals.

And btw, why should the local people feel any more loyalty to Constantinople by, say, 800, than to the local king who ruled over them for 300 years at this point? Why should the nobles of Rome feel loyalty to a Greek Emperor who favored Constantinople over them? Keep in mind that ideas of national identity like "we are all [insert ethnic group here] so we must stick together" are an invention of modern times.

Hmm, my question is not whether the people in Frankish Gaul felt a connection to a Greek Emperor in Constantinople, but why didn't Roman culture dominate over the Frankish minority in Gaul? Why did the Roman population in Gaul chose to adopt a Frankish identity in the end? Why weren't the Roman population in Gaul, Hispania or North Africa able to form kingdoms that readily identify themselves as Romans?

I'm currently looking at the Southern and Northern Dynasties period whereby a number of non-Chinese states became sinicized. The "barbarian" states were all sinicized to a much greater extend than the various barbarian kingdom in western Europe were romanized( based on what I have read so far).

[Thanas]

Hmm, my question is not whether the people in Frankish Gaul felt a connection to a Greek Emperor in Constantinople, but why didn't Roman culture dominate over the Frankish minority in Gaul? Why did the Roman population in Gaul chose to adopt a Frankish identity in the end? Why weren't the Roman population in Gaul, Hispania or North Africa able to form kingdoms that readily identify themselves as Romans?

The rulers had no interest in being Romans, they were perfectly content being french. Also, the tech to keep the Roman way of life going wasn't there anymore, so even if they wanted to, they could not. Keep in mind however that when the tech survived to some extent they did, as in Rome, Ravenna etc.

However, we do not know how the general population felt. We know how a small elite of frankish kings and nobles felt. We do not know much about everyday life. We do know that the people in the cities clung to Roman life as long as they technologically and economically could.

I'm currently looking at the Southern and Northern Dynasties period whereby a number of non-Chinese states became sinicized. The "barbarian" states were all sinicized to a much greater extend than the various barbarian kingdom in western Europe were romanized( based on what I have read so far).

What are the sources? All chinese? If so, don't trust them. Read East Roman sources and you will see funny things like "all the barbarians wanted to be Roman and adopted their customs and paid homage to the Emperor". Unless it is verified by archeological sources and barbarian sources I don't put much trust in such claims.

[ray245]

What are the sources? All chinese? If so, don't trust them. Read East Roman sources and you will see funny things like "all the barbarians wanted to be Roman and adopted their customs and paid homage to the Emperor". Unless it is verified by archeological sources and barbarian sources I don't put much trust in such claims.

Well, the attempt to sinicized Northern Wei under Emperor Xiaowen certainly stood out. I haven't had the chance to look at the primary sources yet, but that is what a few sinologist covering that period is saying.

[Simon_Jester]

A few points here - up until 751, the Byzantines did have physical control over Rome. Which is a very long time, far longer than any medieval empire held Rome.

Exactly; that is what I meant by "options on (4)."

Second, papal coronation was not a legal concept used by the Romans at all. It is a purely medieval invention.

You are correct, but that does not contradict my statements. My point is that any state which we might call a "Roman" state needs an argument for why it is a Roman state, one that people will take seriously. No Roman of 400 would take "crowned by the bishop of Rome" as justification for calling a man the Roman Emperor. But a Frank of 800 AD might very well have seen that as legitimate. And if that attempt to build legitimacy were accompanied by a serious attempt to rebuild all that Rome was, including institutions and so on... we might well call that a 'return of Rome.'

In practice, Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire was not something most people would call a 'return of Rome' in Western Europe. It was quite different. But it at least had some kind of vaguely coherent claim; it had an argument in favor of being a Roman successor state, which is a necessary but not sufficient condition for actually being one.

As to your points regarding Roman culture, I fail to see why Christianity would change it into something un-Roman. Un-pagan, but Pagan =/= Rome and a lot of elements of christianity were and still are Roman in nature.

Hm. This is a bit difficult to explain.

It's not as simple as "Christianity destroyed Roman culture." It's more like "the shift to Christianity altered Roman culture in certain fundamental ways, and acted as a catalyst for continuous, ongoing change in other ways. By the time this ongoing change had been underway for several hundred years, there was no real way to go back and say "let's recreate a recognizably Roman society." You couldn't do it even if you wanted to. Medieval Christians were not Roman citizens of five hundred years earlier, so there was essentially no chance of creating a culture identical to that of Christian late-imperial Rome, let alone the earlier pagan Rome.

Christianity was not solely responsible for this change, but did play at least some role. That is what I was trying to say; does it make more sense now?

(1) was... the catch is that the distinctively 'Roman' culture was in large part overwritten and transformed by Christianity. On even some fairly basic questions like the relation between the state and the gods, or the role of (or lack of) slaves in society, Christianity changed the ground rules. And the Roman Empire's explicit transition into a Christian state in the 4th and 5th centuries meant a new phase of cultural evolution that was almost bound to make any real revival of distinctively Roman culture impossible...

Without the institutional underpinnings and context that make a certain cultural structure sensible, you cannot revive that structure and expect it to work.

Like Thanas said, if you argue that Christianity is something that is non-Roman, then this would meant the late Roman empire is no longer Roman. Let's not forget the fact that Christianity is a religion that was created in the Roman Empire.

I think you have misunderstood me. My point is that Christianity (among other things, which I SHOULD have explicitly referenced) caused there to be a change in the way that people in Western Europe lived and thought.

If you take a man in 0 AD Italy, or for that matter 300-400 AD Italy, he, for lack of a better term, was a Roman. He thought of himself as a subject of this large and powerful empire, he adhered to certain social structures and customs.

Look at that peasant's great-to-the-Nth-grandson in 1000 AD, and you see a difference. This man is, for lack of a better term, not a Roman. Some of his social customs are unchanged since Roman times, but others are vastly changed. His relationships with social power structures have changed- he is more likely to owe allegiance to a warlord who acts as part of a feudal hierarchy. He is more tightly tied in to a single, all-encompassing Church, which is in turn predominant repository for knowledge, scholarship, and cultural wisdom.

Swap the Roman peasant and the medieval Italian peasant, and both men will feel significantly out of place in their respective societies. And the more they stick their heads up out of the field they're tending, and look at the broad aspects of how society is organized, the more disoriented they'll get... because as you note, their world changed and was no longer 'Roman' by 1000 AD or so.

Various factors, like barbarian invasions, changing patterns of commerce, Christianity causing certain social structures to be uprooted or at least reduced in importance, and the decline of Roman transportation networks can easily explain how these changes could take place.

However, my main issue here is trying to understand why did the Roman identity die out among the lesser nobles and the common people in France, Spain and Italy to an extend. Why didn't people there retain their Roman identity after the fall of the western Roman Empire when we have many other cases of people retaining their traditional culture despite being occupied by a foreign power.

There are many instances of occupied people launching rebellion against their occupiers decades after they were conquered. So why is there no such cases for the lands that were occupied by the Franks, Goths and Vandals ( I know the Vandals did have trouble ruling over their roman subjects)?

Speculatively:

-In many cases, the occupiers borrowed liberally from the legal customs of the Romans, so former Roman citizens who now lived under the barbarians may have felt that they were still being treated justly.

-In many cases, the 'occupiers' were seen as a protection against other barbarian groups, and the generally violent and unsettled times associated with the fall of Rome. When your city has been burnt down around your ears by Attila the Hun a few decades ago, and Theodoric the Goth is the new man on the block who is beating the Huns soundly, you're not going to complain that he 'isn't Roman enough.' Especially since he certainly aspired to the same kind of stable, peaceful civilization they had, and let Roman citizens live under the Roman legal code.

-"Roman" identity was not a uniform quasi-ethnic nationality stretching across Europe; to be a "Roman" was to be a citizen of the empire, and if the empire was now an irrelevant concept, how could you rebel against a Germanic king in the name of "being a Roman?"

[ray245]

I think you have misunderstood me. My point is that Christianity (among other things, which I SHOULD have explicitly referenced) caused there to be a change in the way that people in Western Europe lived and thought.

If you take a man in 0 AD Italy, or for that matter 300-400 AD Italy, he, for lack of a better term, was a Roman. He thought of himself as a subject of this large and powerful empire, he adhered to certain social structures and customs.

Look at that peasant's great-to-the-Nth-grandson in 1000 AD, and you see a difference. This man is, for lack of a better term, not a Roman. Some of his social customs are unchanged since Roman times, but others are vastly changed. His relationships with social power structures have changed- he is more likely to owe allegiance to a warlord who acts as part of a feudal hierarchy. He is more tightly tied in to a single, all-encompassing Church, which is in turn predominant repository for knowledge, scholarship, and cultural wisdom.

Swap the Roman peasant and the medieval Italian peasant, and both men will feel significantly out of place in their respective societies. And the more they stick their heads up out of the field they're tending, and look at the broad aspects of how society is organized, the more disoriented they'll get... because as you note, their world changed and was no longer 'Roman' by 1000 AD or so.

Various factors, like barbarian invasions, changing patterns of commerce, Christianity causing certain social structures to be uprooted or at least reduced in importance, and the decline of Roman transportation networks can easily explain how these changes could take place.

However, you cannot forget that Christianity (or at least Eastern Orthodox) was the binding factor that bound all the people in the Byzantine empire together for nearly another thousand years. The fact that the people or at the very least the aristocrats living in the eastern empire viewed themselves as Romans for so long does go against your point.

Speculatively:

-In many cases, the occupiers borrowed liberally from the legal customs of the Romans, so former Roman citizens who now lived under the barbarians may have felt that they were still being treated justly.

-In many cases, the 'occupiers' were seen as a protection against other barbarian groups, and the generally violent and unsettled times associated with the fall of Rome. When your city has been burnt down around your ears by Attila the Hun a few decades ago, and Theodoric the Goth is the new man on the block who is beating the Huns soundly, you're not going to complain that he 'isn't Roman enough.' Especially since he certainly aspired to the same kind of stable, peaceful civilization they had, and let Roman citizens live under the Roman legal code.

-"Roman" identity was not a uniform quasi-ethnic nationality stretching across Europe; to be a "Roman" was to be a citizen of the empire, and if the empire was now an irrelevant concept, how could you rebel against a Germanic king in the name of "being a Roman?"

Yet at the same time, we have so many historical examples of people rebelling against their recent overlords. Even the Romans have a difficult time romanising a number of people in many regions at their height. We have the Britons rebelling under Boudica, the numidians rebellions, the Germanic rebellion in 9 AD, the various Jewish rebellion and the Batavi rebellion as examples of people rebelling against foreign rule.

So why was there no such case when the Franks, Vandals and Goths took over Roman lands. Let's not forget the Franks did not adopt the catholic faith until Charlemagne came along.

[ray245]

What are the sources? All chinese? If so, don't trust them. Read East Roman sources and you will see funny things like "all the barbarians wanted to be Roman and adopted their customs and paid homage to the Emperor". Unless it is verified by archeological sources and barbarian sources I don't put much trust in such claims.

Well, the attempt to sinicized Northern Wei under Emperor Xiaowen certainly stood out. I haven't had the chance to look at the primary sources yet, but that is what a few sinologist covering that period is saying.

Hmm, upon taking a closer look, it seems that the main source of the Northern Wei dynasty is from the Book of Wei by Wei Shou. Given that is is primary a source aiming to glorify the Northern Wei Dynasty, I think it can be counted as a barbarian source as opposed to a Chinese source.