Newman’s "Safavid Iran"

The Safavids were the longest-ruling state in Iran after the founding of Islam, and its duration marks the boundary between the medieval and the modern. Such is Andrew Newman’s assertion, taking issue with what he calls the “conventional understanding” of Safavid history, that of a notional state exercising power, with modern Iran as the point of reference, a situation that Newman hopes to demonstrate is too simplistic. In his short work, Safavid Iran, Newman seeks to buck tradition by asking how the Safavids retained power, rather than examining their “decline.” Intended as a primer for specialists and non-specialists alike, Safavid Iran follows the rise and fall of an empire about which “an intimidating array of primary and secondary sources” has been written, largely in response to the Iranian Revolution. But however much Newman would like for his work to stand out, it is perhaps yet another entry in the “intimidating array,” as non-specialists shall likely find the book a challenge to engage.

The Safavid dynasty actually originated as a brotherhood of militant Sufis (Sufi Islam being a mystical denomination of Mohammed’s religion) that came to power in seventeenth century Iran, and as such their principal means of control was manipulation of the various forms of Islam. Their first shah, Ismail, is seen through his own writings as the ruler of a religious nobility that transcends and unites the urban and tribal elements from all nationalities and faiths in his new realm. In addition to their native Sufism, the Safavids embraced Twelver Shi’ism, a form of Islam in which it is believed that the Twelfth Imam, aka the “Hidden Imam,” will return as a savior to the Muslims. As a means of maintaining his control, Ismail tapped into this belief and encouraged a self-appreciating messianic message, cementing the position of shah as the “apex of the spirituo-political and cultural discourses of the polity’s key constituencies,” a policy that united his tribal (and rival) Tajik and Turkish subjects. As emperors died and passed on their authority, their sons each became the head of the Sufi order and many also propagated the Twelver ideology and messianic persona. But by the time of Sulayman I, Sufi Islam was under attack, though the shah was still the head of Safavid Sufism. Yet the very presence of criticism bespoke of a popular adherence to Sufism and a desire to explore the causes of natural and man-made disasters that proliferated during the empire’s latter years.

Having carved out a state through the gathering of nomadic tribes, it should come to no surprise that violence and factionalism characterized the first several succession disputes in the empire. The Safavids of Newman’s book seem to spend every other succession fighting yet another civil war and when not engaged in such struggles, fighting off the Ottomans and Uzbeks and regaining lost territories taken by the same (interestingly, the Safavids never seem to initiate international conflict but are largely seen as the subjects of unwarranted violence). Yet as the empire matured and the central administration solidified, the successions became more and more confined to the political center. This progression was remarkably steady and predictable: Ismail’s death in 1524 resulted in civil war to establish the dominant tribe – the royal person remaining above the bloodshed – though upon the demise of his successor, Tahmasp, extermination of royal contenders, familiar to students of European and Ottoman succession disputes, entered the political strategy. Following that fiasco, Abbas I (r.1587-1629) altered the dominance of tribal forces by creating a slave army called the ghulam, though the tribes did retain their importance. But with the ascension of Abbas’ grandson, Safi, the tribal struggles took backseat to a flurry of political assassinations and a healthy dose of external strife, while a new center of power drawn from Turks, Tajiks, and ghulam was established. By the ascension of Abbas II in 1642, interpersonal succession conflict was restricted to the court while the dominant government structure remained intact. Similarly, the customary external threats were also unusually quiet. Sulayman’s ascension in 1666 was the smoothest yet as the inner circle quietly elected Abbas II’s successor, the borders again remaining undisturbed. The rise of Sulayman’s son, Husayn, followed a similar path.

Despite the obvious excitement that should animate this Safavid history, Newman’s delivery serves to render the tale purely academic. Each chapter is broken up into largely the same categories of military overview, marriage lists, politico-religious interaction, and artistic expression of the new era, leaving the text with the feel of a catalogue of antiquarian scholarship. Information is Newman’s watchword, and the author mercilessly crams as much data onto each page as he can, often at the expense of the narrative. Safavid history is clearly brimming with drama and intrigue, yet Newman considers his task to be analytical in the larger scheme, eschewing potentially exhilarating adventure for truncated accounts of wars and interpersonal struggles. Such is the attempted coup by Ismail’s half-brother, Sulayman; his bid to oust his brother and gain popular support is delivered with dry indifference and his summary execution left uninterestedly ambiguous – one does not even get any idea of just how the plot failed. Such drama aside, it is the political alliances that interest Newman, and each chapter has its allotted section devoted to marriages and attempts at the same. As the Safavids depended upon unreliable and semi-autonomous tribes, such ties were key to promoting unity. But Newman seems preoccupied with enumerating in detail the various alliances and near-alliances engaged in through this practice, and in his characteristic fashion these accounts come across as catalogues with little apparent meaning for the monarch in question, the sheer volume of Dickensian interconnection leaving the reader groping through the seemingly random names and relations. But unlike a novelist, Newman treats the narrative of such events as a necessary evil, the task of coloring and invigorating the tale a chore to which he is not about so subject himself.

Semantics also enter the picture as Newman appears convinced that his readers (both specialists and non) are as concerned as he is himself with haggling over the proper word-choice to accurately reflect his erudite studies. Pity the casual reader who picks up Safavid Iran, for the author takes issue with words like “state,” a term troubling to Newman as it carries too many “preconceived notions;” i.e. “a highly centralized administrative apparatus with a monopoly on military and, in its totalitarian versions, political power and formal lines of administrative practice and procedure, as well as fixed, internationally agreed-upon borders, a single language, and a generally homogenous population.” Unless the reader comes to the same conclusion, he will be perplexed to find Newman attempting to alleviate all such unpleasant “confusion” by inserting “project,” “polity,” and “realm” as alternative terms, as though these first two somehow impart greater clarity. Much of Newman’s political jargon follows a similar pattern.

Safavid Iran is at its very basic level an informative introduction to the empire that divides the medieval Middle East from the modern. Though troublesome to follow at times, it nonetheless breaks down each epoch in detail so as to aid the reader in grasping the development of the empire, blow-by-blow. Whether Newman’s approach aids or hampers the reader is subject to opinion.

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In case there's nothing new here...

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Early Post-Roman Europe Synthesized

Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

For those historians with the interest and the patience to closely explore the factors leading to the Medieval world, consider Oxford historian Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages. A massive book (at a whopping 831 pages of proper text – to say nothing of the 110 page bibliography – it is 138 pages longer than Dante’s Divine Comedy, 101 pages longer than Grimm’s complete fairy tales, 64 pages longer than the complete Chronicles of Narnia, and if compared to my copy of The Lord of the Rings, a comparative page count would land the reader somewhere around the Battle of the Pelennor Fields), it is as detailed as its breadth will allow, spanning four hundred years of Europe after Rome and looking at nearly every region from the Pillars of Hercules to the Nile Delta. Wickham’s take on the world is one of economics and social constructs, forsaking church councils and political history for the gritty world of peasants and aristocrats, markets and towns, charting the progression from Rome’s fall in the fifth century to the formulation of the early European kingdoms in the ninth.

By taking a broad look at the post-Roman world, Wickham seeks to avoid unsightly teleologies (arguments that history has an ultimate end, such as capitalism, the Reformation, or the European Union) that must – in his view – come about through too narrow an examination. Wickham divides the post-Roman world into three parts: the eastern and western halves of the Mediterranean, and the “North,” which includes the British Isles and Denmark, but occasionally Francia. Despite such divisions, the whole work is a look at the Big Picture. Wickham is very good at what he does, viewing such broad subjects as church growth, Viking raids, and the roller coaster ride of the aristocracy as large movements that shape his world, preferring these over individuals and events; written records, lives of prominent men, and archeological finds are all stitched into the survey canvas, never a one taken as the marker of world change. Yet while Wickham wishes to avoid teleologies, he ascribes to a sort of reverse-teleology: it all began with the decline of Rome.

Although nationalistic politics are not the focus of his work, Wickham takes his fellow historians to task whenever the opportunity arises. On the hotly debated topic of Decline and Fall, Wickham adheres most strongly to the continuity argument, encouraging historians to look beyond their teleologies and accept that Roman military defeat and loss of lands did not necessarily translate into political death. Wickham sees a great deal of continuity in the post-Roman world – while acknowledging its confusion – such as the “strikingly ordinary” will of an aristocrat in the 530s, whose holdings, though of no great size, nonetheless resembled that of earlier estates. As for when estates and villas did vanish, Wickham cites C.R. Whittaker as he argues for the “destruction” of the traditional villa only in the sense that it came to reflect local peasant values rather than those of the leisure senatorial class. Even population decline, to which Wickham admits, is turned around to bolster his continuity argument, pointing out that the areas in the West that lost population were largely peripheral and thinly peopled to begin with, and in cases of total transformation he argues for consistent habitation under merely new forms of material culture and language.

Wickham might be said to adhere to a “soft decline” model, observing the continuity of cities where the curial class simply abandoned its tax-raising role and town authority devolved into a hierarchy of “leading men” as imperial authority waned. In a similar vein, in his book Barbarians to Angels, Peter S. Wells criticized the notion that demonumentalization of cities bespeaks of European decline, arguing instead that the locals simply had other needs once monument-loving Rome receded from the West. Wickham agrees with this conclusion in his look at the Syrian town Scythopolis and later points out the ongoing presence of regional urban elites – to say nothing of Italian towns that have hosted populations up to the present day. Where Wickham does see substantial and total collapse of the Roman heritage is in England, a view that lines up nicely with that held by Bryan Ward-Perkins. However, despite the severe decline in Roman standards, Wickham notes that British “field systems have often been shown to pre-date even the Romans.” Indeed, the peasants seem to have experienced the smoothest ride of all Rome’s abandoned subjects.

Wickham defines peasants as settled cultivators and pastoralists who control a measure of their own resources and labor, as compared to slaves, who utterly lack any claim to land and liberty. Much of Wickham’s book might be considered an apology for peasants, who were not always the servile rustics one pictures from novels or Hollywood movies, but could be wealthy, contributing members of society, many donating land to the Church. They were also rather free in the period from AD 400 to 800: political fragmentation throughout the post-Roman world was a boon to peasants as the level of autonomy enjoyed at the local level was proportionate to fragmentation of the state. Such freedom came in varying degrees. In northern Italy, though dominated by the aristocracy, peasants still apparently had the ability to choose whom to approach for patronage, and Wickham cites a number of them exercising the right to testify in a court case involving their patron. Conversely, in the Ile de France peasants were almost completely under the domination of their landlords, working estates owned by the aristocracy. On the far opposite end of the spectrum are the towns of the Eastern Mediterranean, such as Aphrodito, which was completely in the hands of medium to rich land-owning peasants, and Jeme with its nearly omnipotent headman.

Control of labor is a prominent theme throughout Framing the Early Middle Ages and there were extremes of labor control: on the micromanaging end Wickham finds late-Roman Senator Palladius’ Opus agriculturae, a manual on the surveillance of one’s tenants for the purposes of improvement; on the opposite end of the spectrum rests a Bavarian law code that left tenants to their own devices, the lord simply providing the seeds for planting and reaping the rewards come harvest time. Wickham’s inner Socialist comes out in his glowing yet pragmatic description of (mostly) egalitarian villages where surplus wealth was shared out amongst the less fortunate so as to maintain social appreciation and cohesion. Such households often had un-free laborers attached to them, especially in England, Ireland, and Scandinavia, but unfortunately for his Marxist model, Wickham reports that the evidence supposes that class exploitation did not occur – at least not on a large-enough scale to matter. But despite this supposed lack of exploitation, the stress of free versus un-free makes frequent appearances throughout Wickham’s work, and though most of the un-free help – an amount left undefined – were merely tenants and arguably had the liberty to own possessions, they nonetheless had no public rights – indeed, mutilation by masters was a debatable topic amongst the seventh century Visigoths. Moreover, it would seem that the West was a less-free place than the rather autonomous East. But what autonomy existed in the whole of the formerly Roman world was eventually eclipsed by aristocratic rule as the aristocracy consolidated their hold, translated the peasant mode of production to that of a feudal society, and reduced the remaining holdouts of peasant freedom.

Crucial to Wickham’s reverse-teleology is the Roman aristocracy, having established itself in the empire as the rightful rulers and leisure class. A part of the Roman aristocratic pedigree was their advanced education, an anomaly, in Wickham’s eyes, in the history of the world’s otherwise violent rulers. However, the elites owed their power to the Empire. In the West, the fall of Rome precipitated a dramatic social alteration in the upper classes. Dislocated from their old power and abandoned by a receding empire, these worthies were forced to adopt increasingly militant lifestyles and identities, or else join the Church – though Wickham is careful to point out that militarization did not necessarily mean “Germanization,” as many Gallic aristocrats retained their Roman culture. More important for the European aristocracy was the ownership of land, which went towards furthering their militant, political, and ecclesiastical goals. Where the Roman senatorial class had held stupendous amounts of private land, in the post Roman world the aristocracy was largely divided between those who managed to continue the Roman model of land owning, and those whose land-ownership vanished, if ever it existed at all. In Gaul/Francia, there was general continuity, with some aristocrats lording over properties held across the realm and others restricted to within a district. This latter state was mirrored in Lombard Italy, a fractious region, where holding territories outside of a small area was almost non-existent. In the East, the picture was somewhat different. For a start, the political systems were consistently stable and as such allowed more options for the aristocracy, largely broken down into the categories of town and military, the latter becoming increasingly important, just as in the West.

Throughout his book, Wickham demonstrates a wise – if sometimes obsessive – drive to cover his tracks, examining every argument and heading off counterarguments so as to bolster his position. This has its pros and cons. On the one hand, it certainly serves to cement Wickham’s credibility. He admits to choosing to focus on subjects of personal interest and knowledge and professes respect and appreciation for other forms of research into the social sciences. Wickham seems to know his own limitations and is upfront when appropriate, admitting when he has no understanding of languages and pointing out his own hypotheses. He also takes his time to justify his opinions in light of rival research or insufficient evidence, and routinely directs the reader to other chapters that will further understanding of a subject. But however helpful Wickham may think it to work his way out of any corners in which his colleagues might wish to trap him, the sheer amount of ink wasted on such asides – many of them quite lengthy and pointless – derails the flow of the chapter, distracting the reader from the content.

But the most negative aspect of Framing the Early Middle Ages is its readability. Wickham is an outstanding historian and a fine author, yet his book reads with terrible monotony, the history devolving into sterile, fleshless survey. Of particular note amongst the few exceptions is an anecdotal portrayal of an admittedly fictional northern European town called Malling. Here Wickham tweaks his style by launching into a detailed examination of the evolving social patterns within the imaginary village, of headmen and patronage, and what the villagers hear of changes in other towns. Stuffed unceremoniously in between his more conventional – and factual – discussions of peasant social norms, the Malling episode is jarring, yet more enlightening and entertaining than the rest of the chapter and reveals to the reader the greatest weakness of the book.

For such a work, narrative may be considered an extraneous superficiality, yet Framing the Early Middle Ages badly needs one. Peter Heather, writing along similar lines in his Empires and Barbarians, somehow pulled it off. But more than narrative, what is especially left wanting in Wickham’s book is a more lively delivery – again, achieved stunningly in Heather. Though Framing the Early Middle Ages’s usefulness as an outstanding resource should not be ignored, the lack of vitality on the page runs the risk of numbing turning away readers less committed to battling their way through unforgivingly dull and often repetitive prose. To be more than a good book, a survey must be lively. In this, Wickham disappoints.

For better or for worse, Rome fell, yet from its collapse sprang the kingdoms of Christendom and the societies that shaped the world of today. Though hardly exhaustive insofar as each subdivision of early European history is concerned, there are likely few other works that can boast such expansive and well-organized synthesis than Framing the Early Middle Ages. Though dry, this book in invaluable for anyone who wants a clearer understanding of the building blocks of the Middle Ages.

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Lewis' Crucible

David L. Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.

If ever a historian swooned over Islam, it was David Levering Lewis. In God’s Crucible, Lewis explores the rise of Islam in opposition to Europe and considers the possibility that the pivotal Battle of Poitiers in 732 was hardly a victory, but rather the lost potential of a Islamicized Europe, one where learning, sophisticated economies, and religious toleration would have sped up progress by several hundred years. Lewis strives to prove this thesis through a detailed history that demonstrates how Iberian Islam developed and influenced the budding medieval West and how, through the victory at Poitiers, Europe missed out on what he considers true greatness.

“Islam rose when Rome fell,” and so begins a high speed, yet detailed recounting of the declining Empire. The Rome of Lewis’ history is a monster with a troubled past, hell-bent on perpetuating a never-ending war with its equally hubristic neighbor, Persia. Together they dominate the known world, relegating the rather uninteresting Arabian Peninsula to the sidelines of trade and proxy struggles. Everything changes in the mid-seventh century when messengers arrive in the empires’ capitals, warning of the imminent arrival of Islam. The familiar story plays out in lively fashion until the reeling Constantinople is all that stands in the way of Islam’s advance.

Juxtaposed against the vivacious new empire is the badly declined West, a good two hundred years into barbarian domination. Beginning with reference to Belgian historian Henri Pirenne’s thesis of an Europe isolated by Arab domination of the Mediterranean, Lewis proceeds to outline the barbarian migrations into the Western Empire, paying especial attention to the Iberian Visigoths that are forerunners to the Islamic invasion of the peninsula. The same comes about in 711 as a disgruntled chieftain invites Muslim mercenaries over the straights of Gibraltar, whereupon they quickly subdue the peninsula for the Dar al-Islam.

Lewis looks upon the fallen West, its Roman institutions in shambles, and gives the very good impression that he envisions a land ripe for salvation at Muslim hands, an opportunity that it is not about to accept. Lewis unapologetically ascribes to the Brian Ward-Perkins school of Imperial decline and fall, viewing the careening descent of Rome as the death of a civilization. Europe by 476 has become a brutish land of hulking and feral barbarian warlords, its immigrant peoples best represented by the lawless and wild Saxons, “Allergic to civilization and immune to Christianity in their veneration of the gods of Walhalla.” In this harsh world, Clovis rises as king of his Frankish people, Salic Law in hand, breaking free of the old Roman mold to create a “European mindset.” But Lewis remains unforgiving, sniffing at the Merovingian dynasty, so lovingly detailed in Patrick J. Geary’s Before France and Germany, and pairing it down to “a succession of Chilperics, Dagoberts, Clothaires, and Sigiberts, as politically impotent in their final decades as they were symbolically indispensable.” Indispensable to their puppet-masters, perhaps, but not to Lewis. There is no mention of the complex and oft-violent hierarchy of episcopal politics that characterized Geary’s narrative; indeed, the church is left to flounder until the coming of Charles Martel and Charlemagne. The former Charles, Clovis’ descendant by politics and perhaps by blood, swiftly takes center stage just in time to intercept the first Muslim jihad into Francia. The first blow struck in Francia is actually turned away at Toulouse by a minor Frankish noble, Odo, but injured Muslim pride and a kind of Oriental Manifest Destiny assures a second invasion warranting pan-Frankish collaboration. Yet it is not famous Poitiers in 732, but Toulouse in 721 that saved Christendom, as it gave the nation-states the time required to become a military match for Islam. Nor is Poitiers the last battle for control of Francia: Odo gets a last hurrah in defeating the next assault sent to avenge Poitiers and thereafter the Franks engage in long defensive campaigns that result in the devastation of Gaul and the mutual bloodying of both powers. Yet Lewis doggedly adheres to his mantra that Islam can do no wrong by writing off the numerous Muslim defeats in France as the desultory bickering of neighbors, the real salvation of Europe being brought about solely by a distracting Berber uprising in Iberia and North Africa. By contrast, as the stupendous Carolingian crusade that Charlemange eventually leads into Iberia is similarly derailed by Saxon troubles back home, Lewis glibly asserts that it was Islamic martial prowess, not distraction, that turned back the first Christian counter-attack even before a proper war could be fought. To Lewis, all causation and agency is firmly in the Muslims’ hands.

The eventual withdrawal of the jihad marks the beginning of a power struggle that signals the rise of an Iberia independent of the Dar al-Islam where Lewis depicts the legendary convivencia that supposedly existed between Muslims, Christians, and Jews, a contrast with the violently intolerant Christian rulers whose mounting atrocities culminate in Charlemagne, who even goes so far as to invade Iberia in his abortive proto-crusade. After Charlemagne’s retreat, Europe strengthens itself – though Lewis ponders whether it would have been better to just capitulate – and Iberia goes on its utopian way of self-improvement. The Pyrenees become a boundary of intermittent and unending warfare between Muslims and the Christian mountain kingdoms. What follows is the Spanish Reconquista of Iberia, a time of “reciprocally reassuring ignorance and … an addiction to war as the substitute for the complexities of coexistence.” This assumes that “coexistence” – see “Islamic rule” – was preferable to Christian independence.

The doomed hero of God’s Crucible is not a man, but a nation: Andalusia, Islam in Europe, a caliphal state that is more than willing to share its cultural achievements if the Franks will but humble their overweening pride and submit to Islamic lordship. Within the hallowed urban halls, along the paved colonnades, and in the gentle shades of its imported palms the three monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) enjoy “interdependence that was to distinguish Islam in Iberia for several centuries. But for such a peaceful land of coexistence, one might wonder why the abortive Carolingian campaign of 770s stirred up “Unrest among the amir’s Christian populations.” This subtle contradiction is representative of a problem running throughout God’s Crucible.

Lewis permits himself a curious idealism regarding Islam, signaling his preference by calling the Christian calendar “presumptuous” – despite adhering to the Common Era designation that follows the exact same dating system – and almost religiously delivering his dates in pairs, first the Common Era and then the anno Hegirae (AH), dated from Islam’s founding exodus from Mecca. Much of the rhetoric is merely passing – Clovis and Charlemagne are cast in the “hulking” mold of their ancestral Odoacers, while the Muslim philosopher kings are descendants of astute businessmen – but Lewis goes to great broken-record lengths to prove his tolerance thesis, largely ignoring the fiscal tyranny of Islam, which results in a popular revolt when a Spanish ruler raises taxes. Indeed, Lewis takes great liberties with his assumptions, even claiming (without a footnote) that if one had taken a poll after an unusual Christian uprising in Spain, “all faiths would have shown an overwhelming disapproval.” What Lewis means is that he cannot fathom why Christians living under the yoke of Islam would ever dream of objecting.

To bolster his shaky claims, Lewis carefully juxtaposes Christian violence with Muslim tolerance, the latter allegedly made possible through the dhimmi system, a protection racket by which non-Muslim subjects faced extortion (the infamous jizya tax) and severe social constraints in exchange for religious freedom. Lewis cheerfully lists the strict proscriptions against religious expression, legal sanctions, and social restrictions, briskly passing over them all as “a considerable improvement” when compared to the way that Christians treated one another. Lewis expects his readers to believe that such restrictive living was preferable to that of Christian lands, yet vilifies the Christian Visigoths for committing nearly identical crimes against their indigenous Spanish Jews. It is indeed curious to note that, for all its supposed toleration, Islam oversaw speedy conversions across the empire (causing the rulers to worry about the loss of jizya income ), where just a generation before the people had been risking life and limb in avoiding conversion to merely a different form of Christianity. Ultimately, the rhetoric is shamelessly in favor of Islam: when the Muslims conquered half the known world and more besides, they simply brought unity and progressive society to a crumbling civilization. But when the Christians go a-crusading into Spain and Palestine, Lewis calls them “homicidal.”

Insofar as reading material is concerned, God’s Crucible is a brilliant book. Engaging, authoritatively delivered, and chatty, it makes strong claims with some reasonable arguments entering the picture even as Lewis wistfully imagines an Islamic world without Carolingia. Where it falls short in its central argument, it more than makes up the difference insofar as the condensation of seven hundred years of history is concerned. As for its more problematic declarations, few books on the subject are as likely to encourage further reading.

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Stranded Barbarians & Disjoined Angels

Peter S. Wells, Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 2008.

The ongoing debate over Rome’s fall gained a new addition in 2008 in the form of Barbarians to Angels. Herein, author Peter S. Wells, a professor of archeology and expert on that which pertains to Europe, argues that the disappearance of Rome was due to changes rather than collapse and that the so-called Dark Ages was an era of vibrant cultural development and “was anything but dark.” Wells delivers a whirlwind tour of archeological sites and discoveries ranging from the early 400s to Charlemagne’s 8th century and reaching across northwestern Europe from Britain to Transylvania. Considering the volume of information covered, this book is a great overview of the evidence available to archeologists, but its very reliance upon archeology is also a weakness. Wells’ book is not so much history as an examination of evidence and after 202 pages of loosely categorical chapters the reader is left with an incomplete picture of what was really happening in the years after Rome.

The emphasis on “change” over “collapse” or “decline” is a phenomenon perhaps best demonstrated through the development of cities. Though Rome, Regensburg, Mainz, and Cologne get relatively brief examinations, London receives a whole chapter. The city grew up from humble beginnings and enjoyed a great deal of popularity as a trade center, especially after Roman improvement. Raided cemeteries allow archeologists to examine the lives of the early Londoners, and Wells reports that skeleton sampling shows how the city folk enjoyed good nutrition and a relatively safe environment. With the fall of Rome to Alaric in 410, London certainly seemed to collapse, yet Wells argues for a mere transformation rather than an out-and-out breakdown. He addresses the appropriation of monumental stonework for later building projects and the presence of “dark earth” that was supposedly laid down at that time and claims from the finds there that London was not truly abandoned but altered by the new needs of her occupants. Indeed, under Anglo-Saxon rule the city reveals a continuing trade and the presence of an upper-class, despite the new wattle-and-daub housing projects that characterized the town. Problematically, this calls into question Wells’ reasoning that London had not in fact declined: though the upper-class remained, as did the production of trade goods, does the rise of such rustic structures as found in the dark earth and the reduction of grand imperial edifices not suggest that Rome did indeed decline, at least in Britain? Wells’ counter is that modern critics are biased thanks to the large buildings of the present day.

Wells’ examination of the changing European cultures of the Dark Ages is just as enlightening, and just as prone to uncertainty. Contrary to what one might expect, it would seem that the Dark Ages was a time of relative plenty, a period both innovative and thriving. Agriculture dramatically improved after Rome’s fall as the 5th and 6th centuries saw the widespread use of the moldboard plow, which, along with the new horse collar and a crop rotation system, revolutionized European farming. In addition, new centers of commerce opened in the north between the 5th and 9th centuries, notably Gudme, off the coast of modern Denmark. Along with its neighboring port Gudme developed from the 1st century to become a vibrant trade center, importing pottery, glass, and Roman coin, while playing host to profitable ironworks. Within this bountiful new environment, Wells gives identity and wealth a great deal more attention than the Dark Age peasants; they get their face time in the chapter on agriculture, but throughout the book ornate brooches and similar adornments are examined in detail, as they are a means of telling how barbarians saw themselves. Brooches and other “pop” items depicted stylized humans and animals, what is called Germanic art today, and this style seemed to parallel the rise of new, post-Roman nations that made themselves known in the 5th and 6th centuries. Curiously, Wells does not seem concerned that the “flourishing” art of post-Roman Europe was only patronized by the elites. In his gushing examination of decorative metalwork, Wells introduces the reader to new designs that were prominent in the Dark Ages, picking out brooches from a “richly appointed grave,” the helm from the Sutton Hoo – a famous ship burial that gets a lot of attention in this book – and the ornate Ardagh Chalice from a church in Ireland. It certainly stands to reason that only the affluent of any society would be able to indulge in such finery, but the very nature of the new art leads one to wonder whether the Dark Ages really did see a decline in wealth at the middle-class level along with their cities. That is not to say that some of the upper middle-class were not well off; more graves yield information regarding the smiths of the era, including one fellow who dealt in silver and sterner weapons and had tools small enough to travel, fitting well with his dual role as a mobile warrior.

In what is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Barbarians to Angels, change and vibrant culture come together in Christianity. Consistent with his strictly cultural approach, Wells’ handles religion in the context of how it changed over time – all politics aside. Wells demonstrates that Christianity merged and blended with the local traditions and customs of the newly converted lands, the discovery of another beloved grave pointing to such a blend. Items buried with the deceased show an interesting combination of Christian symbols with those of ostensibly pagan origin, notably stylized animals. Wells admits that the rise of animals in post-Roman iconography goes unexplained, though religious interpretations are applicable – perhaps the pre-historic association of the animals was a pagan reaction to the new Christian faith. While certainly possible, the alternative of mere identification seems to go un-addressed. After all, such association with animals is not strictly pagan – the Lion of Judah is a famous associate of the Jewish nation and the dove is often chosen to personify the Holy Spirit. More obvious religious blending appears in the appropriation of traditions directly into Christian practice. Roman votive offerings in the forms of silver plaques are suddenly endowed with Christian meanings in the Water Newton find, a British discovery that Wells neglects to date. Similarly, pagan practices involving water were carried over, a church being founded on a riverside religious site where the Christians continued lobbing weapons into the flow as their forefathers had done for thousands of years. But after all the curious asides and observations, Wells’ attachment to archeology at the expense of history leaves some glaring omissions. Much is made of pagan influence on Christian development, but there is no mention of Christian Arianism practiced by the barbarians or its associated stresses when brought into direct contact with the Catholic Church. By neglecting to include proper history in his examination of archeology, Wells commits his subjects to molds even as he attempts to prove how they evolved.

Throughout the book, Wells makes many reasonable claims – such as the likely proliferation of farmers – but these observations are hampered by the lack of notes on any of the pages. For the most part, Wells’ style is a good mix of historical backdrop and presentation, a somewhat winning combination considering the disproportionate attention paid archeology. However, his division of information into subjects rather than eras is rather troublesome – while understandable in light of the sheer volume of data, albeit hugely generalized, Wells’ argument remains that the Dark Ages were a period of development and thriving cultures, yet the rampant leaping about from brooches to dark earth to crumbled church foundations leaves the reader wondering just when these developments came about, and how they are connected. Yet Wells sometimes places a disconcerting amount of faith in archeology; in the case of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain he brushes aside the violence-laden accounts of contemporaries like Gildas and declares that, in light of the archeology – or, more shakily, the lack of such – it may be said that what migration took place was miniscule, rather than the waves depicted by the historians. His proof: artifacts briskly written off as trade goods (based upon contexts not divulged in the text) and Dark Age pollination that supposedly shows how Anglo-Saxon graves actually hold local Britons. There is no mention of British defenders – Vortigern and Arthur – or Saxon invaders – Hengist and Horsa - or any of the events surrounding the men and their resultant legends.

As a standalone text, Barbarians to Angels leaves much to be desired. It is an excellent catalogue of materials and would be a useful resource for readers seeking a quick understanding of a certain field. But in purporting to offer history, Wells leaves the reader with an impression rather than a complete picture, a list of isolated facts with precious little chronology in which to place them. All that is clear is that: after Rome a lot happened; whether any of it constituted a continual progress and “flowering” is up to the interpretation of the reader.

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Bombastically Self-Assured

Walter Goffart, Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Barbarian Tides, by University of Toronto professor Walter Goffart, takes a look at the themes surrounding the immigration and settlement of barbarians in late ancient Rome. Focusing in on the invasion years in the fourth to seventh centuries, and reaching a little to either side, this book is more an anthology than a proper text, its chapters standing alone with regard to subject matter, yet supporting one another’s materials. Goffart makes several claims in his book, primarily arguing that the Germans were not Germanic at all, that the Migration Age is not especially migratory, and that the so-called “invasions” were in fact a tale of accommodation and transferal of authority. While Goffart’s take on ethnicity rings true, his chapters dealing with migration and accommodation show a progressive deterioration of his argument due to a too narrow examination of the evidence.

The strong element in Goffart’s book is his attack on “ethnicity” and “ethnogenisis” that have no place in the study of Rome. Goffart questions the notion of a “Germany” alongside Rome, calling to attention the fractured tribal atmosphere of the late antique north. After setting up the Roman political “family” that begins in the third century and includes sundry barbarians, he suggests looking at the barbarians through their own family links and alliances. In an attempt to do the barbarians justice, Goffart launches into a case-by-case assessment of the lesser-known tribes, detailing the existing scholarship on the misunderstood Gepids, the ancient Sciri, the martial Herules, the transitory Spanish Sueves, the coastal Frisians, the horse-riding Thuringians, and the patchwork Bavarians – though where possible he does apply an ethnic connection to the tribe; in the instance of the Sciri, he offers evidence relating them to the Celts. An astute point is made with regard to the sheer variety of barbarian tribes, but Goffart turns nit-picky when it comes to grouping them by language, seeking to undo the work of comparative philology by brusquely remarking on the divisive nature of the warlike northerners. Thus, perhaps, the barbarians were not one ethnic group solely because they fought one another? This curious presumption aside, the scattered ethnicity of the barbarians is argued well, but it stands alone as Goffart’s sole strength.

A recurring theme throughout Barbarian Tides is over-generalization and application of isolated incidents to a larger scheme. Where he was going strong on ethnicity, Goffart loses some steam over the migration issue, mostly because it is so generalized. His case study for barbarian migration is the crossing of the Rhine in the early 400s. After building up the characters of the Alans and Vandals, Goffart launches then across the river to battle it out with the local Romans, eventually charging south to Spain, where they receive word from Rome that they might stay there, if they leave the locals alone. This did not last, as in 411 the Roman government drove the Vandals and Alans further south into North Africa. Though a rather detailed analysis of a handful of migratory marauders, it the only one of its kind, the other major incursions reserved for honorable mention and pertinent placement to augment other arguments. The strength of the invasion analysis really comes at the end, where the Migration Age is shown to be no more migratory than any age before it.

What is perhaps the most controversial element of Barbarian Tides is also the most problematic: the theory of Roman accommodation, wherein it is argued that the Romans did not lose to the barbarians, but allowed them to pass over the limes, establish themselves in suitable regions, and eventually take up proprietorship of their new home. Problematically, Barbarian Tides forgoes a great deal of history to set the key arguments in context. Goffart assumes that his readers are familiar with the timeframe in which he is working, thus allowing him to cut out the space-hogging chronology of the fall of Rome – this also allows him to ignore the greater events while lining out his own idyllic model for accommodation within the bounds of the collapsing West. For a start, Goffart’s case is limited to the Burgundians in Gaul and the Goths in Italy, yet he uses these isolated examples to flesh out a whole world of supposedly peaceful change, the bloody “period of disorder” in the early 400s notwithstanding. Goffart goes into terrific detail about the Burgunian laws and taxation, but besides these surviving codes the author is only aware of one historical source – that of Cassiodorus – that mentions grants to barbarians. This problem raises the specter of historical context against Goffart’s argument. While frolicking about in the technicalities of the law codes, Goffart seems to forget that the Burgundians were hardly a viable threat to the Romans. After a crushing defeat in 436, the settlement of the Burgundians in Gaul seven years later is lauded as a “comeback” wherein the Burgundians won out a legal land-grab. But Goffart does not explore their relationship with the Roman general Aetius, famous for leading the coalition of Romano-barbarian forces in defeating Attila at the Catalaunian fields. Having defeated the Burgundians, would it not make sense to salvage what was left of the tribe and plant it so as to supply a fighting force in the event of, say, a Hunnic invasion? Such an accommodation might indeed be legal, but hardly represents the settlement of other tribes, such as the Vandals and Alans above.

Italy, on the other hand, appears in a more hopeful light with the toppling of the old Roman Empire and the rise of a stable Gothic state in 476. But that date alone renders the rest of the chapter moot: it may be that the institutions of Rome continued on under Odoacer and Theoderic after him, but these are cases of barbarian rule of Rome, hardly accommodation of immigrants by any stretch of the imagination. Once again Goffart launches into a meticulous examination of taxes and land grants, but the whole world is set aside. Little mention is made of Odoacer’s overthrow of Romulus Augustulus and nothing is said about the Eastern emperor sending Theoderic to establish himself in a Rome that the Romans could no longer feasibly control. If that is accommodation, then it is such in only the strictest sense. What we have are two barbarian take-overs, the latter simply enjoying the imperial blessing. But Goffart seems unaware of this, happily humming along his merry way as Romans and barbarians go skipping hand-in-hand through fields of Italian flowers.

This book also suffers from several factors at the ground level. From the very beginning Goffart ignores archeology (perhaps annoyed by philologist Gustaf Kossinna, whose intricate web of archeology, linguistics, and other sciences deserves, in Goffart’s mind, to be “pilloried” ), officially protesting that it is outside his training and that it is too much subject to interpretation. That is ironic, since interpretation is what Barbarian Tides is about. The weakness of going without archeology crops up in the form of generalities that plague the book. Point blank statements such as, “The peoples to the north and east of the Roman frontier were no more ‘wandering’ than the Celts or Greeks or Thracians” are well said, but the lack of evidence does not help the reader to agree. But if generalizations were not enough, Goffart is also prone to making strange observations and pronouncements. He refers to Vandals living in their place on the Roman border from the second to the fifth century, loudly declaring, “they were totally unaware of having lived anywhere else.” No examples of Vandal traditions or legends are presented to back up this claim. He even remarks that barbarians were long past their wandering days and “were definitely not ‘going’ anywhere.” One wonders whether their Roman contemporaries were of the same opinion.

Goffart’s unabashed arrogance also does nothing to help his cause. When addressing a foreign historian’s reasoning about the fall of Rome to the barbarians, Goffart provides his own translation of the work, assuring the reader that, “only this version does justice to his case.” In other words, only Goffart is capable of understanding his fellow historians. By contrast other historians are largely incapable of understanding Goffart’s elevated ideas, as he calls criticisms of his previous book “sterile.” Similarly, a certain theory of accommodation with which Goffart disagrees is declared “untenable” based upon his own assertions in said book.

Goffart has done some good work and his claims are worthy of consideration. But some of his notions within the claims are curious at best and reek of bombastic self-assurance and pretentious pre-conception at worst. Worst of all is the lack of setting, the isolation of data that almost screams agenda. Goffart’s subjects live in a vacuum as they “march quietly into the Middle Ages.” After all his work, a little more detail could yet aid Goffart’s Barbarian Tides.

John H. Arnold. History: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

In his little book History: A Very Short Introduction, medievalist John H. Arnold seeks to present the audience with a concise and informative read on what history is, where it came from, and why it is worth studying. Drawing on the great historians and a few inquisitors, this book is written for readers from many disciplines, from ancient to modern, from political to social and economic historians. The whole book is entertaining, written in lively prose that energizes and encourages the reader, but hidden within is a curious cynicism, a contradiction that questions the purpose of history even as a simple love of the profession tumbles forth.

Rightly so, Arnold kicks off his book with the question: what is History? It is a number of things, most importantly a process that carries on, as well as what the past was and what historians write about it. The reader is drawn in with a riveting inquisition story that culminates in the murder of a priest named Dejean. Arnold is perfectly happy to speculate about the murder’s meaning, and even more pleased to use the mystery as a springboard into History. Arnold suggests three reasons for studying history: pure enjoyment, as a thinking tool, and to gain a greater understanding of ourselves – where we came from and how we might behave differently. These drives are explored through an examination of the historians throughout time: the politically minded king, Nabonidus, the Greeks Herodotus and Thucidides, Augustine and his Six Ages of Man, William Malmesbury, and the rise of the Antiquarians. Each player had something to add, be it attempted objectivity (Herodotus and Ranke), bombastic rhetoric and composition (Life of Edward the Confessor), criticism and suspicion (William of Malmesbury), fact-finding (the Antiquarian collectors, notably William Camden), and the desire for relevance (the Enlightenment); all brought together in the monolithic work of Edward Gibbon.

The structure of the book is straightforward and helpful. Moving from the “what” and the “history” of history, Arnold moves into the “how to,” wherein he walks burgeoning historians through the methods used to build simple questions into researchable titans. Although it is an unoriginal approach and will be familiar to the student of history, Chapter 4 does an excellent job of introducing the art of exploring sources to the new historian. Arnold is a skillful writer, building his case with greater complexity, eventually launching into the mentalité school of history, seeking to unravel, through seemingly simple and one-dimensional accounts, the mental state of the historical subjects. Finally, he tackles Truth and its place within the historical profession. The whole journey is made colorful by numerous well-chosen pictures and the occasional definition box that tackles important terms and ideas that, if so directly addressed, would interrupt the flow of the book.

It is in the examination of Truth that Arnold falters. Throughout the book is the optimistic claim that historians “never fabricate ‘the facts’” as opposed to literature. Arnold acknowledges that history will never be perfect, but admonishes the reader to not “discount histories, because they are imperfect, but to engage with them as the true stories they can only be.” One might write this off as simple good cheer, but its frequent appearance is unsettling. “Historians must stick with what the sources make possible, and accept what they do not. They cannot invent new accounts, or suppress evidence that does not fit with their narratives.” That may be true, but historians are people too, with human prejudices and the right to make their own decisions – to omit and invent. Historians have made up a great many accounts, some of them practical forgeries, and many also just fabricated lies. This has been happening ever since the Egyptians scratched out the names of unpopular pharaohs from monoliths. It occurred again in the greatest cover-up in history, when the Roman guards returning to the high priests after Christ’s resurrection were told to say nothing and propaganda was fed to the public at the first opportunity. Historians are fully capable of doing the same thing, in spite of the evidence.

In addition, Arnold finally gives his own opinion about the importance of history in a surprisingly sarcastic statement, that if history “presents us with lessons to be learnt, I have yet to see any example of anyone paying attention in class.” He qualifies this statement by suggesting that if history had a purpose and was composed of discernable patterns, then historians could predict the future. Very trite, this, and very uninformed. One need look no further than America’s Founding Fathers to see a group of men looking back to the best and the brightest of the ancient thinkers to craft the best government available to man. And in light of the present financial crisis, one need only consider America’s Great Depression and Germany’s Weimar Republic to get an idea about where the economy might be headed. Arnold expresses this understanding to a certain degree, but reinforces his own stand with “to imagine that there are concrete patterns to past events, which can provide templates for our lives and decisions, is to project onto history a hope for certainty which it cannot fulfill.” It would seem that Arnold is unfamiliar with Human Nature.

On the whole, Arnold’s History is a serviceable and engaging book. His own biases color the work, it is true, and the young historian must be on the lookout for these disconcerting opinions. But when it comes to educating oneself on the study of history, one could do worse than reading this very short introduction.

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