Ever since Edward Gibbon wrote his ground-breaking work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in the late 18th century, historians have been preoccupied with the question of what caused the loss of the Empire’s western provinces and the transformation of its eastern half into Byzantium. They have identified much new data, but they continue to disagree as to what happened to the Empire between the 3rd and the 7th centuries CE and why.
For some historians the barbarian invasions of the late 4th and 5th centuries were crucial, but others have argued that they merely finished off a society that was already in deep moral, social and/or economic decline.
For other historians the Empire’s ‘decline and fall’ was a disaster; but others have maintained that the Empire never regressed. They believe that the foundations of medieval (and even modern) civilisation were forged in the cultural ferment of the later rather than the earlier Roman Empire, and that the barbarian takeovers in the West made little difference to the lives of those who lived there.
An introduction to this exciting period of history, this module invites you to discover what really happened and to assess the theories that currently command historians’ support.
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