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The Roman Empire collapsed, not because it became too decadent, but because it became too large to govern effectively. It became a victim of it’s own success.
It’s that secret religious language again that Christianity had employed from the beginning.
Christianity was a secretive underground religion until Constantine adopted this fledgling religion as the official Roman religion.
One of the most common uses of a Roman basilica was as a law court. The populace would mill about down here while the magistrate would sit up at the end, raised on a magisterial throne, sitting in a special rounded apse that signalled his importance.
Christianity often looked to the Pagan Gods for models to adopt into the new fledgling religion. Jesus is believed to be modelled on the youthful Apollo.
The Visigoths were the western Goths who settled in Spain. They adopted the Romanic version of Christianity and invented, among other achievements, the Horseshoe Arch.
So the Visigoths invented these elegant horseshoe arches, and these were a brilliant barbarian invention. But although the Visigoths invented them, they didn’t perfect them. It was someone else who did that.
The Vandals, Germanic farmers, displaced by the Huns, moved to Spain from where they were displaced by the Goths, They finally settled in Carthage, North Africa.
A poet called Felix has left behind an evocative description of Thrasamund’s a bathhouse. “This magnificent monument was erected by Royal command where water and fire display their obedience.”
The Goths expanded out from the Baltic Coast in search of new farmland. They encountered the Huns and the Romans before writing their chapter in history.
What marvellous religious theatre this is. What vivid and exciting mosaics. And all you pretend Goths in Camden, if you’re watching, the REAL Goths made this.
The Huns were a fierce warrior-like nomadic people, probably, from the Asian steppe. They had a great love of gold and gold art.
They practised ritual deformation, and their skulls were deliberately misshapen at birth. Infant Huns would have their heads tightly bound so the grew into these uncanny and elongated Mekon shapes.
Waldemar Januszczak discusses, barbarians, the misrepresentation of some of the most creative peoples of our past; Vandals, Goths and the Huns.
It isn’t just this word barbarian that has been demonised and distorted. You open your dictionary and start looking for words with bad, Dark Ages connotations, you’ll find lots of them. Take this word here. Vandal.
Waldemar Januszczak explores the fantastic art, created by hugely misaligned groups of peoples during the inappropriately named Dark Ages.
The Dark Ages go roughly from the fourth century to roughly the 11th. They begin when the Roman Empire starts to crumble, and they end when William the Conqueror invades England.
Attila the Hun ruled a vast empire. This intelligent, multi-lingual ruler was not the barbarian history makes him out to be.
Within a few years, Attila’s empire was gone. Torn apart by feuds and incompetence. But the Huns had done their job. They had punched a hole in the invincible reputation of the Romans. Now, all manner of barbarian was queueing up to pour through it.
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