"The Dark Ages" - documentary

The Dark Ages (Full Documentary)

ajvaughan3 Documentary Films

Between the Fall of Rome and the dawn of the Renaissance, Europe plunged into a dark night of constant war, splintered sovereignties, marauding pagans, rabid crusaders and devastating plague. That anything of value arose from this chaotic muck - much less the Renaissance - is nothing short of miraculous. The History Channel examines the Dark Ages from the fall of the Roman Empire to the First Crusade.

Between the Fall of Rome and the dawn of the Renaissance, Europe plunged into a dark night of constant war, splintered sovereignties, marauding pagans, rabid crusaders and devastating plague. That anything of value arose from this chaotic muck - much less the Renaissance - is nothing short of miraculous. The History Channel examines the Dark Ages from the fall of the Roman Empire to the First Crusade.

.

Documentary 'Barbarians' series - 'The Lombards'

The Lombards

georgeweatherby

At the end of the sixth century, he Roman Empire, rocked by relentless waves of violent barbarians -- Goths, Huns, Vandals -- civilization on the Italian penisula teeters on the brink of collapse. As famine, war, plague leave death devastation in their wake, out of north bursts the last of the barbarian hordes. Fiercely pagan, famous for their cruelty, the Lombards strike the final blow to the Roman Empire.
In 488 the Lombards are a small but particularly savage group of warriors on the move, surviving by viciously raiding other tribes Originating in Scandinavia and migrating south, into Roman regions, they eventually inhabit what became modern day Austria and Hungary At the turn of the 6th century only the eastern half of the empire remains, ruled by the Byzantine emperor from Constantinople.

Alboin, king of the Lombards, was celebrated as a man fitted for wars, with noble bearing and courage. The emperor Justinian recruited Alboin and the Vandals to aid in the reconquest of Italy which was controlled by the Goths. The Roman military leaders disgusted by the uncontrolled Lombard warriors, relegated them to a new homeland along the banks of the Danube River. In 568, the Lombards, well familiar with Italy from earlier days as Roman mercenaries, invade Rome, inviting Saxons, Bulgars and other barbarian tribes to join.

Much of our information regarding the Lombards is found in the 8th century chronicler Paul the Deacon's work, HISTORY OF THE LOMBARDS, translated by William Dudley Foulke, LL.D., edited with introduction by Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1907

This History Channel documentary series, Barbarians 2, tells the fascinating stories of four of the most fabled groups of fighters in history, the Saxons, the Lombards, the Franks, the Vandals, tracing 1,000 years of conquest and adventure through inspired scholarship and some of the most extensive reenactments ever filmed.

.

How did the Cisalpine Romanized Gauls receive the Langobards?

In 568, when the Langobards crushed the Byzantine army and became the rulers of the cisalpine region, how did the populace accept the Langobards? According to false perception, they were barbarians who oppressed the "Roman" citizenry of the region. First of all, the populace was not any more ethnically "Roman" than any of the other former Roman provinces in Europe. Like in France, they were basically Romanized Gauls, at least in most of this new conquered territory.

In the forward to the book 'The Lombard Laws' (Katherine Fisher; 1973), on pages XV to XVI, Edward Peters states the following:

"In military and political terms, at least, the Lombards encountered little of that resistance that the Romans had used so successfully against the Visigoths and Ostrogoths. Nor did the Lombards encounter that deeper-rooted social resistance that and organized provincial population, no matter how remote from imperial support, might have offered.

"The devastations of the Gothic wars and the heavy hand of the imperial restoration debilitated even the social fabric of Italy, leaving little in the way of a senatorial or curial class that might have led a resistance movement. With the reduction in imperial taxes that accompanied the Lombard occupation, moreover, even such resistance as might have been generated lost at least the cause of fiscal oppression, and many wealthy Romans fled toward, not away from, the new rulers of northern Italy. Life under the Lombards may well have been preferable to life under the imperial bureaucracy; it was certainly less expensive. Not only were the Lombards fortunate in having little serious military and social resistance, but they encountered little institutional or cultural resistance as well."

It continues on, but that gave the gist of it. Again, by "Romans," Peters is referring to the general population of Romanized Gauls. While other conquered Roman territories were given the respect of having the usage of their ethnic or national label after the Roman era was over, the mere existence of the modern state of Italy was enough to compel historians us use "Roman" here. The main point, however, is that they were not "oppressed" under the Langobards. In fact, it appears that they were actually happy with the change! Germanic and Celtic people were not strangers, historically speaking.

War for Occupied Cisalpine Gaul: Byzantine Roman Empire versus Langobard Nation

War for Occupied Cisalpine Gaul: Byzantine Roman Empire versus Langobard Nation

Langobard warriors, under warrior King Alboin, defeat the Byzantine Roman Army. The Nation of Langbard is born.

Kingdom of the Lombards

Lombards

Byzantine Empire