#3141 The Dark Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Year 1000

The period following the ‘fall of the Roman Empire’ has often been thought of as a dark age when civilization all but collapsed. But how dark was it really? How much did things change for ordinary individuals? Did people really stop reading, writing, and bathing (eww)? To address these and related questions, this course examines the political, social, religious, economic, and military history of the Mediterranean world from roughly the sixth century to the year 1000, taking as its focus the relationship between the three principal religiopolitical blocs, which defined the period: the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire and the various successor states in the Latin West, including Vandal Africa, Visigothic Spain, Anglo-Saxon England, Ostrogothic and Lombard Italy, and Merovingian Gaul. We will also consider the Christianization of Europe, the formation and collapse of the Carolingian Empire, the rise of the Vikings.