Prelude: The Roman World Transformed (300-600) - The Barbarians - The Ruralization of the West

6 important questions on Prelude: The Roman World Transformed (300-600) - The Barbarians - The Ruralization of the West

What barrier had to be overcome for Romans and barbarians to merge into the same community of free landowners?

Divergent religious beliefs

How did the new rulers adopt Roman institutions?

  • They issued law codes that drew on Roman imperial precedents like The Theodosian Code, regulations governing rural life found in Roman provincial law codes, and possibly tribal customary law as well.
  • The Visigothic Code was drawn up during the course of the fifth through seventh centuries.
  • A Frankish law code was compiled under King Clovis, fusing provincial Roman and Germanic procedures into a single whole.

Who served the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great?

They included the learned Boethius (524/526), who wrote the tranquil Consolation of Philosophy as he awaited execution for treason, and the encyclopedic Cassiodorus (490-583), who wrote the letters issued by King Theodoric.
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Why did the urban middle class disappear?

  • It was largely due to the new taxes of the fourth century.
  • In the fourth century, new land and head taxes impoverished the curiales, while very rich landowners - out in the countryside, surrounded by their bodyguards and slaves - simply did not bother to pay.
  • Now the tax burdens fell on the poorer people. Pressed to pay taxes they could not afford, curial families escaped to the great estates of the rich, giving up their free status in return for land and protection.

Who lived in the cities in the fourth century?

  • The cities, most of them walled since the time of the crisis of the third century, were no longer thriving or populous, though they remained political and religious centers.
  • Few people apart from the bishop and his entourage actually lived within those walls.

What new localism was created due to the shift from urban to rural settlements?

  • The active long-distance trade of the Mediterranean slowed down, though it did not stop.
  • Most people had to make do with local handmade wares, as regional networks of exchange eroded long-distance connections.

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