Barbarian kingdoms
Many aspects of the late Roman administration survived under barbarian rule, though the old system gradually dissolved and disappeared, a process accelerated by periods of political turmoil.
[7] The rise of the barbarian kingdoms in the territory previously governed by the Western Roman Empire was a gradual, complex, and largely unintentional process.
Inviting peoples from beyond the imperial frontier to settle Roman territory was not a new policy, and something that had been done several times by emperors in the past, mostly for economic, agricultural or military purposes.
[12] The Eastern emperor, Valens (r. 364–378), was pleased at the arrival of the Visigoths as it meant that he could recruit their warriors at low cost, bolstering his armies.
[12] The treaties at the conclusion of the Gothic war made the Visigoths semi-independent foederati under their own leaders,[12] able to be called upon and drafted into the Roman army.
[17][18] Although the defeat at Adrianople was disastrous, several modern historians have criticized the idea that it was a decisive step in the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
[21] Alaric was repeatedly caught in the rivalry and court intrigue between the Eastern and Western empires[22] and his failure to obtain formal recognition eventually led to his forces sacking Rome in 410.
[19] After Magnus Maximus, no significant western emperor ever traveled north of Lyon and there appears to have been very little real imperial activity in Britannia or northern Gaul.
The settlement was not seen as an actual ceding of imperial territory, given that the Roman administration was also envisioned as continuing in the granted lands, albeit overseen by the Visigoths as vassals.
[32] The third stage of the formation of the barbarian kingdoms was the recognition by the imperial government of the increasingly unstable Western Roman Empire that it was no longer able to effectively administer its own territories.
This led the empire to cede effective control of more lands to the barbarian rulers, whose realms now formed a permanent part of the landscape.
Barbarian rulers after 476 typically presented themselves as subservient to the remaining Eastern Roman emperor, and were in turn at times granted various honors by the imperial government.
Contemporary sources refer to Alaric only as dux or at times hegemon, and he did not rule a kingdom, instead spending his career unsuccessfully trying to integrate himself and his people into the Roman imperial system.
[44] The rise of the barbarian kingdoms saw power in Western Europe being dispersed from a single capital, such as Rome or Ravenna in the past, to several local kings and warlords.
Despite this, the apparatus of the former imperial government continued to fundamentally function in the west because the barbarian rulers adopted many aspects of the late Roman administration.
The disappearance of the old Roman imperial framework was a gradual and slow process, spanning centuries and at times accelerated due to political upheaval.
[46] The old Roman administrative system of provinces, dioceses, and praetorian prefectures remained partially functional in some places under the barbarian rulers.
[8] Per the Irish historian Peter Brown, they can instead be seen as "on the contrary [having] brought law and order to regions that had suffered for decades from a perilous vacuum of authority.
Without a central imperial court and officers that linked the governments of the different provinces together, the administrations in the kingdoms were flattened, becoming significantly less deep and complex.
[41] The smaller size of the barbarian kingdoms meant that official power was truncated and that the opportunities of personal advancement and careers that had existed in the old empire were no longer possible.
[47] This breakdown in Roman order had the side effect of leading to a marked decline in living standards, as well as a collapse in economic and social complexity.
The title most widely used by the kings was rex, which formed a basis of authority which they could use in diplomacy with other kingdoms and the surviving imperial court in Constantinople.
[53] The kingdoms were in some cases rooted in barbarian traditions but were also linked to high Roman imperial magistracies and their rulers held formal and recognized vice-imperial powers.
Both rulers received honours and recognition by the imperial court in Constantinople, which granted them a certain degree of legitimacy and was used to justify territorial expansion.
[55] After the Franks defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Vouillé in 507, Clovis was recognised by Anastasius as honorary consul, a patrician and a client king.
[56] Theodoric and Clovis came close to war several times and it is conceivable that the victor of such a conflict would have re-established the Western Roman Empire under his own rule.
[57] Despite being divided into several smaller realms, the populace of the barbarian kingdoms maintained strong cultural and religious connections with each other, and continued to speak Latin.
[1] The barbarian kings adopted both Christianity (at this point firmly established as the Roman religion) and the Latin language themselves, thus inheriting and maintaining Rome's cultural heritage.
[62] In place of these kingdoms, new realms emerged in the seventh through ninth centuries that represented a new order, largely disconnected from the old Roman world.
The new form of government was a personal one, based on powers of, and relationships between, individuals, rather than the heavily administrated, judicial and bureaucratic system of the Romans.
