Walking through Cities of Europe in 700 AD: What would you have seen?

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[ryan]

Most of the Germanic Tribal leaders, tried to keep the old Roman infrastructure working. The trouble was money and resources to do so. Without the power and wealth of the central power of Rome, it was nearly impossible to do.

[ViriatoII]

Awesome that you used Cologne as an example. I live here 🙂 But sadly there is not much Roman nor Medieval left, and the local mayors successively ignore it in favour of brutalism/modernism. The city has many treasures and nice areas, but half of it looks like a bathroom.

[drkduranrz]

I’m obsessed with your channel! I’m a history major now; and in my Medieval studies class, our teacher assigned us to read this amazing book called “The world of Late antiquity” by Peter Brown and make an essay about it. Absolutely fascinating book and topic! We medievalists have to understand the Late Antiquity in order to comprehend the beginning of the medieval world. Highly recommended book!
Thank you for your videos!

[manwiththeredface]

Imagine living in the shadows of a technologically superior fallen civilization. Seeing all those buildings, roads etc., using them all your life and not even knowing how they were made. Nowadays we take technological progression for granted but it can take a 180° turn very quick.

[Joanna-ilur]

Many towns went into decline even in Roman times. The Swiss city of Avenches had whole districts abandoned and possibly lived in by Bacaudae and deserters. As Christianity advanced, the towns reconfigured around new churches, such as in Tours. In some instances towns abandoned outer suburbs and lived within old walls. Some walls were already in ruins. Sidonius in a letter tells how the walls of Claremont were falling down. New walls, such as those of Le Mans, were being built and with fancy contrast stonework. The multi author book The City in Late Antiquity is very helpful, particularly Jill Harries’ chapter on Gaul, which I’ve poached from.
Is wood worse than stone? Making buildings from stone is incredibly resource intensive and involves a lot of meshwork. Wooden buildings are faster to build and easier to remodel. You might also consider the attitude of Christianity towards this life, and its transient nature, might make people value stone buildings less.
As for the pots, Robin Fleming suggests that they had plenty of ceramics from the Roman period and the chance to import and little incentive to make their own.

[andrelegeant]

The further removed we are from a specific time, the more time blends together. Fifty years feels long to us because we can live and experience it, but we struggle to comprehend the effect of 100, 200, or 500 years. As a result, it all blends together, and it means that we imagine the collapse of Rome, for instance, being sudden, when in fact the collapse of the state happened in many ways gradually as society became less centralized over many decades, and the "loss" of Roman culture and civilization (or rather transformation) happened even more gradually. Rather than cataclysmic destruction, people over many hundreds of years stopped maintaining to Roman works, did not re-copy papyri often enough, etc., and so by the time of Petrarch, it certainly looked like much had suddenly been "lost." When in reality it was an 800 year period of slow decline and transition; indeed, one so slow that most people didn't even realize it.

[Ghostrider-]

To think that someone can still see Roman structures that were built 2000 years ago is really incredible.

[cailwi]

Apparently, one of the reasons England fell more into disarray than some of continental Europe, could be explained by the events of 536 AD. Obviously, there are many researchers trying to figure out what happened then, but if the theory is correct that an Islandic vulcano dropped the world into at least 18 months of winter, then that would explain, why England may have been more exposed than let's say Spain, because both geographic proximity, as well as the impact of a massive temperature drop during summer, would have hurt the islands more than the more southerly Spain, or even a city like Cologne and Trier, that may have had enough access to Roman trade routes and water ways to transport food towards a starving population. England would have been cut off, in comparison. If the temperature drop lasted multiple seasons, entire populations could have been wiped out on the islands, and decay in English cities could have naturally occurred. 100 years later, this would have been empty and overgrown ruins. Now this does not answer the question how and where the Angle-Saxons rode out the volcanic eruption times, but that is a different question all together. Given that we have reports about 536 from places as far away as China, there are still many unanswered questions. Not everything adds up yet. But some things can be explained this way.

If you google 536 AD and science . org, one can find a start to a popular article about this research field that includes many different disciplines and tbh more questions than answers.
Just a possibility.

[flyingisaac]

Excellent as usual.

One small irony is that two cities of late Roman Britain that continued to have some organised life within their walls for a substantial time after the Romans departed are now minor villages. Wroxeter, Roman Virconium which became Cair Urnarc or Cair Guricon, capital of the Wreocensæte is now a small village, now not even important enough to have its own parish; Silchester or Roman Calleva (where an ogham stone of a hitherto unknown Irish warlord Tebicatos, was found) is farmland in the shape of the old city with the village nearby. A few churches around using substantial elements of Roman material, including the foundation of a bath, Wroxeter's St Andrew's parish church is one example from these pair. St Augustine encountered some Christians in the early 600s using their old churches since Roman times, honouring saints like a SS Julius and Aaron, martyred in Caerlon. Britain's post Roman collapse was possibly the exception that proves the rule, but there were thin threads of continuity.

[XcT]

In my country an old Roman military hospital that was set by St. Erasmus during the Gothic-Roman wars at the Balkans in the late 3rd century was operating in one form or another until the late 15th century. At one point during the 9th c. it served as a medical school with 3.000 students. It was closed down by the Ottomans.

[craiglilly]

In the 1980’s I lived in Formia, a bit north of Naples. A two-lane road ran by my villa which ran between Gaeta and Naples. I few miles south of my home the modern road swerved east and the old road - the Appian Way - emerged and went into the ancient town of Minturno. Old Roman remains were everywhere.

[michaelroark]

The killer for any older building is the roof. Once it goes water and more importantly ice/ snow destroys the walls after the foundation has been compromised. But it would appear that on the mainland the roofs were maintained. In England in the Old Anglo Saxon Chronicles the ruins at Bath were stated as being built by Giants. Civilization had definitely fallen. The Mainland was different. Of course, the Church was critical in preserving writing and learning beyond the grind of the agrarian life.

[paulcapaccio]

Incredible and so haunting. The ghosts of the Roman buildings

[catiapb]

The cities had color, the monuments weren't white. Pantheon was decorated with paintings inside and outside.

[claudiussmith]

Great work!!! ❤️ Some little additions from a cologne nerd 😂: the ripuarian frankish kings prefered to reside in the intact capitolium, not the praetoritum (but which was used by majors later on). There have been used pagan romano celtic temples until the vikings, what a christian preacher complained in a letter to the pope after he wanted to burn them and was kicked out (literally) by the people from cologne-many of them christians aswell. Pagan temples were not reused after the vikings, surviving got churches as the pagans were made responsable for the viking "plaque". Latin was spoken >50 percent until the 9 hundreds (rural dialects in the eifel until 14th) and unfortunately slavery was legal until charlemagne who freed all christians (then all converted to be a free). In the archbishoptry of cologne (whole region exept city from 12th century) latin stayed the official language until conquest of napoleon. And after WWII they found statues of the godess Isis in some of a church's walls (most churches are old roman temples-not all got completly destroyed by the vikings, but yes-all civillian buildings for sure sadly.) Cheers🍻

[stephanenephisechapuis]

Quite an impressive piece of work!JI I'm French and was once an archaeologist by training. I'm also a historical role-playing game designer. Your depiction of the High Middle Ages (what we call, wrongly even for the British Isles, the Dark Ages) is accessible to all, clear and precise, with relevant examples and well-founded illustrations. If only more French people spoke English, I'd be happy to use your work to introduce the era to French-speaking role-playing gamers ready to plunge into a historical adventure at the heart of Merovingian Europe...

[DrTarrandProfessorFether]

Looking at Trade Jugs found at sites… especially in Britain… you see Trade peaked at 200 AD then slowly faded … fading… then a surge of building (in wood) and foreign trade picked up around 525 (king Arthur’s time)… then faded to very low from 575 to about 800 when Trade picked up. Trade in 770 was dramatically picking up with Charlemagne empire (747 to 814) then the Vikings showed up and caused chaos and breakdown of kingdoms. Things did not started to rebuild until 980 onwards.

[MiThreeSunz]

Infinitely fascinating! I’m not an academic historian but history as a whole has always interested and intrigued me. Thank you for sharing your high quality content! 😊🇮🇹🇨🇦

[paulcapaccio]

Your channel is priceless. Let’s teach this in schools. Kids are so ignorant Not to mention grown ups

[cherryblossomlatte]

I have read and heard hints of this before but I had never seen it explained so well. Fantastic job and great video!