4.18 Europe: a.d. 401 to 500

Europe

Back to Europe: A.D. 301 to 400

This is usually considered the beginning of the European Middle Ages and it was a period of warming climatic change. (Ref. 215 ) The towns of the Roman Empire had been declining even before the arrival of the "barbarians", but now, with the end of the empire, the West truly lost its urban framework. (Ref. 260 )

Southern europe (see also turkey and central europe)

Eastern mediterranean islands

Most of these islands were under Byzantine control and both science and literature flourished, particularly on Rhodes, in these early Christian centuries. (Ref. 38 )

Greece

Greece was submerged in the affairs of Constantinople. The only unique feature was a raid on the coastline by Vandals from their bases in Africa at the end of the century.

Upper balkans

In the early part of the century the area of present day Yugoslavia was part of the Visigoth kingdom and after the Goths were defeated while invading Italy in 402 and 403 by Stilicho, they retired again to that region. In this same area and in northern present day Albania the last real western Roman Emperor lived from 476 to 480, isolated in the old Roman province of Dalmatia. Meanwhile in the western part of the upper Balkans, Slavic tribes first settled in what is now Bulgaria with the Bulgars (probably a mixture of Huns and other nomads) right behind them. The Black Huns, probably encouraged by the warming European climate which made fine pasture land for their horses, raided through- out the Balkans and ruined the area for some three centuries to follow. They had arrived about A.D. 400 under their ruler, Uldin, who proceeded to lead them into Thrace on raids in the winter of 404-405. This happened again in 408, 422 and several times in the 430s. In 441 Illyrium was the target. Resumption of Balkan raids in 442 brought big tribute concessions from the Byzantine emperor, Theodosius. When he later reneged on the payments Attilla himself led a great Hunnic invasion of Thrace in 447 and it cost the emperor still more in gold payments. (See TURKEY, above)

Ahead of the Huns had come Slavic peoples, some from the so-called eastern Slav groups, but chief ly from the western Slav tribes and these settled to become the ancestors of the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Macedonians. The Huns, themselves, had actually settled in Hungary, but made their periodic raids back into the Balkans as noted. During their various invasions and raids, many of the Hun soldiers took native women as wives, thus putting Asiatic blood from the Black Sea to Bavaria. After A.D. 455 there were only two pockets of Huns remaining in the Balkans - one in a portion of modern Bulgaria along the west shore of the Black Sea and the second in Dacia, -somewhat west of the first group. In 465 these Huns attacked the Goths who were in Pannonia, but they were defeated. A second Gothic-Hunnic War developed south of the Danube in 465. (Ref. 137 , 175 , 215 , 127 )

Italy (please also see turkey, the balkans, and central europe)

At the beginning of the century the weak Roman Emperor Honorius put the Vandal, Stilicho, in command of the army of the West and he was immediately put to test by invading Alans and Visigoths. Stilicho defeated them using Vandals and even some Alanic mercenaries in two great battles in 402. There were several other invasions by Alani, Vandals and Goths in the next few years, during which time Honorius moved his court to Ravenna, supposedly out of harm's way. In the early battles, Stilicho had to strip the Rhine frontier of troops so that in the following years a new coalition of Ostrogoths, Quadi and Asding Vandals, along with a clan of Alans who had fled from the Hun-dominated Caucasus, moved west almost unopposed and crossed the frozen Rhine into the now almost defenseless France. Stilicho was executed by his own emperor in 408, thus opening the gates to King Alaric and his Visigoths, who now left Yugoslavia, entered Italy and by 410 had sacked Rome