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How Did Roman Institutions Survive the Fall of Rome? - The Transformation of the Western Roman Empire | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

0:04
Welcome to Sleepy Facts About History. Most of
0:13
us carry a mental picture of the fall of Rome
0:15
as a sudden, catastrophic collapse, where barbarian
0:19
hordes extinguished a civilization in a single
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dramatic moment. That picture is not entirely
0:25
wrong, but it is badly incomplete. When the last
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Western emperor was deposed in 476, Roman government
0:34
did not simply stop everywhere at once. Instead,
0:38
Western Europe entered a prolonged, uneven experiment
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in which old imperial institutions were gradually
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disassembled and rewired to serve new kingdoms
0:48
that no longer answered to any emperor. This
0:52
episode examines what actually replaced Roman
0:55
government in the former Western provinces. We
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explore how the sophisticated Roman fiscal and
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administrative machine adapted to severe strain,
1:05
tracing the emergence of the Visigothic, Ostrogothic
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and Frankish kingdoms. Rather than destroying
1:13
Roman systems, these new ruling coalitions often
1:16
governed predominantly Roman populations through
1:19
adapted Roman laws, preserving Latin legal traditions,
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urban governance. and the growing authority of
1:27
the Church. I wanted to understand why the traditional
1:31
narrative of sudden destruction fails to capture
1:34
the reality of late antiquity. By looking at
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the legal codes issued by Gothic kings, the administrative
1:41
letters of Ostrogothic courts, and the everyday
1:44
persistence of Roman estates and local markets,
1:47
we can see a more complex historical truth. The
1:51
result was not a dark age of total erasure. but
1:55
a collaborative, contested recombination that
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laid the foundations for the medieval European
2:01
world. In the year 476, a military commander
2:08
gathered the imperial diadem and purple cloak.
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These were the visible markers that had distinguished
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emperors for centuries. He sent them not to a
2:17
rival in Rome, but to a court in Constantinople.
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He declared that the Western throne would remain
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empty. What followed was not the extinction of
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Roman government. It was something more difficult
2:31
to trace. It was a prolonged uneven experiment.
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In that experiment, the institutions of an empire
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were gradually disassembled and rewired to serve
2:42
kingdoms that no longer answered to any emperor
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at all. Imagine walking through a provincial
2:49
Roman city around the year 420. The forum still
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functions as a market. The basilica still houses
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legal proceedings. The bishop's church bell rings
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for services. It rings perhaps more frequently
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now than the public crier's announcements from
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the curia. Taxes still arrive from the surrounding
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countryside. They are collected by landowners
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and urban notables. The army still patrols the
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roads. Many of its soldiers were born north of
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the Rhine. They speak Germanic languages at home.
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They serve under commanders with names that would
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have seemed foreign to Augustus. This is not
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Rome at its height. Nor is it a civilization
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in ruins. It is a system under strain. It is
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already changed. It is still functioning. And
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this is where our story begins. The question
3:49
we are examining is straightforward but easily
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misunderstood. What actually replaced Roman government
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in Western Europe? Most of us carry a picture
3:59
of sudden collapse. We picture barbarian hordes
4:03
pouring across frontiers and extinguishing a
4:06
civilization. That picture is not entirely wrong,
4:10
but it is badly incomplete. It treats a long,
4:15
uneven process as a single catastrophic moment.
4:18
It imagines incoming peoples as entirely separate
4:22
from the populations they encountered. It assumes
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that when the last Western emperor was deposed,
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Roman government simply stopped everywhere at
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once. None of these assumptions hold up to the
4:34
evidence. What we find instead is something more
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interesting and more difficult. We find a prolonged
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transformation. In that transformation, old institutions
4:46
and new ruling coalitions were gradually recombined
4:50
into kingdoms that no longer answered to a Western
4:52
emperor. To understand this recombination, we
4:57
need first to grasp what was actually there to
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be recombined. The Western Roman Empire in the
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early 5th century was an administrative and fiscal
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machine of remarkable sophistication, even in
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decline. Its foundation was taxation based on
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land and population. This taxation was assessed
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through a system called Capitatio Iugatio. It
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was collected by provincial officials. It was
5:25
transmitted to the imperial court. That court
5:28
had moved from Rome to Ravenna in 402. This shift
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tells its own story about the changing geography
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of power. Ravenna was marshy and defensible.
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It was closer to the frontiers that mattered.
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It was more directly connected to Constantinople.
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From there, emperors and their ministers issued
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laws. They appointed governors. They attempted
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to coordinate military operations across provinces,
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stretching from Britain to North Africa, from
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the Rhine to the Atlantic. The basic unit of
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this system was the cititas, This was the city
6:09
with its surrounding territory. Picture all town
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rising from a landscape of estates and villages.
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At its center is the oaken forum where merchants
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spread their goods and citizens gathered for
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public business. Beside it stands the basilica
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with its aisles and colonnades. There judges
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heard cases and magistrates administered oaths.
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Nearby is the bishop's church, increasingly prominent.
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Its bell now competes with the crier's voice
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for the attention of the population. Roads radiate
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outward from the gates. They connect the city
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to the agricultural settlements that fed it.
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They connect it to the estates whose owners served
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on the city council. They connect it to the military
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posts that guarded the passes and rivers. Each
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Sibitess had its curial class of landowners who
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served on their council. They were responsible
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for tax collection and local administration.
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Each civitas had its bishop. The bishop was increasingly
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a figure of civic as well as religious authority.
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He managed charity. He negotiated with higher
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powers. He sometimes adjudicated disputes. The
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countryside was dominated by large estates. These
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were the villae and latifundia. They were worked
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by tenants, slaves and dependent laborers. They
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produced the grain, wine and olive oil that fed
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the system. The army itself had long since become
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dependent on peoples from beyond the frontiers.
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Germanic -speaking soldiers served under Roman
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command. Some served in distinct units. Others
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were integrated into regular formations. Many
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had settled within the empire under treaty arrangements
8:05
as foderati. They were obligated to military
8:08
service in exchange for land or subsidies. This
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was not a pristine empire about to be invaded.
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It was a complex, interconnected system already
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incorporating non -Roman peoples. It was already
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experiencing fiscal pressure. It was already
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seeing regional elites assert local power against
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a distant court. The strain was real. The response
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to strain, however, was not uniform collapse.
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It was uneven adaptation. The weakening of imperial
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structures accelerated in the mid -5th century,
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but it did so at different speeds in different
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regions. The critical blow to the Western fiscal
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system came in 439. In that year, the Vandals
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captured Carthage. With Carthage, They captured
9:01
the tax revenues of North Africa. That province
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had been one of the Empire's most productive
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breadbaskets. Its loss meant not just fewer ships
9:11
of grain. It meant a permanent hole in the budget
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that the Western Court could not close. The army
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in Italy and Gaul still had to be paid, but the
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money to pay it was no harder to find. Commanders
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increasingly relied on local resources. They
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relied on local levies. They relied on the personal
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loyalty of their troops rather than centralized
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supply. Britain presents the earliest and most
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dramatic case of imperial contraction. By around
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410, direct Roman administration had effectively
9:47
ended. The legions were withdrawn. The coinage
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stopped arriving. The network of civetates broke
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down into smaller political units. This was not
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a planned withdrawal. It was a collapse of central
10:03
capacity. Britain's experience was genuinely
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disruptive in ways that other regions were not.
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Yet even here, Roman material culture persisted
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for generations. Villas were occupied. Coins
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continued to circulate. Local leaders maintained
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Roman -style authority, even as the imperial
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superstructure dissolved. Northern Gaul experienced
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significant disruption as well. Frankish settlement
10:34
occurred along the Rhine frontier. Frankish political
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authority gradually emerged. Southern Gaul, by
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contrast, maintained more continuity. The Rhône
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Valley, Aquitaine and the Mediterranean coast
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saw Roman landowners, bishops and urban institutions
10:52
continue to function. This continued even as
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new military leaders asserted power. Spain and
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Italy similarly preserved more of the imperial
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framework. In Italy, however, the balance shifted
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dramatically with the deposition of Romulus Augustulus
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in 476. That deposition has become the traditional
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marker of Rome's fall, but we need to understand
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what actually happened. Romulus Augustulus was
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a teenage emperor installed by his father, a
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military commander. He was deposed by another
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military commander, Odoacer. Odoacer had the
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support of the army in Italy. Odoacer did not
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declare himself emperor. He gathered the imperial
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insignia. These were the diadem, the purple cloak,
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and the visible markers that distinguished the
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emperor from any other man. He sent them to Constantinople.
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Then he ruled as king, as Rex. He acknowledged
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the Eastern Emperor Zeno as the sole legitimate
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emperor. This was a political event. It was significant
12:04
in symbol, but limited in immediate practical
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effect. The Senate and Rome continued to meet.
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The bishops continued their work. The estates
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continued to produce. The cities continued. Some
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were smaller and poorer. Many were more focused
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on local concerns than imperial ones. Most people
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in Italy, Gaul, Spain or Africa would not have
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experienced 476 as a transformative moment in
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their daily lives. What changed, and changed
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unevenly, was the capacity of any central authority
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to coordinate across regions. The Western imperial
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system had depended on the movement of tax revenue.
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It had depended on the appointment of officials.
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It had depended on the issuance of law. It had
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depended on the projection of military force
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across vast distances. These capacities declined
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at different rates in different places. Where
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they declined most completely, as in Britain,
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new political formations emerged from local materials.
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Where they persisted more strongly, as in Italy
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or southern Gaul, new rulers found themselves
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working with existing institutions rather than
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replacing them. This brings us to the central
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mechanism of our story. It is the formation of
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successor kingdoms through recombination. Between
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roughly 480 and 550, a series of new political
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entities took shape across the former western
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provinces. Each combined Roman administrative
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practices with new military and political leadership.
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The labels we use for these kingdoms can mislead
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us. We speak of Visigothic, Ostrogothic, Frankish,
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Burgundian and Lombard kingdoms. These labels
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mislead us if we treat them as descriptions of
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ethnically unified peoples replacing Roman populations.
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What they actually designate are ruling coalitions,
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often of mixed origin. These coalitions govern
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predominantly Roman populations through adapted
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Roman institutions. The Visigothic Kingdom illustrates
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this pattern clearly. The Visigoths had moved
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through Gaul and into Spain over the course of
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the 5th century. They served sometimes as Roman
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allies. They served sometimes as Roman enemies.
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They served sometimes as something in between.
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By the early 6th century, their kingdom was centered
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first on Toulouse, later on Toledo. They ruled
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a population that remained overwhelmingly Roman
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in language, law, and culture. In 506, the Visigothic
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king Alaric II issued the Breviarium Alarici.
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This was a compilation of Roman law for his Roman
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subjects. Imagine the document itself. Sheets
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of parchment or papyrus written in Latin, copied
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by scribes, distributed to judges and administrators
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across the kingdom. These documents were used
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in actual courtrooms where Romans brought disputes
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against Romans. This was not a code for Visigoths.
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It was a deliberate preservation and adaptation
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of Roman legal tradition. It was issued in Latin.
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It used Roman legal forms. It was issued by a
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king whose own people were Arian Christians ruling
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a Nicene Christian majority. The kingdom had
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two legal systems. One was for Romans. One was
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for Goths. But both were administered through
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Roman -derived procedures. And the boundary between
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the categories was permeable from the start.
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The Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy, under Theodoric,
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from 493 to 526, shows the recombination even
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more starkly. Theodoric had spent years as a
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hostage in Constantinople. He understood Roman
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administration from the inside. When he conquered
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Italy, he established his court at Ravenna. He
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used the same palace complex where Western emperors
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had ruled. He was surrounded by Roman officials
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who continued their work. He was also surrounded
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by Gothic military leaders who provided his personal
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following. The collection of his official correspondence
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known as the Variae reveals a court that functioned
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almost indistinguishably from a late Roman imperial
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administration. This collection was compiled
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by his secretary Cassiodorus. These were letters.
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They were physical documents that travelled by
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road and river between the palace and provincial
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officials, bishops and landowners. They carried
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orders, requests and reports through a network
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that still connected the Italian peninsula. Taxes
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were collected. Roads were maintained. Legal
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cases were heard. Bishops were consulted. Theoderic
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even sought and received recognition from the
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Eastern Emperor Anastasius. He ruled in theory
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as the Emperor's representative. He acted independently
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in practice. His famous advice to obey the Romans
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so that you may live like Romans was not mere
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rhetoric. It described a governing strategy that
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preserved Roman institutions under Gothic military
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leadership. The Frankish kingdom under Clovis
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and his successors developed somewhat differently.
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Frankish settlement in northern Gaul had been
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more gradual. It had been more deeply intertwined
18:05
with the existing population. Clovis' conversion
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to Nicene Christianity around 496 -508 was a
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pivotal decision. It was not pivotal because
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it made him a Roman. He remained a Frankish king
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with a Frankish following. It was pivotal because
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it aligned him with the religious majority of
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his Roman subjects. It also aligned him with
18:30
the Eastern Emperor who recognized him with a
18:33
consulship. The consulship was a Roman honor.
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It was largely ceremonial by this point, but
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its acceptance mattered. It signaled that Clovis
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sought legitimacy within Roman political culture,
18:48
not outside it. Gregory of Tours, writing in
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the late 6th century, preserves this story with
18:55
the enthusiasm of a churchman who saw in Clovis
18:58
a model Christian king. But the underlying pattern
19:02
is clear. New rulers engaged with Roman symbols
19:06
and institutions because they needed to govern
19:08
Roman populations. The Burgundian kingdom in
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the Rhone valley and the Lombard kingdom in Italy,
19:16
established from 568, followed similar patterns
19:21
of adaptation. There were regional variations.
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The Burgundians issued their own law code, the
19:29
Lex Burgundionum. They issued it alongside Roman
19:33
law for Roman subjects. The Lombards arrived
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later and in more disrupted circumstances. They
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initially maintained a sharper separation between
19:43
their own military following and the Roman population.
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But even they gradually adopted Roman administrative
19:49
practices. They issued laws in Latin. They sought
19:54
accommodation with the church and with Roman
19:56
landowners. What unified these cases was not
20:00
a single template. It was a common problem. How
20:04
could new rulers extract resources, maintain
20:08
order, and legitimate authority over populations
20:11
that remained Roman in their basic structures?
20:15
The solutions varied. Taxation survived in some
20:19
regions longer than others. Where it declined,
20:23
rulers increasingly relied on direct control
20:26
of land and the labor of dependent populations.
20:30
Military organizations shifted from professional
20:33
armies paid by the state to followings of armed
20:37
men supported by land grants. This system had
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Roman antecedents. in the hospitalitas arrangements
20:44
for billeting soldiers legal systems multiplied
20:48
separate codes existed for different populations
20:52
but the codes themselves were written in latin
20:56
they used roman categories they were administered
21:00
by roman trained personnel the church became
21:04
more central to governance as imperial structures
21:07
weakened not less it had its network of bishops
21:12
It had its land, it had its literacy, it had
21:17
its moral authority. Throughout this process,
21:21
the Eastern Roman Emperor remained relevant in
21:24
ways that our Western -focused narratives often
21:26
obscure. Constantinople was not a distant memory.
21:31
It was a continuing source of legitimacy, titles,
21:35
and occasional military intervention. The same
21:39
political culture that had made the imperial
21:41
insignia meaningful objects in 476 still made
21:45
a consulship or a patriciate worth seeking decades
21:48
later. The Aediric sought recognition from Anastasius
21:52
and received it. Clovis accepted a consulship.
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Other kings sought the titles patricius or magister
22:00
militum. These were not empty honours. They were
22:05
markers of status within a political culture
22:08
that still recognized Roman imperial authority
22:10
as the highest source of legitimacy. The eastern
22:14
emperors, for their part, never abandoned their
22:17
claim to the western provinces. Justinian's reconquest
22:21
of North Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain between
22:24
533 and 554 were not merely opportunistic expansion.
22:30
They were assertions of a continuing legal and
22:33
political claim. that had never been renounced.
22:36
The reconquests themselves reveal both the persistence
22:40
of Roman identity in the West and its limits.
22:44
Justinian's armies were welcomed by some Roman
22:47
populations as liberators. They were resisted
22:51
by others who had accommodated to Gothic or Vandal
22:53
rule. The wars were devastating. This was particularly
22:58
true in Italy. There, the long struggle between
23:02
Ostrogoths and Eastern Romans destroyed much
23:05
of what Theoderic had preserved. The Lombard
23:08
invasion of 568, in the aftermath of Justinian's
23:12
death, further fragmented Italy into competing
23:15
jurisdictions. Yet even here, Roman institutions
23:19
persisted at the local level. Bishops continued
23:23
to administer their cities. Landowners continued
23:27
to manage their estates. The Senate in Rome continued
23:31
to meet. It was diminished but not extinguished.
23:36
It continued until the early 7th century. The
23:40
ethnic identities that we label as Gothic, Frankish,
23:44
Burgundian or Lombard were themselves products
23:47
of this recombination. They were not primordial
23:50
realities that preceded it. This is one of the
23:53
most important corrections that modern scholarship
23:56
has offered to older understandings. The ethnogenesis
24:00
approach, developed by historians such as Walter
24:03
Paul and others, emphasizes that these identities
24:06
were political and social constructions. They
24:09
were formed and reformed through the very process
24:12
of kingdom building. A Goth in 6th century Spain
24:16
was not simply someone whose ancestors had crossed
24:19
the Danube in 376. A Goth was someone who held
24:24
a particular legal status. A Goth was someone
24:28
who served in particular military arrangements.
24:31
A Goth was someone who identified with a particular
24:34
political community. That community included
24:38
people of Roman origin who had adopted Gothic
24:41
identity. It also excluded people of Gothic ancestry
24:45
who had not. Intermarriage, conversion, shared
24:50
military service. and legal accommodation gradually
24:53
blurred the boundaries that the law codes attempted
24:56
to maintain. By the 7th century, in many regions,
25:00
the distinction between Roman and barbarian had
25:03
become largely meaningless in practice. It persisted
25:08
in legal theory. This fluidity of identity was
25:12
not unique to the early Middle Ages, but its
25:15
consequences were profound for the shape of European
25:18
societies. The kingdoms that emerged were not
25:22
Roman provinces with new names, nor were they
25:25
entirely new creations built from scratch. They
25:29
were hybrid formations. They combined elements
25:33
that their rulers and subjects drew from multiple
25:36
sources. These sources included Roman law and
25:39
administration. They included Germanic military
25:43
customs. They included Christian moral frameworks.
25:48
They included local traditions of governance.
25:51
They included the practical necessities of resource
25:54
extraction and conflict management. Beneath the
25:58
level of kings and emperors, ordinary life continued
26:01
through this transformation. Archaeological and
26:05
documentary evidence increasingly allow us to
26:08
see this. The estates that had dominated the
26:11
Roman countryside remained the basic units of
26:13
agricultural production. Some villas were abandoned
26:17
or destroyed. Many more were modified, subdivided,
26:22
or continued in use with gradual changes in their
26:25
organization. Churches had multiplied across
26:28
the landscape in the fourth and fifth centuries.
26:31
They continued to function as religious centers.
26:35
They functioned as social welfare institutions.
26:39
They functioned as markers of community identity.
26:43
In some of these churches, builders set Roman
26:46
columns into new walls. These were stone cylinders,
26:50
visibly older than the masonry around them. They
26:54
carried the physical trace of the earlier world
26:56
into the new one. Villages and local markets
26:59
persisted. This continued even as long -distance
27:03
trade contracted and urban populations shrank
27:06
in many regions. The Roman Forum in a provincial
27:10
city might see fewer imperial statues and more
27:13
Christian burials, but the space itself remained
27:17
a center of exchange and gathering. Roman amphitheaters
27:21
in places like Arles or Noms were converted into
27:25
housing. Small dwellings were built into the
27:28
arcades. This was a physical manifestation of
27:32
adaptation rather than destruction. This material
27:35
evidence matters. It corrects a persistent tendency
27:39
to imagine the post -Roman period as one of uniform
27:43
darkness and deprivation. The contraction was
27:46
real. Urban populations declined in many places.
27:51
Monumental construction largely ceased. The circulation
27:56
of goods over long distances diminished. Literacy
28:00
became more restricted. It became more concentrated
28:03
in ecclesiastical contexts. Violence and insecurity
28:08
were recurrent features of life. This was particularly
28:11
true in regions where political authority was
28:14
fragmented or contested. Yet the picture of total
28:17
collapse, of a continent plunged into chaos and
28:21
ignorance, does not match the evidence. Agriculture
28:25
continued. Communities persisted. Religious life
28:30
flourished, sometimes in new forms. Local markets
28:34
functioned. Roman buildings were reused rather
28:38
than demolished. The transformation was profound,
28:41
but it was not a simple erasure of what had been.
28:46
The recombination that created medieval Western
28:49
Europe was thus a process rather than an event.
28:52
It was uneven rather than uniform. It was collaborative
28:57
rather than simply imposed. New rulers did not
29:01
arrive as destroyers of Roman civilization. Whatever
29:05
Roman propagandists might claim, they arrived
29:09
as participants in a system that was already
29:11
changing. They adapted to what they found because
29:15
they needed to govern populations that outnumbered
29:18
their own followings. They needed to extract
29:21
resources from economies they did not fully control.
29:24
They needed to legitimate authority in a political
29:27
culture that still valued Roman symbols and institutions.
29:32
Roman elites, for their part, did not simply
29:35
resist or submit. They negotiated. They adapted.
29:40
They intermarried. They converted. They sometimes
29:44
rose to high office under new kings. The Church
29:48
mediated between old and new. It preserved Roman
29:53
literacy and legal knowledge. It accommodated
29:57
to changed political circumstances. Ordinary
30:00
people experience these changes through altered
30:03
tax obligations. They experience them through
30:07
new military demands. They experience them through
30:10
shifting patterns of land tenure. They experience
30:14
them through the gradual Christianization of
30:17
their communal life. Farmers, artisans, tenants
30:21
and slaves continue to work the land. They continue
30:25
to raise families. They continued to maintain
30:28
the basic rhythms of agricultural existence.
30:31
By the later 6th and early 7th centuries, the
30:35
political landscape of Western Europe had been
30:38
fundamentally restructured. The Western imperial
30:42
court was gone, not to return. In its place stood
30:46
a patchwork of kingdoms. These included Visigothic,
30:51
Frankish, Burgundian, Lombard, and others. Each
30:57
had its own combination of Roman and non -Roman
31:00
elements. Each evolved in its own direction.
31:04
Each was connected to the broader Mediterranean
31:07
world through the Church, through residual trade
31:10
and through the continuing, if distant, authority
31:13
of Constantinople. These kingdoms were not yet
31:17
the nations that modern Europeans would later
31:20
imagine as their ancestors. Their ethnic labels
31:24
were already becoming blurred. Their boundaries
31:28
were shifting. Their institutions were adapting
31:31
to new pressures. What they represented was not
31:34
the end of Rome, but its transformation, which
31:38
was a prolonged, contested, uneven process. In
31:42
that process, the institutions, populations,
31:45
and structures of the Western Empire were recombined
31:48
with new ruling coalitions. The result was something
31:52
that was neither Roman nor non -Roman. It was
31:56
a distinct phase in the long history of European
31:58
societies. What we can say with confidence is
32:03
that medieval Western Europe began not when Rome
32:06
vanished. It began when the old Roman institutions
32:10
and the new ruling coalitions were woven together
32:13
into kingdoms that no longer answered to a Western
32:16
emperor. The weaving was loose in places. tight
32:20
in others, and always subject to pulling and
32:23
adjustment. The threads of Roman law, urban governance,
32:27
episcopal authority, estate agriculture, and
32:30
Latin literacy remained visible throughout. So
32:34
did the threads of new military arrangements,
32:37
changing ethnic identities and the political
32:39
creativity of rulers who needed to make systems
32:42
work across diverse populations. The result was
32:47
not a restoration of Rome, Nor was it a clean
32:50
break from Rome. It was something more interesting.
32:54
It was a prolonged experiment in recombination.
32:58
That experiment established the foundations for
33:01
the European societies that would emerge in the
33:04
centuries to follow. What remains uncertain,
33:08
and properly so, is the precise texture of life
33:11
for ordinary people in this transformation. We
33:14
also remain uncertain about the exact mechanisms
33:17
by which taxation gave way to other forms of
33:21
resource extraction. We remain uncertain about
33:25
the degree to which the ethnic identities recorded
33:28
in our sources corresponded to lived experience,
33:31
rather than legal categories. The evidence is
33:35
richest for elites and institutions. The voices
33:38
of peasants, artisans and the unfree are largely
33:41
silent. They are recoverable only indirectly
33:45
through archaeology and the occasional glimpse
33:47
in legal or narrative sources. Regional variation
33:51
was enormous. Our generalizations must remain
33:55
qualified by the recognition that Britain, Northern
33:58
Gaul, Italy, Spain, and the Rhone Valley each
34:03
followed distinct paths. The transformation was
34:06
not a single story. It was a family of related
34:10
stories. Our understanding of them continues
34:14
to deepen with new archaeological discovery and
34:17
renewed attention to the documentary record.
34:20
The listener who began with a picture of sudden
34:23
collapse and barbarian darkness can now replace
34:27
it with something more accurate and more complex.
34:30
It is a long, uneven process of recombination.
34:34
It is visible in law codes and letters. It is
34:39
visible in reused buildings and continued estates.
34:42
It is visible in the seeking of imperial titles
34:45
and the gradual blurring of ethnic boundaries.
34:48
It is visible in the persistence of the ordinary
34:51
alongside the transformation of the political.
34:55
Rome did not fall in 476. It recombined slowly,
35:00
differently, in different places, into the medieval
35:04
kingdoms that would shape the next phase of European
35:07
history.