The Middle Ages

A Graphic History

Eleanor Janega, Neil Max Emmanuel

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781785785917
• eBook ISBN: 9781785785924
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Literature

A unique, illustrated book that will change the way you see medieval history The Middle Ages: A Graphic History busts the myth of the 'Dark Ages', shedding light on the medieval period's present-day relevance in a unique illustrated style. This history takes us through the rise and fall of empires, papacies, caliphates and kingdoms; through the violence and death of the Crusades, Viking raids, the Hundred Years War and the Plague; to the curious practices of monks, martyrs and iconoclasts. We'll see how the foundations of the modern West were established, influencing our art, cultures, religious practices and ways of thinking. And we'll explore the lives of those seen as 'Other' - women, Jews, homosexuals, lepers, sex workers and heretics.Join historian Eleanor Janega and illustrator Neil Max Emmanuel on a romp across continents and kingdoms as we discover the Middle Ages to be a time of huge change, inquiry and development - not unlike our own.

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Part 1. Roman Inheritance

Rome in 476 wasn’t the grand conqueror it had been. Rome had ditched Britannia, lost huge parts of what is now France, and already divided itself into two parts: Western Rome (where ground was being lost) and Eastern Rome (which we now call the Byzantine Empire). Barbarians (who the Romans defined as anyone who wasn’t Roman) had been picking away at Roman territory since they started moving to Europe about 100 years earlier, what we call the Age of Invasions.

11The Fall of Rome

A large contingent of historians think that the fall of Rome was brought about by the Germanic barbarians’ arrival. Barbarians started showing up and settling in Roman land, leading to pressure on the military, a shrinking tax base, and general disillusionment with Roman government. What was the point of paying taxes if the army didn’t even keep barbarians off your lawn?

Other historians think that Rome fell because it was already experiencing a weakening of its core. Sometimes this is blamed on the rise of Christianity and a waning of “traditional” Roman values and introduction of new theoretical “leaders” in the Church. Others point to corruption and the general willingness of the Praetorian Guard to just kill any emperor they weren’t feeling. Others point to economic issues from overexpansion and reliance on slave labor.

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13Roman Successor States

The first post-Roman ruler of the Italian peninsula, Theoderic the Great (454−526), was a product of the Eastern Roman Empire, an Amal who had been raised as a hostage at the court in Constantinople.

After a lavish Roman education, the Emperor Zeno (425−91) sent Theoderic to the Italian peninsula to overthrow Odoacer, which he accomplished by killing him at a dinner.

Theoderic then set up what we call the Ostrogothic Kingdom, with its capitol in Ravenna. Although it was essentially a client state of the Eastern Roman Empire, Theoderic liked to style himself as an emperor, surrounded by Romans to ensure his government was run as closely as possible to that of the old Western Rome. This gave him legitimacy as a ruler and enabled him to push around the other kings in the area. 14

In order to convince other people that he was, in fact, Roman, Theoderic the Great used a secret weapon: Cassiodorus (c.485−c.585), a Roman who did pretty much all of his writing and administration. Cassiodorus knew exactly how a Roman would write, understood Roman statecraft, and was able to paint Theoderic as the epitome of all these things. This ensured the safety and stability of the peninsula.

As a part of his strategy to secure peace, Theoderic used marriages to secure alliances, taking a wife from the Franks, and marrying his female relatives to Burgundians, Visigoths, and Vandals.

However, Cassiodorus’ constant diplomatic writing, and every political marriage carried out under Theoderic, shows there was a massive need for diplomacy. The Roman successor states were not playing nicely, and in many ways were just as organized and had just as great a claim to Roman status as the Ostrogoths. 15

16Disagreements over who was the “rightful” Roman heir weren’t just theoretical: there was extensive fighting between the successor states. The Franks and Visigoths were constantly at war over territory in what is now southern France. Further east, when Constantinople became dissatisfied with Theoderic, as it often did, it would funnel money to Clovis and the Franks to attack the Ostrogothic kingdom.

17The Byzantine Empire

While Western Europe was in a state disharmony, life in the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium, went on much as it ever had. Byzantium controlled extremely prosperous areas which provided huge tax revenues, in particular the area we now call Egypt. This allowed them to continue to support a complex state system, a huge standing army, and an imperial office.

By the 6th century Byzantium was ruled by the Justinian dynasty, founded by Justin I in 518, which even reconquered some of the lands lost by the Roman Empire. 18

But it wasn’t always smooth sailing. In 532 Con...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction: Common Misconceptions about the Middle Ages
• Part 1. Roman Inheritance
• Part 2. Early Religions
• Part 3. The Rise of Empire and Kingship
• Part 4. Life around the Year 1000
• Part 5. The High Middle Ages
• Part 6. The “Other” in the Medieval Period
• Part 7. The Late Medieval Period
• Part 8. The End of the Middle Ages
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• Further Reading
• Copyright