Introduction

From most discussions of the period, one could be forgiven for thinking that, to the people who lived beyond the northern frontiers of the Roman Empire, Late Antiquity was just something that happened to other people. Even in studies of the barbarian migrations, many of which (e. g., Heather 1996, 2005) espouse the sort of sharp historical break that the late antique periodization aimed to play down, the newcomers’ homelands drop out of the picture as soon as the barbarians have moved. This, naturally, prevents any understanding of the period’s relative continuities as surely as it precludes any real comprehension of the migrations themselves. This volume’s inclusion of a brief survey of non-Roman northwestern Europe represents something of a break with tradition.

There are, however, some good reasons for this tradition. The concept of Late Antiquity came to prominence because of a desire to stress the continuities that transcended the ‘‘Fall of the Roman Empire’’ in both halves of the empire and to point out that economic, social, and other links between east and west persisted until the seventh century and sometimes beyond. This, inevitably, is a Romanocentric view, whether one is looking at the high politics of ‘‘476 and all that,’’ the rise of the holy man, or Mediterranean economic structures. So, it is not surprising that the territories of northern barbaricum should play little part in the analysis. Furthermore, Late Antiquity has been, until quite recently, a subject explored more or less exclusively through the written record. The lands beyond the limites do not furnish us with written sources between the third and seventh century (or before and for some time afterward), so they are understandably excluded. Even art-historical approaches to the period have concentrated upon art of the classical tradition, and the recently developed late antique archaeology is, for reasons left unspecified, restricted to the lands of the empire and its southern and eastern neighbors. It remains puzzling why it should be more acceptable or thought less odd to talk of late antique Axum

A Companion to Late Antiquity. Edited by Philip Rousseau © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-11980-1

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Map 5 Beyond the Northern Frontiers.

(e. g., Munro-Hay 1991) or late antique Persia than about late antique Ireland or Denmark. Either the ‘‘late antique problematic’’ is specific to the history of the empire and its inhabitants, in which case all non-Roman lands should be excluded, or (as sounds more reasonable) any and all territories that came into contact with Rome (and that therefore might or might not be affected by the west’s political demise or the longer-term changes around the Mediterranean) should be understood as encompassed within the notion of Late Antiquity. This chapter explores the extent to which the features commonly understood to define Late Antiquity are visible east of the Rhine, north of Hadrian’s Wall, and west of the Irish Sea (see Map 5). I shall concentrate on the regions between the Rhine and the Baltic, although important comparisons must be made with northern Britain and Ireland, and on the period between roughly ad 300 and 600. We shall encounter considerable variety. In some areas, the fifth century and the disintegration of the western empire had profound effects; in others, it did not. In all cases, however, the reasons for the extent of change or otherwise are to be sought in the nature of the links between the Roman state and the peoples beyond its northern frontiers. (These themes are explored in greater depth in Halsall 2007, especially chs. 4 and 12).