After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History

Richard W. Parker is chair of the Classics Department at Brock
University in St. Catharines.

Walter Goffart’s research has had a deep influence on the current
understanding of Late Antiquity, the long transition from the Late Roman
Empire to the various Germanic (and Byzantine) kingdoms, as well as on
our appreciation of the historical writing of the period. This book is a
festschrift honoring Goffart on the occasion of his retirement, and as
such it is a fitting tribute both in theme and quality.

The contributors, 17 in all, are scholars of maturity and distinction,
and their contributions are of consistently high quality. They include
Susan Reynolds, Andrew Gillett, Edward James, Martin Heinzelmann, Steven
Muhlberger, Ian Wood, Alexander Callander Murray, Chris Wickham, Janet
L. Nelson, Roger Collins, Bernard S. Bachrach, Thomas F.X. Noble,
Richard E. Sullivan, Michael Idomir Allen, Giles Constable, Joseph
Shatzmiller, and Elizabeth A.R. Brown. The essays are fully documented
with footnotes plus a few figures, a map and a plan.

Twelve of the 17 in pieces are concerned with the historiography of the
early Middle Ages, including work on such authors as Cassiodorus,
Gregory of Tours, Jonas of Orleans, Fredegar, Lupus of Ferrieres,
Claudius of Turin, Benjamin of Tudela, and the du Tillet brothers as
well as anonymous sources. The bulk of the focus falls on the Frankish
and Lombard kingdoms of Gaul and Italy.

In a collection of essays such as this it is impossible to do justice
to each (or perhaps any) individual contribution. An admittedly highly
personal list of pieces that particularly intrigued this reviewer
include Reynolds’s examination of notions of ethnicity in the Age of
Migrations, Gillett’s study of the purposes of Cassiodorus’s Variae,
Muhlberger’s survey of the development of Christian historians’
attitudes towards war, Murray’s exploration of the foundation myth of
the Merovingian kings, Wickham’s discussion of Lombard aristocracy in
comparison with the Franks, and Shatzmiller’s discussion of Jewish
pilgrimage.

After Rome’s Fall is an important scholarly contribution to the study
of early Medieval Europe, and an absolute must for university libraries.
Scholars of both Greco–Roman antiquity and Medieval Europe will find
numerous items of interest in this well-edited collection.