Peter Sarris - Empires of faith : the fall of Rome to the rise of Islam, 500-700

THE OXFORD HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE

General Editors
JINTY NELSON and HENRIETTA LEYSER

The Fall of Rome to the
Rise of Islam, 500700

PETER SARRIS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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Peter Sarris 2011

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First published 2011

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ISBN 978-0-19-926126-0

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The only traditional thing about this series is that its volumes will form a chronological sequence. Each volume will be single-authored and cover one or two centuries. Beyond coverage of the medieval time-span, the editors have shied away from insisting on uniformity of presentation, which can have a stultifying effect and lead to dissimilar periods finding themselves shoe-horned into common patterns. Instead, authors are encouraged, within whatever geographical frame they choose for their volume (and those will vary), to treat Europe as broadly as possible, to break away from narrowly Eurocentric perspectives, and to range, as and when desirable, beyond Europe (e.g. to the Near East or North Africa). Each author will be free to emphasise, and connect, themes that they consider significant, in light of their own work and of contemporary trends in historiography. While we expect a concern with beliefs and ideas, values and sentiments to reflect historys cultural turn, authors will offer individual interpretations of their chosen periods, reflecting as they consider appropriate on interdisciplinary approaches, especially via consideration of material culture. The editors intention is that each authors distinctive voice should be heard loud and clear, and we expect each volume to have its own unity and pace.

Our authors have been liberated from the need to produce a standard authoritative accountalways a rather chimerical conceptand we trust them to write with the energy and bravado such freedom unleashes. Every historian reflects the concerns of their own times: our series will be different only in so far as this will be an explicit aim. The editors will encourage authors to address twenty-first-century controversies when they think that their work offers useful connexions, comparisons and points of departurefor in this way the volumes will, we hope, contribute to better understandings of our own contemporary world.

Jinty Nelson and Henrietta Leyser

To my mother
Patricia Sarris
for her many years of love, labour, and support

. The Growth of Roman Rule (J. Boardman, J. Griffin, and O. Murray, The Oxford History of the Classical World, pp. 5345)

. The Roman Empire c.AD 390 (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 33)

. Europe c. 526 (R. McKitterick, The Short Oxford History of Europe: The Early Middle Ages, pp. 28081)

. The War Zone between Byzantium and Persia (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 41)

. Justinians Empire in 565 (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 52)

. Pre-Islamic Arabia (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 120)

. Theme Commands in Byzantine Asia Minor c.720 (J. D. Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis, p. xxxii)

. Europe c.732 (R. McKitterick, The Short Oxford History of Europe: The Early Middle Ages, pp. 2823)

. Execution of Barbarians on the Column of Marcus Aurelius (B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, Oxford 2005, p. 26)

. Ivory Diptych of Stilicho and Family (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 37)

. The Theodosian Land Walls (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 67)

. Reconstruction of Seal-Ring of Childeric (reproduced by kind permission of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Bridgeman Art Library)

. Gold Medallion with Bust of Theoderic (B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, Oxford 2005, p. 73)

. Mosaic Panel Depicting Justinian, San Vitale, Ravenna (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 60)

. Exterior of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 47)

. St Albans Cathedral and Shrine Viewed through the Walls of Verulamium (photograph reproduced by kind permission of James Cridland, esq.)

. Silver Hexagram of Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine (by kind permission of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)

. Arab Mock-Byzantine Solidus (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 127)

. Standing Caliph Solidus (C. Mango, The Oxford History of Byzantium, p. 127)

. Solidus of Justinian II (by kind permission of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)

. Helmet from Sutton Hoo (by kind permission of the British Museum, London)

. The Staffordshire Hoard (by kind permission of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery)

. Anglo-Saxon sceatta bearing image of Christ (by kind permission of Lord Stewartby and the Royal Numismatic Society)

The starting and finishing dates for this volume, c. AD 500 and 700, are not in themselves significant. No major cataclysm, crisis, or foundation event detailed in this work occurred in either 500 or 700; neither do these dates constitute obvious book ends to a specific era, movement, or regime. However, it is my contention, in the pages that follow, that the period from the late fifth to the early eighth century witnessed a series of crucial developments that were to do much to define the medieval world as commonly understood: in the west, these centuries saw the demise of the power of the Roman state and the emergence to the fore of social relations of a martial elite and a culture of military lordship; to the east, the period witnessed the economic, cultural, and administrative recasting of the surviving Eastern Roman Empire and its transformation into the society known to us as Byzantium; whilst across the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean (and beyond) these years were associated with the formation and ascendancy of a sophisticated Islamic rival and foe, whose presence would do much to give sharper definition to an embryonic Christendom.