The Barbarians at the Gate, Part I: Four Peoples Who Changed Europe Forever

By Princess Charlotte (Medieval Battles and Weapons Expert)

When people hear the word "barbarian", they often imagine wild warriors charging across Europe wearing animal skins and smashing everything in sight. But that isn't quite how it really was. You see, the term was actually used by the Romans to describe anyone that was outside of their civilization, would you believe that I would be considered a Barbarian by Roman standards?! So would you!

When the Western Roman Empire collapsed in AD 476, Europe did not descend into complete chaos. Instead, it became a continent in motion. Kingdoms rose. Empires fell. Entire peoples migrated hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles in search of land, safety or opportunity.

Many of the countries we know today exist because of those migrations.

These weren't simply raiders. They were nation-builders. Here is the first of a two-part blog that explores the peoples who helped create and shape medieval Europe.

The Goths

c. AD 200–711

The Goths may be the most misunderstood people in European history. Today the word gothic tends to bring to mind black clothing, gloomy architecture and teenagers who don't particularly enjoy sunshine. While we can't be 100% certain that the actual Goths didn't enjoy sunshine, they are rather different to the goths that roam the streets today!

They were an East Germanic people who, according to later tradition, originated somewhere around southern Scandinavia before gradually moving south towards the Black Sea during the first few centuries AD. By the third century they had become one of Rome's greatest rivals.

Sometimes they traded with the Empire, sometimes they fought it. Every now and then they did both simultaneously - it was a rathe complex relationship. Eventually the Goths divided into two great branches. The Visigoths entered Roman history dramatically in AD 410, when their king Alaric captured and sacked Rome.

It was the first time in almost 800 years that the city had fallen to a foreign enemy and where the famous term 'barbarians at the gates' arose.

For Romans, it felt like the end of the world. The Visigoths later established a kingdom across much of modern Spain and southern France that lasted until the early eighth century, when it was conquered during the Umayyad expansion into the Iberian Peninsula.

The Ostrogoths took a different path. Under Theodoric the Great, they ruled Italy after AD 493, preserving much of Roman government, law and administration. Theodoric employed Roman officials, repaire d aqueducts and encouraged learning.His kingdom looked remarkably Roman, despite being ruled by Goths.

It eventually fell during Emperor Justinian's attempt to reconquer Italy, a devastating war that left much of the peninsula in ruins. The Goths were not simply destroyers. They became Christians, wrote laws, governed kingdoms and helped preserve Roman civilisation even as the Western Empire disappeared.

The Vandals

c. AD 200–534

Few peoples have suffered quite as badly from historical public relations as the Vandals. Today a vandal is 'a person who intentionally or recklessly damages, destroys, or defaces property that belongs to someone else or the public'. Now this reputation comes almost entirely from one event.

The Sack of Rome in AD 455.

In reality, the Vandals were far more sophisticated than their modern reputation suggests. Originally another East Germanic people, they migrated across Europe during the great upheavals of the fifth century. Crossing the frozen Rhine in AD 406, they swept through Gaul before reaching Spain.

Then, under their remarkable king Genseric, they crossed into North Africa in AD 429.

It proved a brilliant decision.

North Africa was one of the wealthiest provinces of the former Roman Empire. From their capital at Carthage, the Vandals built one of the strongest naval powers in the Mediterranean. Their fleets dominated sea routes for decades.

When they entered Rome in AD 455, later writers portrayed them as mindless destroyers.

Modern historians are less convinced. There was extensive looting, certainly, but compared with many ancient sackings, there was relatively little killing and remarkably little destruction of the city itself. The Vandals were considerate looters.

Their kingdom lasted almost a century before the Byzantine general Belisarius conquered it in AD 533–534. The Vandals were adaptable, ambitious and astonishingly successful for a people who crossed an entire continent to build a new kingdom.

Yet, history has not always been kind to them, you really wouldn't want to associate yourself with a vandal today!

The Franks

c. AD 250–987

If the Goths are the most misunderstood people on this list, the Franks are probably the most influential. For starters, France takes its name directly from them. Originally a loose confederation of Germanic tribes (see the common theme yet?!) living along the Rhine frontier, the Franks gradually expanded into Roman Gaul. Everything changed under one ruler.

Charlemagne.

When Charlemagne became king in AD 768, he began building the largest empire western Europe had seen since Rome itself. Through conquest, diplomacy and determined administration, he united much of modern France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and northern Italy.

On Christmas Day AD 800, Pope Leo III crowned him Emperor in Rome. That moment shaped medieval Europe for centuries.

Charlemagne encouraged learning, standardised writing, reformed government and supported monasteries that copied countless ancient manuscripts. Without that work, many classical texts might have disappeared forever - we might also not have got the illustrations of gigantic snails in the margins of those texts, thanks Charlemagne!

Although historians today are more cautious about describing the Franks as the inventors of feudalism, Frankish society unquestionably helped develop the lord-and-vassal relationships that became central to medieval Europe.

When Charlemagne's empire was divided after his death, it laid the foundations for both modern France and Germany. Few rulers have left a greater mark on European history.

The Anglo-Saxons

c. AD 410–1066

For readers in Britain, these are the people who shaped much of the country we recognise today.

The Anglo-Saxons were not one single people. They were made up primarily of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who migrated from what is now northern Germany and Denmark after Roman rule in

Britain collapsed during the fifth century.

Their arrival was not a single invasion. It was a long, complicated process involving migration, settlement, warfare and coexistence with the existing Romano-British population.

Over time, a collection of kingdoms emerged: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Kent, Wessex, Essex and Sussex - together they became known as the Heptarchy, although the political picture was usually much messier than seven neat kingdoms.

This period produced some of England's greatest cultural achievements.The Venerable Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The magnificent Lindisfarne Gospels were created.

The epic poem Beowulf was composed. Later came Alfred the Great, whose resistance to Viking invasion helped preserve an independent English kingdom.

The Anglo-Saxon world finally ended with the Norman Conquest of 1066 - more on this in Blog II in this series. The ruling elite changed almost overnight. French became the language of the court.

Castles appeared across England.

Yet Anglo-Saxon England never truly disappeared. Its language evolved into modern English.

Its place names remain. Its villages still shape the countryside. Much of everyday England is still, at heart, Anglo-Saxon.

Why I wrote this blog:

It is tempting to imagine medieval Europe appearing fully formed, with castles, knights and kings simply arriving one day. It really was a lot more complicated. The medieval world grew from centuries of migration, conflict, conquests and cooperation.

The Goths, Vandals, Franks and Anglo-Saxons were not simply barbarians standing outside civilisation. They became civilisation. Without them there would have been no medieval Europe, and perhaps no castles for Jack the Good Knight to explore

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Next time: we'll meet four more peoples who reshaped medieval Europe: the Lombards, the Vikings, the Normans and the Slavs.

Join Jack's Shield Wall at thegoodknightbook.com/shield-wall. New members receive a free Guide to Medieval Insults, perfect for anyone tempted to call the Visigoths "a bunch of barbarians" within earshot of a historian. 🏰⚔️