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1 results

  • 5 - The Byzantines in the West in the sixth century

  • from PART I - THE SIXTH CENTURY
  • Edited by Paul Fouracre, University of Manchester
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 December 2005, pp 118-139

  • Summary

    Throughout the political history of western Europe, there have been few periods of such dramatic change as the fifth century. In 400 the borders of the Roman Empire in the West, by then distinct from the Empire in the East which was governed from Constantinople, stood reasonably firm. The Byzantines, as speaking the one language and looking the same, saw them, along with the Gepids, as nations that could be distinguished only by their names. The Mediterranean lands were occupied by powers that threatened Byzantine interests, but it was sometimes within the power of the Empire to act so as to destabilise its enemies. The nomadic Berbers had been pressing increasingly on the Vandal kingdom, and they were to pose a major problem to Byzantine Africa, for their practice of lightly armed and mobile combat made them difficult opponents for the Byzantine cavalry. The Gothic war had lasted far longer than the Vandal war, but its outcome was the same.