8. Continuity and Change in Europe and Western Asia, 250–850

From the third century onward the Western Roman Empire slowly disintegrated, and in 476 the Ostrogothic chieftain Odoacer deposed the Roman emperor in the West and did not take on the title of emperor. This date thus marks the official end of the Roman Empire in the West, although much of the empire had come under the rule of various barbarian tribes well before that (see Chapter 6). Scholars have long seen this era as one of the great turning points in Western history, but during the last several decades focus has shifted to continuities as well as changes. What is now usually termed “late antiquity” has been recognized as a period of creativity and adaptation in Europe and western Asia, not simply of decline and fall.

The two main agents of continuity were the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire and the Christian Church. The Byzantine Empire lasted until 1453, a thousand years longer than the Western Roman Empire, and it preserved and transmitted much of Greco-Roman law and philosophy. Missionaries and church officials spread Christianity within and far beyond the borders of what had been the Roman Empire, carrying Christian ideas and institutions west to Ireland and east to Central and South Asia. The main agent of change in late antiquity was the migration of barbarian groups throughout much of Europe and western Asia. They brought different social, political, and economic structures with them, but as they encountered Roman and Byzantine culture and became Christian, their own ways of doing things were also transformed.