Re‐Forging the ‘Age of Iron’ Part I: The Tenth Century as the End of the Ancient World?

Abstract

Abstract The tenth century, once dimissed as an unpleasant ‘Age of Iron’, now receives increased attention as an important age of transition. Historians are attempting to understand how it fits into the broader narrative of Western Civilization. Some have identified it as the last act of the post‐Roman world. They identify its economy and social structures as Late Antique – at least until a ‘feudal revolution’ around the year 1000 suddenly swept them away. More professional soldiers based in new forts are said to mark the sudden advent of a new, more chaotic order. Church and state, rebuilding together after the invasions and civil wars of the late ninth century, self‐consciously attempted, with varying degrees of success, to model themselves on Roman precedents. This movement culminated in the reign of Emperor Otto III (983–1002), who relocated the capital to Rome and dedicated himself ‘to renew the ancient customs of the Romans’. The points of tangency cited between the Later Roman world and the tenth century are impressive, but a definitive judgement also requires that the century’s novel aspects be considered.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 15 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.