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1 results

  • 1 - The later Roman Empire

  • Edited by Paul Fouracre, University of Manchester
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 December 2005, pp 13-34

  • Summary

    The end of Rome's political control certainly did not mark the end of the Roman era: Roman roots had burrowed too deeply. In almost every other facet of European life, economic, social, intellectual, legal, religious, linguistic and artistic, much of the Roman imprint held firm, sometimes for centuries after the political bonds were loosed. The reign of the emperor Commodus is taken as the signpost towards the end of Rome's Golden Age. There had always been a strong religious element in Roman rule, and it deepened as the Empire aged. The Roman world would deliver to the European Middle Ages not only Christianity's holy book, its Bible, but also a huge body of systematic theology. The advent of the barbarians could actually enhance the status of the Roman aristocracy. Late Roman ideas of law and the ways that it regulates the ownership of property were also passed directly into the early Middle Ages in the West.