Decline & Fall of the Ancient World

Tristan Hughes invites Matt Lewis, host The Ancients's sister podcast Gone Medieval, for a lively debate with about the blurred boundary between the ancient and medieval worlds. Can Tristan champion Roman Emperor Justinian as an Ancient? What about Charlemagne? Which period can lay claim to the worst year in history? And was there a single moment when people woke up and realised they'd entered a new era? Watch this episode on our NEW YouTube channel: @TheAncientsPodcast https://www.youtube.com/@TheAncientsPodcast MORE: 541 AD: The Worst Year in History Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ancients/id1520403988?i=1000726283804 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Ln46zSNNezRQlcFXYyVuV?si=L72LBZ3CQA2sylair4TdOw The Fall of Rome: Origins Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ancients/id1520403988?i=1000705825783 Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/1BlPMrkjRg6uCDyW651r1U?si=jZd3fueFR22bffYRIOtguw Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editors are Rob Weinberg and Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

  Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe. Hello, everyone. I hope you're doing well and welcome to this latest episode of The Ancients. And it's a special one because it is a crossover episode with my fellow History Hit host, Matthew Lewis. Matt Lewis, one of the hosts of the Gone Medieval podcast.

• 0:45Tristan Hughes?

  And it's fitting because the topic is we're exploring where the medieval world begins and the ancient world ends. This was really fun to do with Matt. We did it in our studio. It's also going out on YouTube. We had little cards with dates on. We had to debate whether we say they are medieval in date or whether they're ancient. What do we mean by the beginning of the medieval world? How long a process is it? And so much more. This is also an episode where I really encourage you to comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. Where do you agree with what Matt and I said? What you think about the end of ancient and the beginning of medieval? How you would define it? We'd love to hear from you. So definitely leave some comments as well, all about this special episode today.

• 1:29Tristan Hughes?

  Right, without further ado, let's go.

• 1:43Tristan Hughes?

  Welcome to The Ancients. Today, we have a special treat because I am joined by my esteemed, but sometimes confused when it comes to dates, colleague, Matt Lewis, historian and host of the Gone Medieval podcast, to have a frank discussion on the most awkward period in Western history. We're talking about a messy 500-year-long process between 300 and 850 AD, which my people might call the decline and fall of the ancient world, the end of antiquity. His people, however, call it the early Middle Ages. We know this is a deeply nuanced and complex period that evolved uniquely across different places and at different paces. The world didn't just go to sleep one night ancient and wake up the next day medieval.

• 2:26Tristan Hughes?

  Listen, I know that, Matt knows that, you know that. However, our producers want to fight and have placed in my hand a stack of key people and events for us to battle over and claim for our own. We will be debating whether these moments represent collapse or continuity. This could get ugly, but HR is on standby. Matt, great to have you on the show. Are you ready for it?

• 2:51Speaker 01

  It's fantastic to be here. Let's go.

• 2:52Tristan Hughes?

  Let's correct some of your theories, but also you're not confused most of the time. It's just I get competitive when it comes to this time period. How are you feeling?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  I've got the bruises to prove I'm competitive, you get.

• 3:04Tristan Hughes?

  Don't say that. HR, right there. That makes me sound very bad, but okay, no, let's go straight into it. So we're going to talk through these dates and discuss, do we think they're ancient? Do we think they're medieval? And the whole process behind it.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 3:15Tristan Hughes?

  And it is such an interesting period. I must admit, my main area being, I guess, outside doing the general interviews, being much earlier on with like Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic period, but you know, still being fascinated in actually figuring out when antiquity ends and it being so often linked to ancient Rome and the Roman Empire and when the Middle Ages begins. It's a fascinating kind of period to talk about.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  It is, and I'm in the same boat in that if I'm an expert in anything, it's the late medieval period. So I'm working backwards to try and work out how we arrived at the late medieval period. But, you know, we've both spoken to a lot of incredibly clever people about this mushy area in the middle. And I think we can hopefully try and glean what's yours and what's mine. Like you say, we've had fisticuffs before in the office about.

• 3:59Tristan Hughes?

  We have. Stay away from this topic or that topic, isn't it? Always fair in love and war. That's the quote. I think also the fact that this will be our enthusiasts' opinions on the matter. There'll be lots of avenues for disagreement and encourage people to comment and, you know, give their thoughts as well.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Fight us in the comments.

• 4:17Tristan Hughes?

  Absolutely. Like, the team have given us a number of cards. I don't know what's on them. I certainly don't know, unless you've had a peek. But my hunch is that there'll probably be a series of dates and statements and we have to decide whether it's ancient or medieval territory and we can fight it out. So with all that being said, shall we get into it?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Let's get stuck in.

• 4:37Tristan Hughes?

  All right. Okay. This feels like going quite far ahead. An eighth century date, first of all. We've got 732 AD.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  You're not having that. Get out.

• 4:50Tristan Hughes?

  I don't think I can claim that anyway. And it's got the Battle of Tours and Charles Martel. So this is very much early medieval territory. I'm not going to fight this one.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we're on the verge of the emergence of a Frankish nation and those kinds of ideas. The coming together of those fractured, small kingdoms that had emerged after the fall of Rome. And Charles Martel is fighting battles against Islam, coming in from southern Spain and all of those kinds of things as well. So there's a little bit in there about the friction between Christianity and Islam early on. A little bit about defining nationhood and all of that kind of thing. But I feel like that's firmly medieval territory and you need to back off.

• 5:32Tristan Hughes?

  Completely. You've had the spread of Islam already, haven't you? And, you know, all the way to Morocco and then into Spain. If there were any Frankish leaders who I could contest and maybe say is in the ancient world still, maybe Clovis? Early on in the forming of the Frankish Kingdom. But you're right, isn't it? It's that transition from that mosaic of different barbarian Visigoths, Bergundians, Frankish kingdoms into something the more powerful, like the Frankish Kingdom that becomes France.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  And I guess maybe you would put it in there because this is when the map of Western Europe starts to look a little bit more like something we would recognise. You can almost plot France on a map and that kind of thing. But I feel like there is a lot of medieval territory to get there.

• 6:13Tristan Hughes?

  There's a statement here, it's like, "Sets in stone the borders of medieval Western Europe." Do you think that's fair with the Battle of Tours, how seismic it is?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  I mean, they're always moving a little bit, but it is, in terms of, you know, the Muslims who were in southern Spain will remain there for 700 years after this battle. So it does settle the limits of where Islam is encroaching into southern Iberia. And as I say, around the time of Charles Martel, you've got something that looks very much like France beginning to emerge. But nothing else is very settled yet, I don't think.

• 6:43Tristan Hughes?

  No, completely. I don't think we need to hand any more time on this because I'm not contesting it. That's yours. There you go. You can take it. But you get the ancients logo.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  We're keeping score. Is that one nil?

• 6:51Tristan Hughes?

  I guess that's one nil. I think that's not really fair though.

• 6:55Tristan Hughes?

  Well, let's see what the next one is. Okay, this is more interesting and this is one I certainly will fight for. Four hundred and seventy six A D. Now, does that ring a bell?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  So that's the fall of the Roman Empire?

• 7:06Tristan Hughes?

  Fall of the Western Roman Empire. Well, it's the date of, I mean, the last Roman emperor in the West, Romulus Augustius, giving up his throne, abdicating to Oduaça. And then like there was no further Western Roman emperor. But of course, the Roman Empire does continue at pace in the East. I think it's Emperor Zeno who's ruling at the time. And Oduaça, of all people, actually then seeks kind of almost, dare I say, permission from the Emperor Zeno, you know, and what to do in Italy. So there's still very much respect to that Roman rule there in the East. And it's still as strong as ever, which is why I say I would say that this is still ancient history. There's a tendency to say that is this actually the cutoff point? If people want to pinpoint a date for the fall of the Western Roman Empire, four seventy six A D is the traditional date.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's one of those really convenient pins in the map that you can put on a timeline and you can just hang the division between ancient and medieval on that. But if I was to suggest that that's becoming a medieval period, I would suggest that we have previously had problems for Rome. Rome has been sacked. Rome is already a lame duck. It's just waiting to be put out of its misery, I guess.

• 8:14Tristan Hughes?

  Completely. I remember talking to Dr David Gwynne about this and another filmed episode on the origins of the fall of Rome, a series we did earlier this year. And also Adrian Goldsworthy, he talked about this as well. Basically highlighting, as you say, the emperor's a lame duck by this point. It's the power of the federati, you know, these people who are, you know, are in the service of these figureheads. But they've had power for some time and they just, Oduaça just decides there's actually no need for this little kid anymore. But it's certainly not the end of ancient history, I would argue, at that time, because there's no kind of dissolution of Roman beliefs or. Values, the mosaic of kingdoms that emerges in Western Europe at that time, as we talk like the Visigoths in Spain.

• 8:57Tristan Hughes?

  You ultimately get the Ostrogoths and Theodoric the Great in Italy and Clovis in the Franks. They still got clearly like kind of embracing of Roman values and ideas, you know, there's no kind of clear cutoff point. The only exception to that, we might suppose later is Britain, where there is a clearer cutoff point. So I would say that the whole of the fifth century, if we're taking a Eurocentric view, which I think we largely will be with terms like medieval and ancient, aren't we? In that sphere, I would argue that the whole of the fifth century on the continent, European continent at least, is still ancient history.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  It's a tricky one though, isn't it? Because what leads to Rome falling in four seven six? It's the emergence of a different mindset, a different way of doing things that has been attacking Rome for decades by this point. So something has changed, something in the way that people are living has changed. And I think it's important, we, we are going to be mainly in Western Europe. The medieval period is a term for, for Western Europe really. And we're not talking about everyone going to bed wearing togas and waking up in the morning and thinking, well, that's stupid. I'm going to put some hose on and, and dress completely differently. It's not like an overnight thing, but if I was going to make a claim on four seven six tipping over into the medieval world, it's that it's a medieval mindset that has already emerged that is causing Rome to be dragged down.

• 10:18Tristan Hughes?

  That is a good point, and maybe that kind of harkens back to the overarching idea that it is a transitional phase. You know, my, over a long period of time, it is complicated, it's complex. And maybe four seven six, well, actually, almost likely, certainly. It's nearer the beginning than the end of that whole transitional phase, I'd argue, which will go into the sixth century as well. I'm sure we'll visit it in time. So may, as you're right, the forming of the medieval world is certainly there by this point. With those kingdoms like the Visigoths and the Franks and so on. But I wouldn't say that this is clear cut medieval like that one is. So I would say that yes, maybe it is in the transitional phase, but I would still put it in ancient territory.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  I'll give you a one all.

• 11:02Tristan Hughes?

  A one all, okay, okay.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  I mean, you're a Birmingham City fan, so you need every help you can get.

• 11:07Tristan Hughes?

  So good. Hundred and eleven points last season. Not so good this season. Too used to winning, that's the problem. Right, shall we move on to the next one?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  What have we got?

• 11:16Tristan Hughes?

  Okay, I'm a bit more confident about this one. We're going back to the third century, so 286 AD. So a bit of context, because I know this is really out of your comfort zone, okay?

• 11:27Tristan Hughes?

  This is known as the end of the third century crisis. So this is a time, kind of a period roughly of 50 years where you've had more than 25 emperors rise and fall. I think only one dies of natural causes, the rest are done away with either assassinations, poisonings, or killed in battle and usurpers and so on. It's epitomised as a period of great instability, where the Roman Empire could easily have fallen, and was close to falling. And there were certain points in the first century where the Roman Empire is divided into three. When you have like breakaway states like Palmyra in the east with Zenobia and the Gallic Empire, Britain as well is cut away. But it holds together because you do see, and once again, this is largely regurgitating the work of the brilliant Dr David Gwynne,

• 12:12Tristan Hughes?

  who did a lovely interview about this. You have the works of figures like two particular emperors, Gallienus and Aurelian, who work hard to kind of reform and sort out the empire when it's at its weakest in the two sixties and seventies, and it unites. So the Roman Empire does come through this period of crisis. And arguably, well, not arguably at all, by the time you do get to the fourth century, it's stronger than ever. And everyday Rome wouldn't have thought that their empire was in decline at that point.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna make the, well, I was gonna ask the question as to whether that could be viewed as the beginning of the end, if it was a moment of crisis that saw a lot of reshaping. But if the Roman Empire is coming out of it stronger, I guess it's more difficult for me to position it as as the beginning of the end and perhaps the beginning of the emergence of the

• 12:55Tristan Hughes?

  No, but you are kind of right, because this is kind of the clear cut off point where we say like, now this is late antiquity. Right, you know, this is away from your time of your Marcus Aurelius's, your Septimius Severus's, Trajan Hadrian. This is a time when Christianity is about to come to the fore. You have More clear-cut divisions of power, I would argue as well. There's more often than not times where you have multiple emperors. The end of the third century is defined by the tetrarchy, which is Diocletian dividing the empire first into two, senior Augustae, and then into four with two junior rulers as well.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Which in some ways is a precedent for what will come later with the splintering of small petty kingdoms emerging. You've suddenly got this idea that there isn't one single figure who rules over everything in a divinely appointed kind of way. There is an idea that there can be a separation of all of that and that there can be more than one ruler ruling over this whole territory, which is where the medieval mind gets to with the splintering of all of this and all the small petty kingdoms where the Roman Empire smashes apart. It's like a thousand pieces of glass and eventually it starts being pieced together.

• 13:59Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, I mean, there will be some exceptions. I mean, the rule of Constantine the Great, of course, Theodosius the Great as well. But usually they find that the empire is just too big that one person can't deal with it, the fracturing of it. And yes, that will then just kind of go to the next level as you get to the fifth century. And then, you know, it's funny, this idea of breakaway states is nothing new to the Romans by the time they get to the fourth century. As I mentioned Britain earlier, look at Carusius, who led a breakaway state in Britain right around this time, 286. But as you say, it just becomes more, I guess, the norm.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  It sounds like there's a recognition from the centre as well. Rather than it being someone breaking away and Rome needing to drag them back into compliance, there's a recognition at the centre in Rome that more than one person is maybe needed to rule all of this.

• 14:48Tristan Hughes?

  Yes. And then sometimes there are times where like they have too much on their plate that they can't, I mean, Roman Britain, look to your own defences and all that kind of stuff, right? Siagrius in northern France.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Sounds dangerously medieval.

• 14:57Tristan Hughes?

  Yes. This is the problem with dates, because if I then said, you've also put a good argument there for like, you know, that you can see kind of formations of medieval world even back in in the late third century. But if I've already gone for four, seven, six, we'd have to renegotiate if you then say that this is medieval. I don't think that'd be quite fair. But what do you think about it?

• 15:18Speaker 01

  I mean, that's going to have to be an ancient date. But I think it really plays into this idea that it's a Much longer transition than we think it is, that it's going to become harder and harder to to hang it off one date, whether that's four, seven, six, or or any other date. We're looking at a whole period of cultural, societal, political change and evolution, rather than a single cutoff date. It's gonna make it make the rest of this chat quite tricky.

• 15:43Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, completely, and I'd also argue a transition, but getting out of this linear idea that it's a downward decline consistently. The transition, you could argue, is starting by the end of the third century and into the fourth century, but Rome is, yes, although there's the division of power, yes, the army's different to the one you might think from Gladiator and the like. But is it actually weaker? You argue absolutely not, you know, the amount of, you know, it's still a strong entity. It is just changing in its format. Key period, which will ultimately you will see evidence of enduring into the medieval world.

• 16:26Speaker 02

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• 17:00Speaker 02

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• 17:27Tristan Hughes?

  Right, okay, on to the next one. So 410 AD. So this is one where we can kind of, we can negotiate stuff around if we feel we need to. Do you know anything about 410 AD?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Is this a sack of Rome?

• 17:37Tristan Hughes?

  It is the sack of Rome, the first-

• 17:39Speaker 01

  A sack of Rome?

• 17:40Tristan Hughes?

  A sack of Rome.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  You can do it more than once, surely?

• 17:41Tristan Hughes?

  But psychologically, this is the hammer blow. Like, this is the first time Rome has been sacked in some 700 years, since the Gauls, under a guy called Brennus, in around 390 BC, right? So Rome has forged an empire in that time, in the republican period. It's defeated all the old great enemies like Hannibal, the Macedonians, Cleopatra, Augustus, the Trajan. All those big names have existed in that more than half a century, since Rome itself was assaulted and, you know, kind of subjected to a military attack in what the Romans would have considered ancient history.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  And is this the Vandals? Is 410 the Vandals?

• 18:23Tristan Hughes?

  Wash your mouth out with soap, how dare you. No, this is the Goths.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  The Goths.

• 18:28Tristan Hughes?

  Visigoths, I guess you could say, well Visigoths is more later, we'll just say the Goths. The Vandals is later though, and you do hit an important point. I think that's 456. But Rome is sacked twice in the period of 50 years. And actually, that Vandals sack of Rome by Gaiseric and the Vandals is worse than the 410 sack in regards to the devastation and destruction. But the 410 one by Alaric and his followers is, as I said, psychologically a hammer blow because it's that first time Rome has actually been attacked and sacked. I don't think the sacking is that brutal. I'm sure people will disagree. I said, I'm not a leading expert. I'm just trying to remember what David Gwynn told me, as he's one of the leading lights in this, and Peter Hever as well. We interviewed both pretty recently on it. But-

• 19:13Speaker 01

  But it's the fact of Rome being sacked, not how badly it was sacked. It's the fact that there is now a rival making its way into the very heart of the Roman Empire, which again, as we talked about before, 76, this plays into the idea that something has already changed and happened for the Goths to be there to assault Rome. Are the Goths a medieval people? Because if there are medieval people attacking Rome, are we in the medieval world?

• 19:35Tristan Hughes?

  Well, are the Goths a medieval people? I don't think you could say that. But it's like the beginning of a trend of- Mass migrations into the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire's dealt with migrations before and, you know, brought people in. There's been trouble on the frontiers before. They've always brought people in, but it's the scale of them now that's, you know, sending them over the edge. Poor decision making as well. I mean, the reason that Alaric and the Goths ultimately end up there is they've already had a quite a gazump, I'm sorry to say, or a blitz around the Balkans and the Eastern Roman Empire, the defeat of the Valens at the Battle of Adrinople a few decades earlier. But the point I was going to say is, it's not that brutal a sacking. You know, they don't attack the churches, the Goths are Christian.

• 20:18Tristan Hughes?

  Alaric had been trying to avoid a sack of Rome, he'd been negotiating with the emperor. The emperor's not there. Rome has lost its kind of, part of its importance is gone by the early 5th century. Ravenna and Milan have been kind of new centres of power for the rulers in the West. Rome is symbolic. It's the symbolic nature of it that is so devastating. But I think there's a point there in the fact that, you know, it is the start of a trend.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  It feels like maybe 410 is the alarm clock going off and the Roman Empire kind of rolling over and hitting snooze.

• 20:45Tristan Hughes?

  Yes.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  But maybe they should have woken up a bit earlier.

• 20:47Tristan Hughes?

  I think so. Well, whether they could have, because of course by 410, you've also got other groups crossing the Rhine a couple of years earlier. Does Rome have the capacity in the West to deal with all these different threats? You have the Huns as well. They'll also invade Italy. Attila will invade Italy as well for a bit as well. So, as you say, it's the start of a process where Italy is no longer the safe area, you know, no one can touch, it's the flourishing centre. It does hammer away the invincible nature of Rome and this idea, which I think was very much there in most people's minds, apart from a select few, I think Augustine of Hippo's one, no one could fathom the Roman Empire falling. You know, it just wasn't in the vocabulary. And then this maybe sets a few

• 21:30Tristan Hughes?

  more alarm bells ringing that maybe we're seeing the transition into something different, which maybe could that kind of go into the point of a medieval world coming.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. The medieval world is coming for Rome and this is entering Rome, sacking Rome and proving itself a rival for Rome.

• 21:44Tristan Hughes?

  Um, have you got any other thoughts on this? From your medieval mindset?

• 21:48Speaker 01

  It's tricky, isn't it? I mean, I guess part of the question is, what are we talking about changing when we think about changing to the medieval world? And there's a degree to which it's about a little bit of trade and commerce and stuff as well, in that it feels to me, as a complete non-expert, like Rome has become the centre of consumption, but it produces absolutely nothing. So we're moving to an economy in which, rather than rich people producing everything that they need on their own villas and estates and buying in everything from abroad, we're changing to a place in which people are indulging in commerce and trade on a much wider scale and producing things and making things. And has that happened yet? I don't think it has.

• 22:28Tristan Hughes?

  I think you're quite right. I think, but it is just one of those standout dates, isn't it, that we often associate with the end of ancient Rome? And I'm as guilty as anyone to love a solid date to something. It's like, if you want to pinpoint a date, we talked earlier about 476 being like the end of the Roman Empire in the West. I think 410 is another one of those, because, as you say, nothing completely different has changed as such. The Goths will go away, but they will then pave out their own kingdom in southern France. You know, that lays the future for the Visigoths in Spain, right? And so that, very medieval times. From my perspective, it'll be interesting to see what people think.

• 23:07Tristan Hughes?

  476, if you did an episode on 476 on Gone Medieval, I might be like, uh, okay, but I get it. I completely understand it, because I can see the point being made that, you know, it's a date which we pinpoint to the end of antiquity. It's certainly now actually within that transitional phase to what we see as the medieval times. 410, I'd probably be a bit like, not sure about that.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  It's almost like you doing an episode about the worst year to be alive in the 6th century.

• 23:36Tristan Hughes?

  Maybe we'll get to that in a bit. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're quite right. Or even maybe events in the early 7th century in West Asia.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  I think I'm gonna have to let you keep that one, though. I think I'm gonna have to take another hit on this.

• 23:47Tristan Hughes?

  I'm piling up quite a few here at the moment, but lo and behold, another card has appeared. Emperor Justinian. Yeah, this is all bets are off, fisticuffs. You could be coming with for me with this one. Yeah, make your case.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  We've done an episode on God medieval with the wonderful Peter Saris. That is my case. Hand it over. Justinian is a really, really interesting one. So Byzantine Emperor, effectively Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire. So we have to concede here that the Roman Empire still exists in its eastern form. Justinian is really interesting. He, he goes through phases of trying to recapture the Roman Empire, but only parts of it that are economically important. So around the Mediterranean fringe, the south of Spain and Italy, and the north of Africa. He seems to have recognised that you need to cut some of the provinces loose that aren't bringing in enough money. And he focuses his efforts on getting back definitely Italy, which is, you know, the spiritual heart of the Roman Empire.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  But the rest of his efforts are focused on the bits that make money.

• 24:49Tristan Hughes?

  North Africa, isn't it? That area? Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and southern Spain. And he's really keen to get those back in order to fund his own imperial exercise in the east. Justinian is really interesting though, because I think we have someone here who is thoroughly and devotedly Christian in a very medieval sense. So lots of the early doctrine that we get and lots of the early theological debates about medieval Christianity come from Justinian's court. What we think of largely as a lot of Roman law and jurisprudence is what Justinian distills it down to. And it again emerges from his court. So Justinian law will form the basis of European civil law for more than a millennium.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  After him, you know, it's still the basis of some systems of civil law in Europe today. So here is a man who is, you know, literally sitting in his office with a bit of paper, designing the medieval world.

• 25:47Tristan Hughes?

  So interesting, isn't it? God, when you put it like that, it's, he is seismic for that change and everything he goes to as well. It almost feels like.

• 25:56Tristan Hughes?

  Part of it, he is harkening back to the ancient Roman heyday and so reclaiming those lands, seeing him just as the clear successor. But him personally transforming the world around him.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And his background, I think, is interesting as well. You know, he's a, he comes from an incredibly impoverished family in the Balkans. His uncle goes off to the imperial court, rises in the imperial guard, calls for his nephew, you know, I can get him a, a job over here, get him a good education. And so he rises from complete obscurity and poverty to become the emperor of the Byzantine empire. And there's a medieval story in that because what is the, the early medieval period, but the fight for the right to rule everywhere, where almost anybody, if you're smart enough or strong enough, can become a king.

• 26:47Tristan Hughes?

  I would argue you can see that also, though, in the late period of ancient history as well with usurpers and the like. But, but maybe, as you say, Justinian is just another, like a case of that to an extreme because of how powerful, you know, an empire he rules. It is interesting to think of whether the change from antiquity to medieval period, you're kind of really, you really see a big spark in that during Justinian's reign and by infamous events like the Justinian plague, the plague Justinian that breaks out because of how devastating it is, because of how something like that's, well, what it is a, a Black Death plague, isn't it? Carried by the fleas on rats and it's

• 27:30Speaker 01

  What's more medieval than a plague?

• 27:31Tristan Hughes?

  Well, I mean, I think, but it does, I mean, the law code and everything as well. Yeah, I'm no expert on this, but it does feel that you have those, that conglomeration of game changing events that happen in his long reign, that you do see.

• 27:47Tristan Hughes?

  Rome is never the same again, in a way, right?

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I would also concede here that the ancient world kind of never goes away in the medieval world. Medieval people would never have called themselves medieval, they wouldn't have been looking for dates like this. They see a degree of continuity and they are obsessed with ancient Rome, with the architecture, with building in stone as a projection of power that never ever goes away. Particularly later in the medieval period when they, Western Europe comes back into contact with ancient Greek and Roman writings after the Crusades. They are absolutely obsessed with all of that. And we get Romanesque architecture, building castles and churches because they're obsessed. So it isn't that people suddenly turn away from the ancient world. The question is, is this a medieval man living in an ancient world or ancient man living in a medieval world?

• 28:34Tristan Hughes?

  That's so interesting.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  And I would argue that he is a medieval man who is reshaping his empire to fit with the new medieval world that is around him.

• 28:43Tristan Hughes?

  I think that's spot on. I can see the logic of that, but I can't say I think that's spot on from a degree of authority, but I can see what you mean. It is the case, isn't it? When I think of Justinian, I might also think of the Nica riots. But, you know, of course, that's a chariot race, isn't it? It was from a chariot race and you think charities, you think ancient Rome. So you can see the ancient element still there. I think Belisarius is sometimes dubbed like the last Roman, but there's always so many people who are dubbed the last Roman. But in like, kind of, I think a classical ancient sense, that last attempt to retake those former Roman lands in the heartlands of North Africa and Sicily and Italy. And the success it brings. You know, for a time, they retake Rome, I think five, three, six.

• 29:26Tristan Hughes?

  So symbolically, 60 years after the deposition of Romulus Augustulus. So there's a clear link there, something very symbolic there. An idea to say, oh no, we're going to get things back to normal. You know, you've had these Ostrogoths in Italy, but we're back now.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  I think with Justinian, what you get is a desire to still connect with all of that from the past. But a recognition that there's now a new way of doing everything.

• 29:52Tristan Hughes?

  The fact that, you know. It doesn't last because you have all those other new powers who are much stronger than they were before, North of the Alps, the Lombards and Franks and so on and so forth, who, you know, kind of makes that not be the case, that they lose Italy quite soon afterwards. I think I can give you this. I think so. I think that's more. I have no regrets about doing 541 AD, the worst year in history on the ancients podcast, because I think you can say that there is still an ancient world before the bubonic plague.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  And I think Justinian is an interesting figure to hang a discussion around the fact that that transition from ancient to medieval must happen in different places, at different times, at different paces. Again, we're not talking about, you know, the sun goes down on one day on an ancient world and rises on a medieval one.

• 30:37Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, completely. Should we do the next one?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Let's go for it.

• 30:41Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, this should be quite easy. Charlemagne. I'm not claiming him.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  You don't want to.

• 30:46Tristan Hughes?

  No, not at all. When is he? How much further on is he?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  So we're around 800 here. He's his coronation in the year 800. And I guess why he's in there is because he will have himself crowned as a Roman emperor. You know, he is making the first maybe serious effort to reconfigure, to rebuild what was once the Western Roman Empire. You know, he has what we would call today all of kind of Germany to France and all of the bits and pieces in between. He brings all of those back together and is keen to identify himself as a successor to Rome. So clearly in Charlemagne's mind, the ancient world still means something. It's something that you still want to recapture.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  It still symbolizes power and authority and continuity and certainty and strength and all of those things that a king and emperor will want to project. But again, is he just using all of those notions to give him a step up in the medieval world?

• 31:46Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, I think that just further confirms that this is very much a medieval period because they're harkening back to the memory of something now gone. And also, who crowned Charlemagne?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  The Pope.

• 31:55Tristan Hughes?

  The Pope, exactly. Something completely alien to ancient rulers, I'd say. So I've not disputed that at all. He's clearly a medieval figure. I guess one of the big titans of early medieval history, right?

• 32:08Speaker 01

  He is. He's absolutely huge. And, you know, engaging in thoroughly medieval battles, what we would recognise as medieval battles.

• 32:16Tristan Hughes?

  How big are these battles? Are they on the scale of ancient Rome?

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Probably not, no. We're in a time period. It's hard to get numbers for medieval battles. It's probably easier for some Roman battles than it is for some medieval battles. They're notoriously bad at giving us numbers. And so it gets really, really difficult to pin them down. But you're in this kind of period, you're quite often talking about handfuls of knights on horses. You know, it could be 20, 30 people who are the serious elite involved in the fighting here. So you're talking about small scale battles most often. Charlemagne does, you know, he's, again, he's working to push back the Islamic presence in southern Iberia. So, you know, he's recognising that there are boundaries to his empire and wanting to push back and push around. I think he, he's using the ancient world, but he's a medieval man.

• 33:13Speaker 02

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• 34:14Tristan Hughes?

  I think this also harkens to another thing that I commonly associate with medieval versus ancient, which is the clear decline in army size and like the complexities of certain military exercises and campaigns. Now, I can't say that, you know, for everything because I don't know, but from an outsider looking in, it feels like when you get to the early medieval period that the armies, they're not on the scale of earlier Roman imperial expeditions against Parthia or Sassanian Persia and the like, which as you said, is that testament to that new, I'm not using the dreaded F word, feudal word at all there, because that's me being an idiot, but maybe, you know, the system's a power, right?

• 34:53Speaker 01

  I mean, you can use the F word, but I think the key thing there is that the key marker is that Rome has a standing army, paid for by the empire. Throughout the medieval period, you simply don't have countries till very, very late, having anything that resembles a standing army. You're raising the feudal levies, you're calling in people who owe you allegiance and owe you military service to act as your, your army. So there's a clear divide there, I think, between the ancient world where regimes had standing armies that they trained and paid for and could deploy wherever they wanted to, and the medieval world where this is a much more kind of makeshift, you don't incur the cost of a huge standing army.

• 35:36Tristan Hughes?

  Do you think that's also what makes Belisarius's expedition to North Italy and Italy ultimately so remarkable? Because it feels like an ancient history military expedition, you know, but in a changing world. But this idea that you could send, I mean, you might not see it until maybe the Crusades later or something like that, where you can get an army from a power, you know, to ferry across the Mediterranean and then start a campaign afresh. I'm harkening back also to doing Rome II Total War and the Belisarius campaign. But I hope you know what I mean. It's that idea that- Such an idea may feel unfathomable to early medieval periods. I'm sure they're like the Normans and Sisley might be a contrast, but I don't know, but.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  But it does lean into, again, what we're saying, that the ancient world hasn't gone away. People are recognizing that there's a need to do things in a new and different way. But that doesn't mean you can't try the old stuff, you know, throughout the medieval period, the prevailing military wisdom is Vagetius from the the end of the Roman Empire. You know, they will completely and utterly lean on him till the end of the medieval period. So there is still a recognition that the ancient world knew how to do some things.

• 36:41Tristan Hughes?

  Very true. All right. Well, let's keep going on. Okay, this is an interesting one. Emperor Constantine, so early fourth century.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Wait, did you just steal Charlemagne?

• 36:49Tristan Hughes?

  Uh, yeah, sorry, I did. My bad. That's yours. Yeah, that wouldn't look good, would it? You've got your three there. You've got Justinian, Charlemagne and Battle of Tours. Okay, good. I've got my power here. Um, yes, Emperor Constantine. What main achievements? Yes, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. What's he most associated with? Christianity. And it will always be debated, you know, why he embraces Christianity and the Milvian Bridge. The Cairo story, Eusebius and so on. But he does, he's part of the tetrarchy, that rule of four that I mentioned earlier. But then, after a series of civil wars, he becomes the sole ruler of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. Obviously, his other big legacy is the founding of Constantinople,

• 37:33Tristan Hughes?

  the renaming of Byzantium to Constantinople and then making his own seat of power. Although it will not straight away be like the great centre of the Roman Empire. Once again, David Gwynn, Encyclopedia on this stuff, saying how Thedosis the Great, so much later in the the fourth century, is more that Constantinople is is clearly the centre. But the question here is like, does he lay the foundations, I guess, for the Eastern Roman, the Byzantine Empire?

• 37:59Speaker 01

  I would be tempted, controversially, to make a hard play for Constantine.

• 38:03Tristan Hughes?

  Would you? Interesting. So you're going to make a play for three, two, eight, you know, early fourth century?

• 38:09Speaker 01

  In that, what is the medieval period but the story of the emergence and the ascendancy of the Roman church? The adoption of Christianity is the beginning of that process. And when I said earlier that, you know, as far as I'm aware, you know, Rome has this economy that doesn't kind of produce and export anything, the sudden realisation that it needs to produce and export something comes along. And what does it export? It exports religion, Christianity. And who starts that? Constantine does. Here is a man who is realising that Rome needs to change. And here is a man who gives it its main export.

• 38:42Tristan Hughes?

  Well, he was a man who realised that Rome needs to change, even though Christians are just like 5% of the empire's population at the time.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Because ahead of his time.

• 38:50Tristan Hughes?

  Well, I know, I think he's, David Potter, interviewed, one of the first interviews he ever did on the podcast, I remember him saying this, mentioning how he thinks Constantine was hedging his bets. You know, you'll see coins, you know, he's clearly linked to Christianity, only gets baptised when he's on his deathbed, so in the 330s. You also have coins of Constantine, I think it's with Sol and Victus and the like. So it's, I'd still say it's a transitional phase. I get what you mean though.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  But he's also set in motion.

• 39:17Tristan Hughes?

  Yes.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  The things that will ultimately define the medieval period.

• 39:23Tristan Hughes?

  He does. I think you could do a legacy of Constantine and that would be medieval because he's such a big figure. I couldn't say, I would not be allowed to get away with saying that Constantine the Great is a medieval figure ahead of his time. Because he's still very much in that imperial system. He reverts to one man rule of the entire empire and he's successful largely because there aren't any big threats from the Persians or on the Rhine at that time.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Although I'd also say someone who's, you know, there's a couple of other kings around him until he beats them up and becomes sole ruler is very medieval.

• 39:53Tristan Hughes?

  Would you? Well, yeah, but Rome also has precedence for doing that with, you know, rival claimants for the throne. You've got so many civil wars.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  I just feel like you're getting too many here, I'm just making a bid for Constantine.

• 40:06Tristan Hughes?

  Put him in the middle.

• 40:09Tristan Hughes?

  In the middle. All right, fine. You'd have to think very carefully how you did a Golden Medieval episode about Constantine the Great. That's all I'll say.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Otherwise you'd ambush me in the office again.

• 40:16Tristan Hughes?

  You did what? This is a very interesting one, though. 628, 630s, West Asia, which, you know, is the Arab conquests, the rise of Islam. Would you like to say something first about it?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  I think this is perhaps one of the most interesting things because I think lots of people will immediately think that has to be medieval.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  But the rise of Islam on the borders of the Eastern Roman Empire is fascinating because the medieval world, like I say, after the Crusades, when the medieval world in Western Europe comes back into contact with lots of the teachings of Rome and Greece, they get that from their Muslim enemies. And I think the Muslims would argue there's this kind of mini-enlightenment in Western Europe when all of that knowledge and power comes back. I think Muslims in the Near East would argue that they never forgot all of that ancient wisdom in the way that Western Europe had. They come into contact with the Eastern Roman Empire, and as far as they're concerned, it's still the Roman Empire. I think there

• 41:26Speaker 01

  are lots of ways, as much as I hate shooting myself in the foot, I think there are lots of interesting ways in which the Arab world has a stronger connection to the ancient world than medieval Europe does by this point.

• 41:40Tristan Hughes?

  It's interesting because they say we're doing that geographic shift, aren't we? This is the first one where we're kind of talking beyond Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. And you do make the point how, you know, before that, you have a situation in West Asia that has been there for centuries. The fact that you've got west of the Euphrates, the Romans, and east of the Euphrates, the Persians, right? And it's been that kind of fighting back and forth for centuries, whether it's Sassanians, Parthians, well, those are the main two with the Romans, aren't they? So it is very interesting that you have that context of you can argue two ancient superpowers. So when we did do this episode

• 42:20Tristan Hughes?

  on the ancients recently, we kind of framed it as such, you know, this is the story of the fall of one of those superpowers in the Sassanian Persians. And also the continual, well, you know, the the decline of another one, rest of the Euphrates, and the story how that power balance, two superpowers ruling Mesopotamia, Syria area, that thing that's been there forever, and people expected, you know, would just return to as it had been before, is completely derailed by the Arab conquests, by the taking of Persia, by the uniting of both sides of the Euphrates under one.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Because I think the tricky thing is, if you said six, three, five and the rise of Islam, people would say medieval. If you said a rising Arab superpower that fights the Persian Empire and the Roman Empire, that sounds incredibly ancient.

• 43:14Tristan Hughes?

  I think it stretches both, which once again shows how permeable medieval ancient is and you can't put a direct date on it. But the fact is, you know, the spread of Islam so quickly and those armies after that, Egypt, and then, as you mentioned earlier, all the way ultimately to Morocco and southern Spain, that is clearly medieval.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  So if we conceded Constantine belongs somewhere in the middle, do we think this probably belongs somewhere in the middle as well?

• 43:36Tristan Hughes?

  Uh, yeah, go on then, I think so. But it's it's funny, isn't it? Once again, it shows how you've got someone from the fourth century there, someone from the seventh century there. I will always say that Constantine is still ancient, but I can see that the conception of it potentially being there. But last one is, go do a quick fire, a bit of a curve ball, but we've been talking about how we've been focusing on Europe and West Asia. Mesoamerica, does ancient medieval crossover, does it apply to Mesoamerica?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  I don't think it can.

• 44:07Tristan Hughes?

  I don't think it can either.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  It's so tricky, because I think if you said Aztecs and Mayans, people would think you're talking about ancient civilizations.

• 44:15Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, I disagree. I think Aztecs know because they have direct contact with the Spanish.

• 44:22Tristan Hughes?

  As Texan Inca, I would never, I would hesitate against doing on the Ancients podcast because I think it's so, you know, it's within six hundred, seven hundred years or so, isn't it? But the others, yes, I don't know.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  But it's tricky then to put a date on, when do you medievalise that? Because you can talk, you know, late fifteenth century when Europeans arrived, but that's suggesting that somehow the Europeans are bringing something new and brilliant rather than destroying what's already there. So I think it's, South America and the Americas are one of those places where it's really, really difficult to periodise history in the same way as we do in Europe.

• 45:00Tristan Hughes?

  Because you've done Cahokia, haven't you? And I must admit Cahokia in North America, you know, great urban mound and a great city, wasn't it, in North America? You know, is one I would, I have thought once in a while about doing, but I still think it was too far ahead that I hesitated to do it and say it was ancient history.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. It feels like it should be medieval, but that's us sitting in Europe probably projecting our ideas across and, and you know, there are places like China, Japan, that we could talk about where they just simply wouldn't recognise the periodisation of history that we use in, in Western Europe. And I think probably the Americas is the same.

• 45:33Tristan Hughes?

  But it's interesting with China and India as other ones. China is like, sometimes they love a big date, you'll put like the end of the Han Dynasty, so third century or the beginning of the Tang. One of those dynasties, that's the medieval period. So in India, they might say it's the fall of the Guptas. And then that from then is, is the time of medieval period. So it almost feels like there's more clear cut because of that Eurasian landmass. Yeah, and there is connection, I think that, that it's more easy to put a pinpoint between ancient medieval with India and China, whereas Mesoamerica, different.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I think China, the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century starts to feel very, very medieval. And that very quickly moves its way, the principles are back to Japan as well, and they get the Taika reforms in Japan in the kind of mid-seventh century. And it starts to feel much more like a feudal, what we might recognise as a medieval society. But again, it's just tricky to do it everywhere all at once.

• 46:24Tristan Hughes?

  Well, that's it. I will, we'll put that as, as once again, a kind of an undecided one in the middle. How do you feel?

• 46:33Speaker 01

  What's the scores? The only important thing.

• 46:35Tristan Hughes?

  Well, I've got three. I would claim constant time. I'm going to put constant time there.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Score draw.

• 46:39Tristan Hughes?

  Fine, we'll do a score. Oh, right. All right. Diplomat again to the chat. But yeah, that was good fun.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  I think it's been really interesting and very, very interesting to actually think about some people who you might think of as medieval, might have actually lived before people that you think of as, or events that you think of as ancient, and just how blurry and porous that border between us is. So maybe you should stop beating me up in the office and we should just be friends.

• 47:03Tristan Hughes?

  I know, I know. I'm just too competitive in that regard. But no, it's been great. And finally, we've had you on the podcast, my friend. And, you know, it's always nice to do a History Hit crossover when we can, especially for time period podcasts where it's more difficult to get those crossovers. But it feels like a nice topic to do, friendly conversation and lots of room for people to debate. So let us know your thoughts in the comments because I'm sure you've got quite a lot. Matt, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  It's been an absolute joy. Thank you, Tristan.

• 47:36Tristan Hughes?

  Well, there you go. I loved doing that discussion with Matt and I hope you guys did too. It was really fun, really lighthearted. And we'd love to hear what you think. When do you think the ancient world ends and the medieval world begins? Over how large a period of time, when and where? We'd love to hear from you. So make sure to leave a comment on Spotify if you're listening there or on our brand's new Ancients YouTube channel because this episode was filmed and it will also be up on YouTube now. My thanks also to Matt and shout out to his brilliant podcast. He is one of the hosts of the Gone Medieval podcast, also from History Hit. Now, finally, thank you to you for listening to this episode of the Ancients.

• 48:20Tristan Hughes?

  Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that. Now, don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.