Why the Fall of Rome set Europe back 1,000 years (with Bryan Ward-Perkins)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this inaugural episode of the Toldinstone Podcast, I talk with Professor Bryan Ward-Perkins (author of "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization") about the archaeological evidence for the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and discuss why the fall of Rome was so catastrophic.
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:40 Potsherds and the Fall of Rome
6:27 Roman consumer goods
9:24 The Roman state and the Roman economy
11:51 Why the fall of Rome should encourage us
12:27 The scale of the Roman economy
15:15 Talking about cow femurs
17:10 Bricks and tiles
20:35 The transformation of late antique cities
26:14 Population collapse
27:31 The city of Rome in late antiquity
31:35 Thinking about churches
33:28 Early medieval Britain
34:40 The disappearance of coins and iron
37:59 Why was the fall of Rome so catastrophic?
Man, this is excellent, particularly like hearing Bryan mention his drawings and that they could be wrong. Refreshing to hear a professional admit that they could be wrong on something.
Wrong on 'everything', more like.
@@theshamanarchist5441 Your not even close.
@@theshamanarchist5441 A 30 second browsing of your content shows you are an absolute tin-foil clown.
The shamanarchist
the best professionals admit not only what they know but also what they dont know.
So glad you came out with a podcast. Not enough good history podcast out there. Excited to see this grow!
Corrado you can always try 'History of the world podcast'. It's very well put together and you'll love the host #Chrishasler
the ancients by tristan Hughes and history with cy are both good podcasts
also, fall of civilizations.
Half-arsed history is great if you want a host that covers a variety of topics in a simple and funny way
Try “The Rest Is History” podcast with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook
I always wondered, if you could travel the cities of Italy six months after the western empire falls and ask the citizens for their opinion on its fall, what their answer would be. I always imagined most of them would say "wait, the last time we saw a legion was when my grandma was still a girl, I thought the empire fell like 50 years ago?"
In reality very little changed in the short term. You have to wait for the greco-gothic wars for Roman society to really collapse
I feel like it was so gradual that nobody noticed. Without any media, children would not have been able to fully understand that their grandparents lived better lives than them. Maybe only until the Renaissance did we think about the ancients.
Been a fan since less than 10k, maybe even first 5k, and I cannot express how pleased and happy I am to have seen this channel grow and achieve the recognition it deserves. Hopefully the first of many entertaining and educational podcasts! Thanks for all the content, Garrett.
Also an early sub, I share this sentiment!
I was sub when it had 20 thousands but with my old account
Anime ^
LLmmlo0l0oii
@@tokonio what's with these hostile replies loool
Fantastic, one of my favorite finds when working a Late Roman Auxiliary fort in Jordan was a perfectly intact cooking pot. Found it at the bottom of a corner tower that had collapsed in a earthquake in the early 5th century. Remarkable that it survived.
I think many non-archaeologists would be shocked by the amount of pottery that is found. Though, even working at a training dig that was Early Bronze Age in Israel, we found masses of pottery which was largely non diagnostic and discarded.
I finished your book last week Garrett. It was just so much fun and really fantastic. For anyone who is curious: imagine a book where each chapter is a completely different subject/time in Roman history. Literally a text version of this channel. Each chapter only takes a few minutes to read, and is TONS of fun, just like this channel.
Wow, Dr. Ward-Perkins! He’s such a widely-known expert, great catch for your show, Dr. Ryan.
That was 40+ minutes?! It screamed by! Thank you for letting Bryan speak, I think I'll need a repeat viewing to take it all in.
Personally, I've always enjoyed contemplating the continuities of the post-Roman period with the Roman, such as the continuation of Roman law in Visigothic Spain (for non-Visigoths, at least) and the role of the Church as a perpetuator of Romanism, but it's enjoyable to hear about the evidence of just how profound the socio-economic disintegration of the Roman world was. I will definitely be looking into the professor's book.
One "shorthand" formula for the relationship between continuity and collapse might be that there was cultural, religious and linguistic continuity in many places of the former Roman West, while there wasn't so much political, economical and technological continuity. I mean, Christianity is still around, the Romance languages spoken today derive from Latin, and the over-all cultural legacy of Rome turned it into something to claim for centuries to come. Yet, with regards to all things technical, we see discontinuity and new (one might argue, lesser) forms of organisation after Rome, which only start to catch up again in the high and late middle ages. However, what I said is especially true for the time after the end of Visigothic Spain, Ostrogothic Italy and Vandalic North Africa. These entities also showed signs of political and economic continuity, some even to a remarkable degreee (see Ostrogothic Italy).
Befor XIXth century legal personalism was a rule your rights were dependent on who you were. Today on the other hand the rule is legal teritorialism you abide to the law of the land no matter who you are.
How about modern bullfighting and rodeos as ongoing extensions of some of the various local versions of the ludi 'gladiator' games?
@@Alaryk111 This seems a false dichotomy considering this "legal personalism" was also dependant on territory.
@@kochaos6129 boxing? MMA?
I love the meta-effect of Ward-Perkins describing the importance and durability of pottery while speaking in front of a very impressive collection of ceramics.
I could put analog to today's world and lightbulbs, electronics, cars. It aint life critical that those break in 3-5years but certainly it wastes fuel and resources and congestation in logistics of all levels when people have to rush to shops to buy new ones so often(this especially in highly dense cities where streets are narrow and old).
I read Professor Ward-Perkins book when it was relatively new. It had a very spirited introduction taking to task some of the scholars of Late Antiquity who had been introducing the idea of a slow and relatively civilized transition as may have been true for Italy and southern Gaul as a universal event in the West. I particularly remember his vivid description of the violence and destruction in the Iberian Peninsula.
His book is hyper focused on a few small Anglo-Saxon archeological sites, and he often interprets what's there and applies it universally to all of Europe. A good counterbalance to this is probably Peter Brown.
He's very much using limited archeology to reinforce the old fashioned enlightenment thinking on this issue that has been abandoned in modern scholarship.
What a delightful chat. Ward-Perkins has that characteristically Oxonian trait of not shying away from disagreeing with his interlocutor while making strong (and potentially controversial) points, but simultaneously caveating them and pointing out the weaknesses of his own arguments. And he does so while being both eloquent and relaxed. Even the exceptional Garrett at times reverted (and I hope he wont object to the analogy) to the behaviour of a shy undergraduate asking a Don a question during a tutorial.
I can't help but feel that this is a skill practiced over numerous well-inebriated dinners, in an age before an academic career was as highly competitive and outcome focussed as it is now.
I'm a very small-time Roman Historian fan. I'm a Civil Engineer by trade, and fell into love with Roman History by playing video games about Rome as a kid. I'm 31 now with a family.
Okay, okay, just found your channel toldinstone. Love it so far. I've been binge-listening to/watching some of your videos. I came across this interview with Bryan Ward-Perkins. And I'm listening and feeling like all this information is familiar. As though I've already read all of these thoughts before.
Turns out, in my small shelf library of Roman history books, I already own Bryan Ward-Perkins "The Fall of Rome" and had read it years ago! It was such an amazing book with insights into the everyday roman economy and how it fell apart. I love love love this book. My wife or friends or coworkers would ask what the book was about and their eyes would glaze over in disbelief that I found any of it interesting! Haha!
Anyways, I just got super giddy when I realized this interview is with the author of this particular book. No real punchline or story beyond that.
Love your channel. Great interview. Keep up the awesome work.
What you said about people being astounded by your interest in these things is something I can really relate to. 😅
This is an incredibly high quality product for a first effort. I hope that I should succeed in all of my first attempts in kind.
Wow, that was interesting! I never realized that Britain fell back to almost the Bronze Age after the Romans left. It's amazing how much info about the economy can be gotten from fired clay (bricks, tiles, pottery). Great talk! Can't wait for the next one!
Meh, the lack of iron findings was surely because all metal was valuable and thus recycled. Iron is a common ore and blacksmiths were always a relatively common trade. In Britain surely the collapse was probably more intense, as was in Mauretania, as in comparison with Latin Europe and Africa (Tunisia approx.), where civiliation had more continuity, but still it would have not be as "Bronze Age", if nothing else because bronze was, once you know how to make steel and that knowledge is relatively common, too expensive and feeble for most uses.
@@LuisAldamiz Well he himself sort of said that ''bronze age'' would be an exaggeration but I can see how reliance on Roman Empire for cheaper mass produced goods could have killed whole local industries in Britain, it happens even now. And after the fall it would be hard to restart them, people from Italy were not eager to emigrate to Britain and teach them how to make the stuff
Having recently finished your book, "“Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants", it's astonishing to me how ignorant I've been of Roman and European history as a whole. You bless us with such exhilarating and academically-stimulating content.
19:27 In central Europe since the large scale brick production started in the 12th century, bricks have been constantly reused over the ages, whether after the destruction of war or simply everyday demolishion projects. Even today bricks and certain types of rooftiles aren't thrown away but sold for reuse. I even know of cases when actual medieval bricks were on sale, usually after underground parking lot construction within old town centers required digging out old foundations.
I remember as a young man in Holland in the 1980's, I cleaned bricks once in the summer. Once I got the hang of it, with the broad side of a small pickaxe I could hack the old mortar off of these old smaller bricks relatively easy. I earned on the order of 100 guilders per day at that time. It saved the contractor a lot of money, as these smaller older stones were quite fashionable and were quite expensive at that time.
@@Etaoinshrdlu69 you can reuse brick but not mortar. It's pretty difficult to make and needs lots of energy and transportation.
This was so enjoyable. Could have listened for hours.
Thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. The thought that history regresses is unsettling, but we learn so much by studying it.
This is incredible. The knowledge between these two men is practically immeasurable. I could listen to you two talk for weeks on end!
a 40 min toldinstone video? never clicked so fast :)
Thanks, one of my favourite subjects and authors! Quite engaging!
Thanks for your generous gift!
Interviews of this genre and caliber are EXTREMELY rare on YT....Thanks for cobbling this one together for us! As a possible future topic I'd like you to delve into who was the most powerful (influential?) Roman Emperor. I'd like to nominate Constantine, and I throw out the following as 'bait,' this topic: What other Emperor (or any other politician in World History) could have relocated the capital of the Empire and gotten the elites to cooperate (either through power of bribery) as did C, when he relocated the Seat of Government from Rome to Constantinople (btw, I realize it was Byzantia). It would be like relocating Washington, D.C. to St Louis or Kansas City, and pulling it off! Essentially he discarded Rome, and went into a huge building program in Byzantia, and succeeded in getting many of the Senators to follow! Some would say that The Eastern Roman empire actually dominated the Western segment for centuries. Anyway, might be an interesting discussion! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!
Aren't two SE Asian states, Burma/Myanmar and Indonesia, changing their seats of government right about now?
@@goodday2760 Yes, but both are relativety new states, with historical capitals not fully connected to current needs.
I disagree with your characterization of Byzantia/Constantinople being similar to St. Louis. Byzantia was a major trade city even before it became the capital of the empire. It’s more like if a President decided he’d move the capital from D.C. to San Francisco or New York.
@@BrandonAzzarella Myanmar is not a new state by any means.
@@genovayork2468 The current government structure of Myanmar is 2 years old, and the constitution before that is now about 15 years old. So yes, the state is new, it's the country that is old.
Exactly the kind of podcast I'd hoped for from you and your guest, and I hope it is a solid indicator of what's to come; surely presaging success. Incidentally, you mentioned you were on your way to Alaska. If there's any chance you'll be coming to the Klondike National Historic Park in Skagway my brother and I, both history tour guides, would love to give you the greatest tour of your Alaskan sojourn. Cheers
Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately, my Alaskan travels kept me north of Skagway; but when I return - and I have no doubt that I will - I hope that I'll be able to take advantage of your generous offer.
Very strong first episode, wow what a guest to have! One thing, why did Bryan Ward-Perkins correct himself at 37:35 when he said Anglo Saxons?
I noticed that too
Superb interview. The sweep of decline. I dig the implication that it's not the beautiful jewelry that defines a powerful civilization, but rather the plain brown pottery and the nails that define it far more.
There are great advantages to lime mortars - it is reusable, pulls moisture out of masonry, anti fungal and incredibly versatile as well as beautiful. Wonderful talk, thankyou.
Rock-solid podcast. Thanks for sharing.
We reused the bricks from our old chimney stock, for making a floor in our greenhouse. And while the mortar was incredibly hard, it was removable with a hammer and chisel. There were some shattered bricks, though they were probably already cracked from being thrown out a second story window onto a pile of brick. Most were fine for reuse
Old style compact bricks, right? Modern hollow bricks can't hardly be reused at all.
If you ever need to reuse bricks again, soak them in water for an hour before you clean the old mortar off. It is way, way easier and faster if you do that.
@Luis Aldamiz I was just thinking the same thing.
Admittedly some cement will get in it, but indeed just falling will break them.
They're fragile like ceramic in a way.
Absolutely fascinating! Super excited for this new podcast!
Fascinating chat. More of this format would be great! Thanks
Loved the podcast. Toldinstone is a great at keeping the conversation flowing.
I read the book when it first came out and it’s a pleasure to hear this author interview
Thank you. I found this discussion very interesting. I hope that you post more interviews in the future.
Nice discussion Garret and professor Ward-Perkins. Love this long form conversation style. Learned a few new things in this one.
Loved this podcast. I love to watch your videos when I'm going to sleep and these longer ones are great for that. Thank you!
Fascinating guest! I really enjoyed this episode. I'm looking forward to future podcasts.
Awesome video !!! thanks God there's still people creating such good content!!
Great discussion. I enjoy the long form podcast style and would love to see more like it.
Wonderful conversation! Thank you both!
Thank you for the short discussion. It'd be lovely to see a sit down, in person discussion with artifacts or illustrative examples to buttress the points of discussion.
Can not express how much I loved this podcast. Recently stumbled upon this channel a few months ago after an edible fueled curiosity of Rome and really have not stopped tuning in from time to time since. Thanks so much for what you do!
The bible is church inspired nonsense, as is human history & chronology taught for the past 500 years. You are told Dark Ages to keep you in the dark & follow inconspicuous narratives. Far and away the bulk of literature left to our time are the legal records of torture & looting politicly corrected as the inquisitions. Where is the provenance everyone can follow: Who kept literature & literacy going in these dark ages? Gunnar Heinsohn has blind tested archeology to find 700 years were fabricated out of the first 1000 years AD. No one caught that for 150 years.
Awesome interview. The Professor is so knowledgeable. I'm glad I found this channel. Thank you.♥
This is the best. There are a lot of pop history podcasts out there but I strongly prefer academic discussion to those. They are good storytelling and bad history. I own about half of the Oxford Studies of the Roman Economy series and you guys are clearly up to speed on this new field. I wish it existed when I was an undergrad.
where can we find academic discussion like this?
My copy of your book just arrived in the mail today! very excited to read through it ❤ keep up the great work, it does not go unnoticed
Amazing podcast thanks. Cant wait to hear more episodes.
This is one of the most interesting interviews I can remember hearing anywhere. Thank you both!
Thank you, toldinstone and Professor Bryan Ward-Perkins!
Excellent video. Very informative and entertaining. Thanks Garrett.
History podcast doing interviews is amazing. I've listened to plenty of history shorter clips but to hear from authors is going to help me buy more long reads on history. Really looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Very interesting presentation, even for someone with some knowledge of Roman history.
As a Roman born and grown myself, it's a sweet and sour feeling to think of our glorious ancient history, our ups and downs through the centuries, and our inglorious decline over the recent decades.
Rome: the most beautiful city in the world to visit, one of the worst major cities in the developed world, to live in.
What an excellent guest for the inaugural podcast! Fascinating discussion, thank you Dr. Ryan!
Fascinating discussion. Love your channel, please make more!
Really interesting conversation. Really enjoyed it. Keep it up.
this is really interesting!! i'm only 15 mins in & listening to the decline of utensil production & i already can't believe i'm going to listen to the whole thing; congrats on your 1st podcast!! i love that u triapse around 'unexcavated' sites & find pottery shards, there . . . well, that does make sense.
This is really great, looking forward to more long form podcast content in the future.
ToldInStone is excellent. Fantastic collaboration!
Extremely interesting! Thanks for this podcast. Thought it was interesting that the man explaining how the existence of pottery is an indicator of the level of civilization, is sitting in front of a hutch loaded with various types of pottery.
This is absolutely terrific! I would love to see more videos like this!
Already excited for the next podcast topic/guest!
Interesting and excellent podcast, I hope you do more of these.
Thanks
This was an awesome listen. Looking forward to more
Great podcast! Thank you for doing this. If possible I would love if video was provided on Spotify
Thanks for this very informative and highly interesting interview with Prof. Ward-Perkins. I look forward to acquiring and reading his book (And, incidentally, I also loved seeing his display of blue transfer ware, of which I am also a collector.)
Great podcast. One aspect I would like to see discussed is the the decline in the military as well. In terms of standing army size, size of battles, length of campaigns etc.
Simply brilliant. So many dots connected logically in my brain. Thanks so much
These long form podcasts are great. I would love to hear many more of these.
Garrett, excellent presentation! Really appreciate your efforts! Must ask a question, “when will a Told In Stone t-shirt be offered? I would purchase to show support and I am sure others would too!
A very enjoyable discussion. More, please.
Excellent! Loved every second of it! More like this please!
Good listen. The whole thing about pottery as a way to measure progress was very interesting. Never thought about it like that, shows that I am always learning
I should add as great references are Ober (2015) the Rise and Fall of Classical Greece and Bresson (2016) The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy, in which the authors argue that it was the Roman conquest of the Ancient World that eventually lead to the economic decline. Since during Classical Antiquity, their civilization was fragmented into many small states that were competing and learning from each other, and this led to gradual improvement. With the Roman conquest, first Rome created a free-trade area which was good for prosperity and allowed greater economies of scale, but in the long run, the lack of competition leads to the decline in their political institutions, and that eventually lead to the economic collapse of the early middle ages.
Ober also argues that the Ancient Greek world which was already very developed before the Romans conquered them, began to decline with the Roman conquest, much earlier than other parts of the Roman Empire like Italy, Gaul, or Britain.
Great video. You make these things very interesting. I'm hooked on ancient pottery now.
Great. Keep up these kinds of podcasts. I would suggest you slow your conversational cadence down a bit in the future.
Thank you so much for the wonderful interview, and introduction to someone I don’t know about. 🙂♥️
There are excavations at Alexandria Troas, and they are ongoing. I saw them myself only last week. However, it is such a large site that extensive areas are still under cultivation. Great discussion, and very nice to see Bryan again after many years. Keep up the good work. Chris Lightfoot
What a wonderfully interesting interview! Thank you.
Love your videos ! keep up the good work
Really loved this episode! It was really interesting to listen to two experts of the field
Please keep more of these coming, in a major way
A brilliant discussion. Thank you very much, to both of you.
This is a terrific trove of insight and helpful specifics in the archeological record and its interpretation. Especially appreciate that the analysis is focused on how much we can know about economic interconnectedness as well as changes in material prosperity in any one given region.
I love this channel because the questions asked are realistic approachable useful knowledge items. It's not a clickbate video saying "Did you know the Romans did these 5 things?!!!" Very refreshing.
I sped through his book and couldn't put it down. I didn't expect to see the author on this channel, nice job.
Thank you for this. Such amazing insight and so fascinating!
Very pleasant and informative video. Thank you!
This is such a good idea! Cant wait for more
excellent podcast, great in-depth discussion that was very informative thank you
Fascinating! Two minutes in, I already learned something! Absolutely riveting!
Hello Dr. Ryan, I have to say this podcast was fantastic and incredibly eye opening. Learning more about the mysterious Roman economy was great. I must also say that I like how the channel is moving forward. I do however have a question, Why was the "History Rome in 15 Buildings" removed from your channel and website? It was my favorite series that you have shared on the internet and I would very much like to rewatch every video.
I made those videos private, because I'm hoping to create a new and improved version of the series. Stay tuned...
There’s something very comforting about listening to these two talk.
I like "TIS" dude's voice and cadence. Its so nice to hear that he doesn't try to force something else in conversation.
Really enjoyable discussion. Thanks.
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing.
Excellent & enlightening conversation.
It would be amazing if this was available on Spotify
Fantastically interesting for those interested in the 'Decline and Fall'. Thanks to you both for sharing your thoughts.
So excited for more podcast style videos
Never have I been so excited for anything in my entire life! So excited for the future of this!
Thoroughly enjoyed! Thanks!