2nd to fifth century simplified migrations.

Migration Phases

The migration movement may be divided into two phases; the first phase, between AD 300 and 500, largely seen from the Mediterranean perspective, put Germanic peoples in control of most areas of the former Western Roman Empire. (See also: Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Burgundians, Alans, Langobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Alamanni). The first to formally enter Roman territory — as refugees from the Huns — were the Visigoths in 376. Tolerated by the Romans on condition that they defend the Danube frontier, they rebelled, eventually invading Italy and sacking Rome itself (410) before settling in Iberia and founding a 200-year-long kingdom there. They were followed into Roman territory by the Ostrogoths led by Theodoric the Great, settling in Italy itself.

In Gaul, the Franks, a fusion of western Germanic tribes whose leaders had been strongly aligned with Rome, entered Roman lands more gradually and peacefully during the 5th century, and were generally accepted as rulers by the Roman-Gaulish population. Fending off challenges from the Allemanni, Burgundians and Visigoths, the Frankish kingdom became the nucleus of the future states of France and Germany. Meanwhile Roman Britain was more slowly conquered by Angles and Saxons.

The second phase, between AD 500 and 700, saw Slavic tribes settling in Eastern Europe, particularly in eastern Magna Germania, and gradually making it predominantly Slavic. The Bulgars, who were present in far eastern Europe since the second century, in the seventh century expanded their kingdom to eastern Balkan territory of the Byzantine Empire.

The Arabs tried to invade Europe via Asia Minor in the second half of the seventh century and the early eighth century, but were eventually defeated at the siege of Constantinople by the joint forces of Byzantium and Bulgaria in 717-18. At the same time, they invaded Europe via Gibraltar, conquering Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) from the Visigoths in 711 before finally being halted by the Franks at the Battle of Tours in 732. These battles largely fixed the frontier between Christendom and Islam for the next three centuries.

During the eighth to tenth centuries, not usually counted as part of the Migrations Period but still within the Early Middle Ages, new waves of migration, first of the Magyars and later of the Turkic peoples, as well as Viking expansion from Scandinavia, threatened the newly established order of the Frankish Empire in Central Europe.

Völkerwanderung vs. Barbarian Invasions

The German term Völkerwanderung ("migration of nations"), is still used as an alternative label for the Migration Period in English-language historiography.

However, the term Völkerwanderung is also strongly associated with a certain romantic historical style which has strong roots in the German-speaking world of the 19th century, perhaps associated with the same cultural process which included the music of Wagner and the writings of Nietzsche and Goethe.

The Völkerwanderung, the forceful expansion of the Germanic tribes into France, England, Northern Italy and Iberia, is seen an indication of cultural energy and dynamism. This analysis became associated with nineteenth century German Romantic nationalism.

Even the term "barbarian invasion" is still in use in some English works; It has its roots in the Latin point of view about the migration period: if Germans and Slavic peoples use the term "migration" (Völkerwanderung in German, Stěhování národů in Czech, etc.), in cultures that are heirs to Latin language (French, Italians, Spanish, etc.), these migrations are called "barbarian invasions" (e.g. the Italian term "Invasioni Barbariche"). Barbarian historically has the neutral meaning of "foreigner"[citation needed], but it also has a pejorative meaning of "uncivilized" and "cruel", making it problematic as a neutral historical descriptor.

Even the old romantic vision of the Migration age differs between differing cultures: on one side the 'Völkerwanderung': the myth of young and vigorous people who succeeded the old and decadent Roman society; on the other side there is the stereotype of uncivilized and savage 'barbarians', who destroyed the highly developed Roman Civilization, starting a Dark Age of disorder and violence.

Today, the notion of the "invasions" of pre-Romantic-generation historians has also fallen out of favor: many scholars today hold that a great deal of the migration did not represent hostile invasion so much as tribes taking the opportunity to enter and settle lands already thinly populated and weakly held by a divided Roman state whose economy was shrinking at a time when the climate was cooling.

While there were certainly battles, and sieges of cities, and death of innocent civilians fought between the tribes and the Roman peoples(Italy had no standing army at the time, so the battle was fought primarily between Germanic warriors and Italian citizens), the migration period did not see the kind of wholesale destruction carried out in later centuries by the Mongols or by industrial-era armies.

This is not a widely shared viewpoint that historians in Italy and many nations around the world agree with. The Germanic invasions are still viewed as a time of great destruction and violence with large amounts of archaeological evidence to support. The multiple invasions and raids led by the Germanic tribes led to large amounts of Italian refugees fleeing from the cities and countryside because of all the fighting, devastation and murder. There are numerous historical facts, literature, evidence, documents and letters throughout Italy that shows the barbarian invasion was devastating and severe.

Gothic War (376-382)

In the Gothic War (376-382), the Goths revolted and confronted the main Roman army in the Battle of Adrianople (378). Not wanting to share the glory, Eastern Emperor Valens ordered an attack on the Therving infantry under Fritigern without waiting for Western Emperor Gratian, who was on the way with reinforcements. While the Romans were fully engaged, the Greuthung cavalry arrived. Only one third of the Roman army managed to escape. It was the most shattering defeat that the Romans had suffered since Cannae, according to Roman military writer Ammianus Marcellinus. The core army of the eastern empire was destroyed, Valens killed, and the Goths free to lay waste to the Balkans, including the armories along the Danube. As Edward Gibbon comments, "The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians."

The empire lacked the resources, and perhaps the will, to reconstruct the professional mobile army that had been destroyed at Adrianople, so it was forced to rely on barbarian armies to fight on its behalf. The Eastern Roman Empire was able to buy off the Goths with tribute. The Western Roman Empire was less fortunate. Stilicho, the western empire's half-Vandal military commander, stripped the Rhine frontier of troops to fend off invasions of Italy by the Visigoths in 402-03 and by other Goths in 406-07.

Migrations (Dark Age) 400-700

The Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna is the only extant example of Ostrogothic architecture.The Goths and Vandals were only the first of many waves of invaders that flooded Western Europe. Some lived only for war and pillage and disdained Roman ways. Others admired Rome and wished to become its heirs. "A poor Roman plays the Goth, a rich Goth the Roman" said King Theodoric of the Ostrogoths.

The Romans were trinitarian Christians, the disciplined subjects of a long-established bureaucratic empire. The Germanic peoples knew little of cities, money, or writing. They were recent converts to Arian Christianity and were thus heretics to the churchmen of the empire.

The era of the migrations has historically been termed the "Dark Ages" by some Western European historians, and as Völkerwanderung, or "wandering of the peoples", by German historians. The term Dark Ages has fallen from favour since the Second World War, partly to avoid the entrenched stereotypes associated with the phrase, but also because more recent research and archaeological findings from the period challenge old notions of backwardness in the arts, technology, political and social organizations.

The earlier settled population was often, but not always, left intact. Whereas the peoples of France, Italy, and Spain continued to speak dialects of Latin, the smaller Roman-era population of Britain disappeared with barely a trace, displaced by the Anglo-Saxons. The new peoples greatly altered established society, including law, culture, religion, and patterns of property ownership.

Around 500, the Visigoths ruled large parts of what is now France and Spain.The pax Romana had provided safe conditions for trade and manufacture, and a unified cultural and educational milieu of far-ranging connections. As this was lost, it was replaced by the rule of local potentates, sometimes members of the established Romanized ruling elite, sometimes new lords of alien culture. In Aquitania, Gallia Narbonensis, southern Italy and Sicily, Baetica or southern Spain, and the Iberian Mediterranean coast, Roman culture lasted until the sixth or seventh centuries.

Everywhere, the gradual break-down of economic and social linkages and infrastructure resulted in increasingly localized outlooks. This breakdown was often fast and dramatic as it became unsafe to travel or carry goods over any distance; there was a consequent collapse in trade and manufacture for export. Major industries that depended on trade, such as large-scale pottery manufacture, vanished almost overnight in places like Britain. Tintagel in Cornwall, as well as several other centres, managed to obtain supplies of Mediterranean luxury goods well into the sixth century, but then lost their trading links. Administrative, educational and military infrastructure quickly vanished, and the loss of the established cursus honorum led to the collapse of the schools and to a rise of illiteracy even among the leadership. The careers of Cassiodorus (died c. 585) at the beginning of this period and of Alcuin of York (died 804) at its close were founded alike on their valued literacy.

For the formerly Roman area, there was another 20 per cent decline in population between 400 and 600, or a one third decline for 150-600.[7] In the eighth century, the volume of trade reached its lowest level since the Bronze Age. The very small number of shipwrecks found that dated from the 8th century supports this (which represents less than 2% of the number of shipwrecks dated from the first century CE). There was also reforestation and a retreat of agriculture that centred around 500. This phenomenon coincided with a period of rapid cooling, according to tree ring data.[8] The Romans had practised two-field agriculture, with a crop grown in one field and the other left fallow and ploughed under to eliminate weeds. With the breakup of the empire, owners were unable to stop their slaves from running away and the plantation system broke down. Systematic agriculture largely disappeared and yields declined to subsistence level.

Rome 410

Fleeing before the terrifying advance of the Huns, the Vandals, Suebi, and Alans launched an attack across the frozen Rhine near Mainz; on December 31, 406, the frontier gave way and these tribes surged into Gaul. They were soon followed by the Burgundians and by bands of the Alamanni. In the fit of anti-barbarian hysteria which followed, Emperor Honorius had Stilicho summarily beheaded (408). Stilicho submitted his neck, "with a firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals," wrote Gibbon. Honorius was left with only worthless courtiers to advise him. In 410, the Visigoths led by Alaric I captured the city of Rome and for three days there was fire and slaughter as bodies filled the streets, palaces were stripped of their valuables, and those thought to have hidden wealth interrogated and tortured. As newly converted Christians, the Goths respected church property. But those who found sanctuary in the Vatican and in other churches were the fortunate few.

Byzantine Empire

The death of Theodosius I in 395 was followed by the division of the empire between his two sons. The Western Roman Empire disintegrated into a mosaic of warring Germanic kingdoms in the fifth century, making the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople the legal successor to the classical Roman Empire. After Greek replaced Latin as the official language of the Empire, historians refer to the empire as "Byzantine." Westerners would gradually begin to refer to it as "Greek" rather than "Roman." The inhabitants, however, always called themselves Romaioi, or Romans.

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