RESPONSE PROMPT: Who are the ‘barbarians’? How might we understand shifts in power in this period from the Romans to the ‘barbarian’ peoples?

Class 3, February 7^th: Barbarians and Continental Migrations

RESPONSE PROMPT: Who are the ‘barbarians’? How might we understand shifts in power in this period from the Romans to the ‘barbarian’ peoples? 

Primary sources:

– Jordanes, ‘History of the Goths’ in Readings in Medieval History, Vol. I, ed. Patrick Geary, 5^th edition (Toronto, 2016), pp. 69–96 [online via library]

– ‘Hidebrandslied’ in Readings in Medieval History, Vol. I, ed. Patrick Geary, 5^th edition (Toronto, 2016), pp. 96–98  [online via library]

– Law of the Salian Franks https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/salic-law.asp

Secondary sources:

– Guy Halsall, ‘Two Worlds Become One: A ‘Counter-Intuitive’ View of the Roman Empire and ‘Germanic Migration’’, German History 32.4 (2014), pp. 515–32 [PDF]

– Walter Goffart, ‘Rome’s Final Conquest: The Barbarians’, History Compass 6 (2008), pp. 1–29 (pp. 19–29 are notes and bibliography) [PDF]