550-625: A Dark Age Military Revolution? 

I remember Guy Hallsall once describing (either in a monograph or in one of his two blogs) that joining the "Gothic" army was similar to a priest joining the church. He describes how a German learns Latin and other languages and gives himself a Latin name. As a counter-example, he described the story of a Roman aristocrat's son in the days of Theodoric the Great, who learned the Gothic language, joined the army and gave himself a Germanic name.

Coincidentally I'm just reading Hans Delbrück "The Middle Ages" on the very topic. You summed it up pretty well. This was a time of immense social change. When the Franks were invaders, everybody was a warrior. Once they settled, landowners became more and more reluctant to join the "army" for a campaign. The local population had been de-militarized for centuries anyway. In essence, they gave up part of their freedom to outfit someone who was willing to fight. Given that the equipment of a mounted warrior was easily equal to the income of a small village and people were only drafted from regions as close to the action as possible, one can understand why armies were very small during that period.

I would also like to thank my most recent patronss: bunni, jonathan granirer, and leonhard straub! Sorry guys I forgot to update the patrons slide! Thanks for your support! You all make the research possible!

Very interesting. There’s also the fact that due to ongoing corruption and the general increasing amounts of powerful landowners squeezing most of the small independent landowners out that caused many to be bankrupt and forced to work for the wealthy landowners. This also decreases chances of being chosen for military service as the best working farmer would have been purposely kept by the wealthy landowners and less fit men would be chosen to serve military service and using bribes to pay off military recruiters. Therefore decreasing the chances of able-bodied men being selected for military service whereby even conscription could be wormed out of.

Shows Ancient Aliens guy face and hands: "Horse Archers"

Hey, liking the visuals! Reminds me of Military History Visualized.

One of your best videos. You’re one of the very few on RU-vid who puts our videos on the late Roman army. Which is my personal favorite Roman army period. Keep it up.

Love these videos with graphics. Hope more people discover your channel.

God bless you ! Uploading a vidéo a day, Always a pleasure to learn more and more of this era !

Nice vid man love this time period you should do more.

Great video! I love this sort of content.

Truly informative. ✅

I would say as a HEMAist that thrown weapons (like axes) are harder to learn and use than spears in a formation.

Fascinating video, though one could argue that this constituted more of a devolution rather than a revolution or evolution. It also fits well with the line of thought that a gradual decline in the Roman centralised organisation occured, and thus the ability to train and organise heavy infantry.

"Something of an understatement" is becoming your catchphrase :p

Throwing axes require throwing directly at an enemy, while javelins just require throwing at an upward arc in his general direction. The axe is a more brutal, and yes barbaric weapon.

I think something is happening very similarly here to what happened in the Middle East with the advent of Proto-Islam and the wars of Muhammad. The symbiotic relationship of the Roman (Byzantine) frontier, taxation (Jizya) of the Roman citizens (pagans, Christians and Jews) fueling the nomadic armies (Bedouin), followed by collapse of authority in Eastern Rome following the end of the Roman Persian war in 628. At this point, similar to what happens in the Western Roman Empire, in Syria, Iraq, Arabia and Egypt, quickly Roman positions are taken over by Arab garrisons with a new loyalty to Muhammad instead of Rome, which is how the Muslims are able to conquer territory so quickly with so little army, and how they already have a ready-made state apparatus of bookkeeping and administration once they arrive in Roman/Byzantine territory by the late 8th century. We see this same contrast between settled life and nomadic life in the former Roman East as in the West, with the settlers being paradoxically of higher cultural prestige, but still having to pay the nomadic army for protection.

another great vid! thanks!

since auxilia legions got paid less then Roman legions maybe when the time came to raise troops the decision was made to recruit auxilia thus abandoning the one for one ratio and that became a slippery slope.

Hi what are some criticisms of the barbarization thesis I can read? Thank you :)

for me, its the best period of history, with plenty of room for fictional speculation in written or filmed form

7:23 Wow!

so say you have a provece in ration how much is own by soilders and the rest free

I thought you were going to speak about Eastern Rome

the roman army became a true state within the state? with its own culture and ethnic identity? fascinating indeed

I think you should compare it to tribal military organization of Germans with males serving as warriors by tribal obligation. Which enabled them to replace withdrawing Roman army. And this is how "invasion" happened - a replacement of military force.

The enlisting of non-Romans did not weaken the army, it weakened the Romans.

It is one of the topics in Roman and early Medieval history that is not 'past' or 'history', but _an ongoing process_ , considering recruitment quota of NATO, mass migration and regardless an increasing reluctance to pay taxes or serve in the military across all 'classes' with military action, 'outsourced' to private contractors. *What needs some clarification is the term of 'Barbarization' and why it is not considered a factor, anymore* - when the remaining 'foederati' units (Roman units having been decimated due to generations of civil war since the late Republic - and the Gothic Wars...), their recruitment base and the culture of the recruits is shown as _exclusively Barbaric_ ... If the 'receptio' that followed the Battle of Adrianople (378) was in fact _a 'political union'_ of Gothic princes and Rome, elevating them to _a role_ as indespensable as 'consuls' (by then reformed as the more loosely 'dux'), *the **_structural_** argument speaks for itself* , regardless of birthname 'fads' or speculation whether 'a thousand Gothic spearmen can best a thousand Romans' (when Gothic, Tervingi and Greuthungi *equipent looked rather 'Romanized'* with a set of Sassanid ridge helmet, round shield, thrusting spear, long sword - and Celtic mail shirts - with trousers and the neck 'torc' jewelry as distinctly barbarian fashion) - that they did at Adrianople should disprove the Roman historiographical bias (although nobody expects the 'smooth faced' Alani horse lord - and while nobody speaks about it, the shift in equipment matches _mounted warfare_ as well as _countering cavalry_ when dismounted)...

By “Dark Age” are you specifically referring to the world of Western Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire?

Honestly this seems similar to American structural economic issues with ethnicity and race. Fascinating!