Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Dan Jones

This was not an even process, and the differing products of mixing Roman customs with the native practices of the Iberian Peninsula, north Africa, Gaul, Britain, the Balkans, Greece, and the Levant—among others—produced a wide range of distinctive subcultures, all existing together under the banner of empire. More importantly still, Romanization touched the ruling classes in the provinces vastly more than it affected the ordinary masses, and was concentrated in towns and cities, not the countryside. Despite those caveats, however, the export of Roman institutions, values, technologies, and worldviews was absolutely fundamental in the centuries that followed the empire’s collapse. For Rome was a highly networked superstate, whose disparate peoples were linked by super-engineered roads, efficiently policed seaways, and trade routes that extended to the ends of the earth. And the connective fibers of empire were not only physical pathways; they were cultural constants that made Roman-ness possible and recognizable across dozens of generations and several million square miles of imperial territory. They ensured that there was a sense of connectedness across the old Roman territories long after the empire itself was defunct.