What was it like?

>>17885741 (OP)
a shithole.

>>17885741 (OP)
it was called the dark ages for a reason

>>17885741 (OP)
It was more a political hegemony than an empire. Visigoths and Vandals were independent kingdoms with their own courts.

>>17885741 (OP)
what if they united?
imagine.... Gothic Roman Empire VHG

>>17885754
That's not until after the Ostrogoths. The Dark Ages refer to the period from the 600s-900s~ when there is literally chunks of missing time and no writing found.

>>17885741 (OP)
Illiterate peasants living amongst vacant decaying edifices

>>17885761
sure there was, in Tang China.

>>17885761
>no writing from the 600s to 900s
>when the 8th-9th century is known for its manuscript explosion
why do retards like you get to post on this website?

>>17885754
It is today called the dark ages because jews were cast from power with the fall of Rome. The jews had taken it over and were attempting to create a world dominion with it.

>It is today called the dark ages because jews were cast from power with the fall of Rome. The jews had taken it over and were attempting to create a world dominion with it.

>>17885761
Visigothic Kingdom was strong on literary production during V and VIII centuries. Saint Isidore, Saint Leander, Daint Ildephonsus, St. Braulius, St. Taius, etc.

Dark Ages was more exclusive of England and France.

>>17885768
>>when the 8th-9th century is known for its manuscript explosion
It's not all of Europe, it's referring to things like the Byzantine dark age:
>Byzantine Dark Ages is a historiographical term for the period in the history of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, from around c. 630 to the 760s

There's also no "manuscript explosion". Chronology doesn't enhance until the 900s-1100s. There's actually a dirth of manuscripts because papyrus was depleted by Arab invasions throughout the middle east starting in the 400s. The result is that Egyptian papyri is cut off from Europe between the 6th and 7th centuries. It's why all of our oldest Norse texts are on deer skin vellum as they took a millennium to regain access to common paper stock.

>>17885780
>Saint Isidore, Saint Leander, Daint Ildephonsus, St. Braulius, St. Taius
Notice that literally every single one of these dies by the mid 600s. All of their works would have been written around the 630s, which is the beginning of the Byzantine dark age.

>>17885786
Literary production kept until Islamic Jihad when Spanish literary production was then attributed to Jihadists. There were even chronicles by early VIII century about destruction caused by Islamic invasion.

>>17885780
>Saint Isidore, Saint Leander, Daint Ildephonsus, St. Braulius, St. Taius, etc
None of those were Goths except arguably Ildephonsus
Visigothic Spain was a shithole and the muslims unironically replaced it was a higher civilization

>>17885789
>early VIII century
Which ones are you referring to? Where? Whose? I have Byzantine authors saying that Mesopotamia collapsed to Arabs in the 5th century and Egypt shortly after, thats 160 years before standard chronology for the Islamic invasions under the Rashidun caliphate. Theophanes the confessor is one such source, if you want it clipped in a snapshot I can do that but his PDFs are up online.

>>17885793
>muslims unironically replaced it was a higher civilization
Really struggling to figure out how you came to this conclusion. This better be racist semitism because there's no other reason to argue this out of blatant self-bias.

>None of those were Goths
Hardly relevant, we're talking about the dark age in general. Do you have Goth manuscripts from between the 500s to 800s? I mean there's almost nothing in Gothic outside of the two most well known authors.

>>17885793
Their origins don't count, it totally debunks the idea of Dark Ages. There was a large literary production in Visigoth Spain.

Jihadists massively destroyed Classical and Gothic heritage. Basilicas, monasteries and ex-pagan temples, all of them burned down in cities as Toledo, Zaragoza, Emerita Augusta, Cordoba, etc.

VIII century Spanish chroniclers described the invasion as tour typical ISIS jihad with massive executions, pillage and terror.

>>17885807
>There was a large literary production in Visigoth Spain.
...From who? Who are these Visigothic authors you're imagining? We don't have almost anything in Visigothic and half of what we have in Latin is either suspect or potentially misdated. List items.

>>17885796
>Really struggling to figure out how you came to this conclusion. This better be racist semitism because there's no other reason to argue this out of blatant self-bias.
I'm Spanish myself, I just know the history of my country, Muslim Spain was a far higher degree of civilization than the Gothic one

>>17885834
>Muslim Spain was a far higher degree of civilization than the Gothic one
So are you setting the bar at the bottom for both, or...? It just kinda seems like you know you're an arab rapebaby and that's why you're taking the side of those illiterate savages.

>>17885846
Most muslims in Spain were just Spanish converts, that's why it was superior to the barbaric Germanic civilization

>>17885855
Hairy manlets murmuring something in broken post-Syriac raping Latin women is how Islam came to Spain.

>>17885859
Degenerate porn addict.

>>17885813
By middle VI century Visigoths and Spanish lanrdlords amd public officials were quite mixed. Saint Isidore and Saint Leander were half Gothic by mother side.
Not to count all of Spain has due Medieval repopulation from northern kingdoms, a massive Gothic heritage.


>>17885834
You are not Spanish. Anyone in Spain would beat the shit of you for saying that.

>>17885846
He is most likely an Arab or some Oriental. Nobody praises Al-Andalus besides Muslims.

>>17885862
Cope.

>>17885862
>He is most likely an Arab or some Oriental. Nobody praises Al-Andalus besides Muslims.
Most definitely. Thinking about getting this:
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Andalusian-Paradise-Christians-Medieval-ebook/dp/B0C5JY7KST/ref=sr_1_2?crid=WCC6N2MV8KLM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.fKz3jrq1rO20Pgl_dAPBK32MHvAhN98m3z53Ctdb5_I.CDmW43GMDgKZvevhpJudHWxOg8fFf90DJn3Szfm4HzU&dib_tag=se&keywords=myth+of+al+andalus&qid=1753966993&sprefix=myth+of+al+andalus%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-2

>>17885875
Cope what?

Paulus Orosius at Adversus contra paganus quite declared that after 10 years of anarchy in Spain due Vandals, Alans and Suevi, and decades of high Roman taxes, the Visigoths sent by the emperor as foederati to kick out Germanics were welcomed as liberators while lowered taxes for the whole population, and got into work with the rest of population since they were herders without pretentions of greatness.

The very birth of Spain as nation dates to Visigothic arrival and the Spanish monarchy as institution is the longer lasting one in Europe since can thrace all its monarchs from today Bourbon to Alaric.

Not to say that Visigoths arrived as a legal force brought by Romans, liberated the region, lowered taxes for everyone and converted to Catholicism.

Can be the same be said about Jihadists that arrived on a Taliban way impose an ISIS 0.0 while pillaged and burned the shit of most of cities, imposed a massive tax known as Jizya into people while took away their rights to carry weapons or be rise socially as soldiers , and forced conversions and did lead the first deportations due religious reasons in Europe?

>>17885888
>Paulus Orosius
lmfao

I hate that guy so much but every time I see something he wrote it reads like a shitpost

>>17885741 (OP)
Allegedly the same as late Rome, if you believe the documents. Well the goths anyway, I don't think I've read anything about the vandals.
The few authors in that period go to some lengths in describing the new rulers as fully aping roman officials in most regards, but it's debateable whether that was actually the case or whether it was just an attempt to legitimize them by slotting them into Rome's legacy.
There likely was a lot of variance depending on the level of power, with upper nobles being more roman-like in behavior to legitimacy-max while the lower ones kept to their customs since they needed to other legitimacy than force of arms.

>>17885741 (OP)
to get a good simulation of what it was like, go to a city in the rust belt filled with great art-deco and neoclassical architecture that is filled with black people. you will see barbarians squatting in the ruins of a great civilization. that's what it was like.

>>17885780
Frankia is the only region to have a significant amount of writing done in the 7th century and the Visigoths didn't particularly produce any more than them beforehand, and definitely not afterwards.
>>17885781
>There's actually a dirth of manuscripts because papyrus was depleted by Arab invasions throughout the middle east starting in the 400s
They used parchment instead, which was the other major thing to write on, and by late antiquity started to overcome papyrus in the West.
>>17885888
>the Visigoths sent by the emperor as foederati to kick out Germanics were welcomed as liberators
No they were not. The only writings we have on the Visigothic invasions outside of Aquitaine are all negative in Roman tradition.
>arrived as a legal force brought by Romans
They were not actually invited by the Romans into Iberia. They were told to attack the Vandals, not to invade the region and take it for themselves.
>and got into work with the rest of population since they were herders without pretentions of greatness.
The Visigoths ruled over the Romans arbitrarily (to which multiple Roman authors would complain about like Paulinus of Pella and Sidonius) and as a conquering separate group that was legally superior to them.
>liberated the region
Liberated them from a foreign group to another foreign group?
>converted to Catholicism.
Over a century later.

>>17886063
>and the Visigoths didn't particularly produce any more than them beforehand
they did and with a lower population

>>17885781
>there was no manuscript explosion
are you in middle school? have you never heard of the karolingian renaissance?

>>17886063
Frankia wasn't really that cult at the time. Visigoths welcomed the African monks Nanctus and Donatus alongside their 70 followers, which opened the lost (after Islamic Jihad) Library of Servitanus. The largest library in Western Europe during Early Middle-Ages. There were more amount of writers and thinkers in Spain at the time. St. Martin of Braga and St. Isidore of Seville two writers which alongside Boethius in Italy and Bede in England were the head of thinking during these centuries.

>No they were not. The only writings we have on the Visigothic invasions outside of Aquitaine are all negative in Roman tradition
Paulus Orosius, who was an Spanish historian and writer of the Vth century and witnessed the arrival of Goths, described it in good terms.

>They were not actually invited by the Romans into Iberia. They were told to attack the Vandals, not to invade the region and take it for themselves.

Factually they respected the agreement since their firt capital was in Tolouse ane Barcelona, territories given to them by the western emperor. They moved Spain after they got defeated by Franks in 509, by the time there was not an emperor in the West anymore.

>The Visigoths ruled over the Romans arbitrarily
Actually they converted and ellaborated a common legal code based on Roman Law and Bible, the so called "Liber Iudicorum", the base of Spanish law straigjt into Napoleonic invasions.

>Over a century later.
By comparassion, the Jihadists didn't comvert in 800 years and preferred expulsion than conversion into national Spanish religion. Actually, as I said, they did lead ethnic cleansing campaigns against Spaniards and Jihadist chroniclers recorded it with joy, seeing it as a reward from Allah, to pursue and kill the kaffir.

>Liberated them from a foreign group to another foreign group?
As Paulus Orosius recorded, the Western emperor asked them to kick other tribes out, and invited then as foederatis.

>>17886143
>Frankia wasn't really that cult at the time.
If the most significant historian and poet from the century doesn't count I'm not sure what would.
>Paulus Orosius, who was an Spanish historian and writer of the Vth century and witnessed the arrival of Goths, described it in good terms.
Orosius was a partisan which did not actually have to live with the real effects of Visigothic rule like the two others. Paulinus frequently complains about the Visigoths for their arbitrary rule and the violence they enacted onto Romans. Sidonius complains about the closing of churches by the Visigoths, they arbitrary rule and faithless acts to the Romans. Sidonius may have been a diehard Roman patriot but Paulinus frankly did not care, his issues were essentially about his treatment by the Goths and taking issue with how they ruled.
>They moved Spain after they got defeated by Franks in 509,
This is a bare faced lie. They took control of much of Iberia against the will of the Roman state, they did not 'respect' any agreement with the Romans.
>Actually they converted and ellaborated a common legal code
A Roman-Gothic distinction still existed in Visigothic law. This wouldn't change until nearly 150 years after they entered the region and did not change the treatment of Romans as an underclass especially with their near exclusion from state offices.
>and invited then as foederatis.
The Visigoths were not invited into Spain. They were commanded to attack the Vandals, not to take control of the region for themselves. The only grant of land they were ever legally given by the Roman state was Aquitaine.

>>17886178
>If the most significant historian and poet from the century doesn't count I'm not sure what would.
literally who?

>>17886178

>Orosius was a partisan which did not actually have to live with the real effects of Visigothic rule like the two others.

You have taken that out of your ass. The same can be said of anyone of the time since only elites had education. Anything said out of primary sources is just speculation. Not to say Gallic critizism as that of Sidonius against Goths, was due their Arianism, not their goverment.

Also, Saint Isidore, Saint Leander and Saint Martin of Braga, in order with Paulus Orosius, were fine with their rule.

>This is a bare faced lie.
Walia received a foedus from the general Constancius in the name of the emperor at year 416.

>A Roman-Gothic distinction still existed in Visigothic law.
But they reformed the whole Legal Corpus with the Liber Iudicorum, the legal code that ruled Spain for the next 1,200 years.

By comparassion, the Franks kept for much more time the distinction between Gauls and Franks.

And the Arabs directly kept the marginalization and abuse caste system on minorities at the religious and ethnic level until they lost their hegemony to the Spanish.

>The Visigoths were not invited into Spain.
They got the foedus in 416.

>>17886215
He means Gregory of Tours, but ngl there were other historians at the time as well as Saint Isidore at "Cronica Mundi", "History of the Vandals, Suevi & Visigorth "and "Chronicon". Or Procopius of Caesarea.

>>17886230
Yes Isidore is a far bigger deal than Gregory of Tours though i'm not sure it's the same period and can't be arsed to verify rn

>>17886086
>karolingian renaissance
No I haven't,and when I was finishing my bachelor's I had to rely on letters written from the 900s onward. I could scarcely find material from prior. In Britain there isn't a surge of authors until the 11th century and for the Byzantines it's the 10th century.

how come the Romans are treated as foreign invaders in Spanish Historiography after the re-establishment of Roman rule in southern Spain during this 6th century? Why would Spaniards rather side with Germanic invaders than the Romans, who are supposed to be their kindred?

>>17886512
We aren't even shure if Goths were Germanics instead of another Iranian people as Alans, Sarmatians amd Scythians. Saint Isidore at Etymologies didn't put them among Germans at all. And that says a lot about how they self identified.

The truth is that during Renaissance and Modern Era, Germanics pushed a strong we wuzzing narrative on the Goths that was never put into revision given the nordicist chauvinistic speech of the academia.

Spaniards never cared if northern europeans we wuzzed the Goths at all given Spanish identity is strongly based around Catholicism and Latin culture as well. Also Northerners were always seen as friendly neighbors and brothers in faith. Although from the North, the feeling was not reciprocate if you read the English, German, Scandinavian, and French writers of the time.

But that would be the point, the Spanish have never had the chauvinism and malice of their northern neighbors at the moment of writing history. The Italians and Greeks did, which is why it didn't take long for them to squash a lot of the nonsense the Germans were saying about Hellenes and Romans.

>>17886557
>We aren't even shure if Goths were Germanics
>shure
lmao
lmfao

Yes we are. We have literal Gothic writings from people with Gothic names. Romans connect the two. The only strange thing is why Alani work with them but speak Iranic, but also seem similar.

>>17886562
Romans connected as well Slavs with Germans.

So yes, the very fact that the chronicler of the Visigoths didn't consider them Germans. Also, there were Roman authors who considered them akin to Scythians and Sarmatians.

The Goths origins is a matter that will be discussed in future given germanism/nordicism is losing more and more power in academia.

>>17885807
Cope spic troon
>>17885741 (OP)
>that vandal kingdom map
Over exagerated
They only owned some land around cartage

>>17886578
>Romans connected as well Slavs with Germans.
Slavs don't exist until the medieval period, the Romans come from a Celtic substrate. Presumably the Germans do too but their language is very unique.

>>17886578
>very fact that the chronicler of the Visigoths didn't consider them Germans
What is the exact wording you're referring to? I feel like you're misinterpreting the readings.
>Also, there were Roman authors who considered them akin to Scythians and Sarmatians
Culturally they had many similiarities. Jordanes to Tacitus mentions this, and I think you're saying this because you're responding to me saying this. But the Goths are undoubtedly speaking a German language.
>The Goths origins is a matter that will be discussed in future given germanism/nordicism is losing more and more power in academia.
What on Earth are you talking about? There's no conspiracy of Germanic supremacists running the entire world's academia. You sound a bit psychotic.

>>17886601
At Etymologies, chapter IX, he put the Goths among the steppe nations alongside Scythians, Gipedes, Bessians, Dacians and Sarmatians.

Totally separated from Germanics (Vandals, Suevi, Saxons, Franks, etc.) that he developed later as a whole different group.

>>17886634
>Goths named after Magog son of Japheth
I forgot how utterly insane ecclesiastical histories get. You've done enough damage to your source with this one.

>>17885741 (OP)
Don't believe what others say, it was comfy, peasant utopia, no centralised government to tax you, depopulating countryside made individual life more valuable, it was the virgin soil that the west was born from.

>>17886767
Get raided by franks and byzantines retard

>>17886634
Judeo-Germanic elites want to keep the slavic man down by posting fake dna samples. They also are the reason Slavic women fuck western men

>>17886557
>We aren't even shure if Goths were Germanics instead of another Iranian people as Alans,
this isn't really true, we know the Gothic language was Germanic because things like the Gothic bible survive. Its not really worth taking into account what unreliable sources say about the matter when there's archeological and linguistic evidence to the contrary

>>17886819
I'm glad this board is waking up to the retardation, nay, downright evil of Orosius and Christian histories.

>>17885786
Yea, the fall of Egypt and its economic links especially Papyrus was a more devastating blow then the actual Fall of the Western Empire for the Mediterranean region.

>>17886873
I'm just trying to explain a break down of writing that periodically occurred through the 1st millennium. Spent some time trying to dismiss phanton time hypotheses and ended up finding some weird things that make it impossible to dismiss them. The dark ages a major part of that.

>>17886897
lol butchered this post, and forgot my link. Think that's better saved for another, better thread though

Trade with other countries was good, but there was also slaves

>>17886228
>Anything said out of primary sources is just speculation
And the Romans who lived under Visigothic rule from Roman rule viewed it negatively.
>Not to say Gallic critizism as that of Sidonius against Goths, was due their Arianism, not their goverment.
Sidonius had more issues than just religious ones. He did object to the way the Visigoths ruled, no different from Paulinus.
>Also, Saint Isidore, Saint Leander and Saint Martin of Braga
Pointless comparison, these two never lived under Roman rule, how could they possibly form an opinion on the rule of the Romans when they never lived under it?
>in order with Paulus Orosius, were fine with their rule.
I don't know if you actually read his work but the only thing he sees positively about the Goths is their treatment of the city of Rome and the leadership of a few kings, notably Athaulf, Segeric and Vallia with their intent to bring 'peace', he characterises Goths as treacherous and barbarous that was only reigned in by their leaders
>Having discovered from long experience that the Goths, because of their unbridled barbarism, were utterly incapable of obeying laws, and yet believing that the state ought not to be deprived of laws without which a state is not properly a state
He doesn't actually have much to say about the nature of their rule himself, which would be rather hard considering he never lived under them, which only Paulinus and Sidnonius did.
>Walia received a foedus from the general Constancius in the name of the emperor at year 416.
The land granted by Constantius was Aquitaine, not Spain.

>>17885741 (OP)
I find it based how ancient Poles conquered most of Europe

>>17886591
>the Romans come from a Celtic substrate
no they don't, italic might have a superficial connection to the celtic branch. that's all we know. we don't have enough surviving celtic literature from the continent to know anything else.
>Presumably the Germans do too but their language is very unique.
there is no celtic input on Germanic besides a few extremely specialized early loans like 'iron'

>>17885741 (OP)
It was a Nordic ethnostate built on oppression of the brown natives and maintained by their labor on massive latifundia plantations, some natives (Italians & Iberians) got so mind broken by their Aryan masters that they developed massive inferiority complex as a result and are desperate for White acceptance to this day.

>>17887785
those weren't poles lol
not linguistically, not culturally, not religiously, not genetically

>>17887851
Both Goths and Vandals have huge links to the area around Krakow.

>>17885741 (OP)
Better than Italy under Justinian’s rule.

>>17885754
>Le dark ages meme
Originally used only for post-roman britan (a legit post-apocalyptic hellhole filled with mass genocides, ethnicall cleasing, collapse of any structured society and pretty much lacking almost any sources for around two centuries), later hyjacked by arrogan Enlightment proto-redditors seething at the age where Christianity and Feudalism peaked

>>17885772
Liar.
>>17888387
Another liar

>>17885741 (OP)
Scythian rule

>>17886498
>in britain
why talk about all of europe when you only research a bunch of island monkeys?
fucking retarded nigger

>>17885741 (OP)
sovl time to be alive

>>17885760
>Goths uniting with Vandals
lmao
poor Theodoric tried to keep the peace, but the fucking vandals and franks kept causing trouble

>>17887824
>italic might have a superficial connection
This is a well studied and well known connection. The people who are trying to say Italian isn't Celtic are the same people saying Greek isn't Indo-European, theos doesn't share etymology with deus, and that they were all secretly Mesopotamian semites.

>>17887824
>there is no celtic input on Germanic
That is what is weird. The Celtic we're talking about btw is the proto-Celtic from before the Bronze Age Collapse when it still looks, at least lexically, similar to Iranic.

>>17885741 (OP)
Kino

>>17885753
>>17885754
>>17885855
Faggot hue/brownoid

>>17885741 (OP)
A bunch of illiterate backward barbarians who literally left nothing behind

>>17885846
''Illiterate savages'' describes the visigoths more than the umayyads lol. We only know about the visigoths (and very little at that) thru arab and byzantine sources because the goths were illiterate and never gave a fuck about recording their history or any literature for that matter, they literally left nothing behind in Spain

>>17885754
speaking of the dark ages, a friendly reminder le monks saved le civilization during le dark ages

>>17885741 (OP)
probably better than the mess from late antiquity

>>17888961
>Illiterate savages'' describes the visigoths more than the umayyads
For comparison's sake, they're both known for their invasions and architecture. Neither of them are known for their literary prowess. Muslims as a whole don't benefit from great poetry until later and they're all Persians.
>thru
Could you post like you aren't texting your imaginary GF please
>We only know about the visigoths (and very little at that) thru arab and byzantine sources
Which Arab sources? The Latins and the Carolingian-Frankish-HRE line all preserve works about the Goths. The HRE are the medieval Goths, and they're a superpower that regularly foils the Ottoman invasions despite the Ottomans bringing in far larger armies. It's kind of weird to hear someone argue that that Gothic Europe isn't Gothic. It would be like saying the Hafsid or Cordoban caliphates weren't Islamic and didn't even speak a Semitic-Arabic language. You would be puzzled why someone arbitrarily tried to disconnect them from their civilizational backbone. Same goes here. The Goths are distinctly German and the Germans go onto dominate Europe as a whole.

>>17889098
>literary prowess
ibn arabi, ibn tufail??? retard

>>17889098
The HRE were the Ottoman bitch their maibn opposition was Spain who were the Umayyad succesors

>>17889136
Could you post the pdfs please?
>>17889138
>The HRE were the Ottoman bitch
Everyone was stomping the Ottomans. Even the Romanians were kicking their Muslim teeth in.

What happened with Spain is incredible, but the funny thing is that Spain actually preserves a lot of Gothic names to begin with. Still, I'm a fan of the HRE as a main protagonist. It would be really cool to see an anime where the tribulations of the main characters are just personifications of European Christian states successfully overcoming the evils in their lives and in the world (Islam).

Checkout this knockout punch from the Habsburgs. Utterly humiliated the Muslims sissies.

>>17889098
>The HRE are the medieval Goths
What the fuck are you talking about. The HRE came from the Franks, you know, the only successful post Roman state. They have far more to do with the Western Germanics they are actually from than Eastern Germanics they almost never interacted with.