Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500-700

by Peter Sarris

Drawing upon the latest historical and archaeological research, Dr Peter Sarris provides a panoramic account of the history of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East from the fall of Rome to the rise of Islam. The formation of a new social and economic order in western Europe in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, and the ascendancy across the West of a new culture of military lordship, are placed firmly in the context of on-going connections and influence radiating outwards from the surviving Eastern Roman Empire, ruled from the great imperial capital of Constantinople. The East Roman (or 'Byzantine') Emperor Justinian's attempts to revive imperial fortunes, restore the empire's power in the West, and face down Constantinople's great superpower rival, the Sasanian Empire of Persia, are charted, as too are the ways in which the escalating warfare between Rome and Persia paved the way for the development of new concepts of 'holy war', the emergence of Islam, and the
Arab conquests of the Near East. Processes of religious and cultural change are explained through examination of social, economic, and military upheavals, and the formation of early medieval European society is placed in a broader context of changes that swept across the world of Eurasia from Manchuria to the Rhine.

Warfare and plague, holy men and kings, emperors, shahs, caliphs, and peasants all play their part in a compelling narrative suited to specialist, student, and general readership alike.

Genres: History, Religion, Islam, Medieval, Nonfiction, European History, Ancient History

446 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 2011

Reviews

[Anatolikon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Sarris has crafted an useful history of two transitional centuries that sit uncomfortably between the more established fields of "late antiquity" and "early Middle Ages". Writing on this particular period is quite important, as too many general works choose to take wider scope. I am, of course, thinking of two of the most important recent works that both fit into the category in which they could be read by the general public and yet still provide important work for scholarship, Bryan Ward-Perkin's controversial The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization and Chris Wickham's The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000. Sarris engages only with the former, as he explicitly stated in the introduction that he chose not to read the latter before publication for fear of paraphrasing it. In any case, that fear has not proved to be realistic, and Sarris' fully deserves to be read alongside the others as an important work on its own. This book is primarily an insightful political history of the late Roman Empire and the states the succeeded it in the west with a focus on the establishment of elites and the formation, continuation, and transformation of cultures and elites that followed the barbarian invasions. Perhaps taking cue from Wickham's magnum opus Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 Sarris sets his scope wide, and manages to succeed in taking in the entire former Roman world. Once Roman politicla authority disintegrated in the west, Sarris turns to the Visigoths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons each in turn. A great deal of compression is necessary to deal with so many civilizations, but the complete picture that comes together is extremely satisfying. Sarris then turns to the east and describes the Roman wars against the Persia and the rise of Islam before turning back to the west and examining the seventh century in the barbarian kingdoms. The scholarship is excellent and Sarris is an extremely insightful historian who knows how to read the mediaeval sources carefully and critically, and the work really benefits from it as a result.

Nonetheless, there are a few problems. The biggest issue is that nothing really holds this book together. It's a variety of separate chapters from all over the Roman and post-Roman world that are often little more than a summary of events. Sarris presents no overarching theory to explain what events he selected for inclusion or why they matter. On a more minor note are Sarris' footnotes, which are often very general and instead of making specific references he occasionally just refers to entire books or articles. For example, once early on in the text he refers to Luttwak's Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire. While the point was fairly general, no specific page range was given, and it seems that readers are just expected to read through some 450 pages of Luttwak's (rather mediocre) book to find Sarris' citation. A student would be called lazy or a plagiarist for such poor citations, but it is also possible that this format was required by the publisher. The notes also occasionally use abbreviations that do not appear in the abbreviation list at the end. I suspect that this was just editorial oversight, but it's a small slight against the book nonetheless. One might also wonder where is the faith for a book on empires of faith - it appears on briefly. Another problem that I have is with the last chapter. It's long, but it needed to be two longer chapters for the intended effect to come across. Sarris rushes through Byzantium's Balkan frontier (something that had been a little too neglected earlier, and throughout his discussion of the Arab conflict the Bulgars get only a brief mention), and then through a century and a half of Lombard, Visigothic, Frankish, and Anglo-Saxon history. Much of this is a political narrative of the kingdoms, and given the chaos of the period it proceeds at a breakneck pace, rushing through dozens of rulers and decades without slowing down. The careful blending of archaeological evidence and Sarris' insightful discussion of kingship and the establishment of the barbarian elites suffer as a result. The final problem I have is with the price, and I am left wondering just who the target audience for this book really is. Scholars have a host of more specific texts, and will use those narratives frame their work. It's much too expensive for the general reader given the competition with the $15 Inheritance of Rome and is written too much like a scholarly book. If it is intended to be a more advanced undergraduate textbook, then I am wondering why Sarris does not gear it towards that sort of audience by giving more generous explanations for many essential concepts or explaining why he occasionally uses more accurate, but uncommon names (eg., using "Baduila" instead of "Totila", the latter of which appears in many general and older works). Still, these criticisms are minor against an excellent book. Sarris has written a magnificent history of two convoluted centuries into a single readable volume and should be commended for that.

[Malhar Mahurkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magisterial.

This book is quite simply an outstanding overview of the period deemed as 'late antiquity' by an earlier generation of historians. That being said, it is worth noting who this book is for, and who it is not. This is an academic work, not a over dramatised work of popular history. For some the tone may be sparse or dry, but I would argue that Sarris does not mince his words, concisely and effectively communicating the information he is trying to get across. To that end, in recommending this book, I would advise potential readers to consider what they are looking to get out of it. If it is rigorous scholarship, then regardless of whether you are in academia, a student, or an enthusiast I could not recommend it more. As an undergraduate, or graduate student, this book is an absolutely invaluable resource, and one that you could not do without if you are studying this period of history.

Sarris throughout the book shows his comprehensive grasp of the source material, and his rigorous analytical approach in its analysis, be it Zosimus on the sack of Rome, or Sebeos the mysterious author of the Armenian history, on the merchant 'Mehmet' and the first Arab bands emerging from the Hijaz.

The book is vast in its ambition and scope, covering the full sweep of history from the third century crisis, through the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, to Justinian's reconstitution of imperial authority into his person paving the path to the cultural and institutional forms of Byzantium. Sarris's ambition does not end there, as he goes onto to examine the emergence of Islam, deftly picking his way through its controversial historiographical potholes and presenting a cogent, clear and sensible summary, charting a middle ground between the two scholarly extremes.

Of course, because of its vast ambition and scope,the book cannot delve into the minutiae of source material, historiographical arguments and entertaining characters that fill this period of history - although it covers far more than most would be able to in such a limited space. However as a primer, overview and introductory analysis of a great period of geopolitical upheaval, institutional innovation and religious fermentation, this book cannot be recommended more.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

The transitionary period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the early medieval period known as “late antiquity” has drawn much ink since its popularization as a term within historical circles, and Peter Sarris’s Empires of Faith provides a concise overview on the period drawing from contemporary scholarship. As stated in the book’s brief introduction, Sarris’s purpose is to assert that the period from the late fifth to early eighth centuries saw the transformation of Europe into the medieval period through the emergence of a new martial elite in the West, the transition of the Eastern Roman Empire into “Byzantium,” and the development of Islam as a competitor with Christian Europe.
Sarris structures his book into ten chapters with a short introduction at its front end, and an epilogue at its back end with the standard bibliography and index. Citations are found throughout the text as footnotes. The first two chapters, “The World that had been Rome” and “The Formation of Post-Roman Society,” serve as historical background for the rest of the book’s discussion of the period CE 500-700. Starting with Augustus’s reign and ending with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the first chapter charts a brief generalized history of the Roman Empire. The second chapter narrows in focus as it gives a more detailed chronology of the Western Empire’s collapse, the relationship between “Romans” and “Barbarians,” and finally a look into the post-Roman economy’s continuities, contractions, and transformations. In discussing post-Roman society, Sarris attempts to walk a middle path between military and economic historians who emphasize discontinuity and revolution of society and cultural historians who emphasize continuity and long-term evolution.
After the establishment of the historical framework, Sarris moves on to his narrative’s core in the following chapters. Chapter four, “The Romano-Germanic Kings: The Era of Theodoric and Clovis,” limits most of its focus to the area of the post-Roman world in the West, emphasizing the Germanic kingdoms. Through his exploration of these Romano-Germanic kingdoms’ political and military aspects, which lead him to discuss the emergence of a barbarian martial elite, Sarris begins to develop the first part of his thesis on the West. The following chapter, “The View from the East: Crisis, Survival, and Renewal,” shifts to the Eastern Roman Empire in a structural pattern that will follow the rest of the work as Sarris alternates between the western Germanic kingdoms and the Eastern Roman Empire. The chapter traces the Byzantine Empire’s ability to survive the pressures of the collapsed western half of the Empire, barbarian kingdoms, and nomadic groups, and the Sasanid Empire. In chapter five, “Byzantium, the Balkans, and the West: The Late Sixth Century,” the rest of the sixth century is covered from east-to-west starting with the Balkan frontier of Byzantium, moving to the Visigoths and Franks, and lastly, the British Isles.
Chapter six, “Religion and Society in the Age of Gregory the Great,” presents a significant shift from the rest of the book as it examines the state of Christianity in the post-Roman world. At this point, the title of the book, “Empires of Faith,” proves itself misleading. Faith and religion take a secondary role compared to politics throughout most of the book, but Sarris breaks out of his typical concentrations for this one-chapter. Beyond the political discussion of Romano-Germanic kings’ Christianization, the chapter also devotes time to monasticism and resistance to the Church’s encroachments.
For the next two chapters, “Heraclitus, Persia and Holy War” and “The Age of Division,” attention is centered once again to the east. The former chapter explores the political and military conflicts between the Byzantine and Sasanid Empires that allowed the emergence of which the rise of the Islamic caliphate brought down the Sasanids and weakened the Byzantines. These consequences are how Sarris explains the part of his thesis differentiating the powerful Eastern Roman Empire of late antiquity to the politically and economically isolated Byzantine Empire of the medieval era. This isolation from Western Europe and the Byzantine economy’s devolution would be the pivot point that set the West’s Christian kingdoms on their course of development from Byzantine hegemony. One central issue becomes apparent while reading these chapters over the matter of sources. For most of the book, Sarris relies upon either Latin or Greek written sources, but those sources belong to various backgrounds, whether it be a Byzantine imperial magistrate, a Roman aristocrat in Visigothic Spain, or a Germanic law code. Even then, when possible, Sarris will include English, Persian, or Syriac language sources. Beyond even that, Sarris will bring in archeological evidence wherever relevant. This point only becomes notable when looking at the sources for these two chapters here. A majority of the sources here are either Greek or Syriac, with the Qur’an and The Life of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq as the only Arabic sources. Even Persian sources are notably few in comparison with the Christian sources. For a book having “the Rise of Islam” in its title, a minimal fraction of the book and its sources are devoted to it. Sarris is well researched and rich in a variety of sources for “European Christendom” but falters in pulling from non-Christian sources such as by the Persians or Arabs. As a result, when covering areas of cultural and geographic intersection such as the Near East, Sarris ends up favoring a rather “Eurocentric” perspective.
The last chapter, “The Princes of Western Nations,” moves back westwards to follow different kingdoms’ transformation or collapse into their “medieval” form. After discussing the encroachment of Slavs onto the Balkan territories of Byzantium and Langobard society in Italy, the chapter charts the course of Visigothic Spain’s collapse under a centralized state’s internal tension and growing aristocratic power that would result in its conquering by Arab and Berber forces. Then, Sarris analyzes the growing aristocratic power within Merovingian Kingdoms that would present the basis for a transition from a “king-and-lord focused society” to a “lord focused society.” Finally, by ending with the British Isles, Sarris notes the development of an increasingly unified Anglisc culture as pointing towards the development of the first European “nation.” In the epilogue, a brief biographical sketch of Theodore, an Archbishop of Canterbury, is used to demonstrate the vast transformation Europe had gone through by the end of the sixth century. In conjunction with the last chapter, Sarris finishes his argument on the transition of Europe of late antiquity to the early medieval era based on the consolidation of “national” kingdoms, increased social stratification via a martial landowning nobility, and the transition of power from monarchs to lords.
As alluded to earlier, Sarris’s work places religion, in addition to other aspects of culture, in a secondary role to political, military, and economic history, which is indicative of his overall materialist argument. In addition to his Oxford training which is emphasized in his political emphases, Sarris pulls from more recent materialist Marxist-inclined historians such as Chris Wickham and Jairus Banaji in his discussion of the economic and social history of the period. Class conflict and struggle are common themes underlying the book as he notes increasing social stratification and the role of bacaudae, armed peasant revolts, as taking a major role in the transformation of Europe from late antiquity into the medieval era. Demonstratively of Sarris’s overall historiographical position, Sarris defends the Marxist assertion of bacaudae acting in a class-conscious manner, albeit not identifying himself as a Marxist historian (pg. 49). Art, literature, and other cultural aspects of society are only ever brought up to demonstrate a social or political relation. Sarris’s account of the period is driven by material changes in society rather than changes in the realm of the ideal, such as in religion or philosophy
After the book’s main content is through, the end of the book contains a bibliography and an index. The bibliography proves to be notable as for each chapter, Sarris gives a paragraph sketch of the historiographical debates surrounding each topic. Often, Sarris does not indicate his viewpoint on these particular matters, which speaks to the book as a whole. The book is written as a broad overview of late antiquity’s transition to the medieval era and does not get held down in more specific debates. Thus, it must be judged as a broad overview rather than as a book tackling a specific issue. At this level, the book becomes problematic beneath the tension of focus Sarris has. First, the audience for the book is not entirely clear. The topic is so broad without getting too deep into details that it would not help any scholars in the area. Simultaneously, the book is enriched in enough detail for it to have difficulty serving as a textbook for students. Another tension is the length and topic of the book. Sarris attempts to cover almost four hundred years of complex history with many moving parts in less than four hundred pages. As a result, sometimes, details become light, and at others, they become overly condensed whenever a topic becomes sufficiently complicated. This limited scope results in some untied narrative threads, with the book covering neither the Muslim conquest of Spain nor the Carolingians. Last of all resulting from the last two problems, the history of the period becomes limited to broader political and economic factors in society. Even from a materialist standpoint, he gives little attention to non-European societies and women. It is especially notable that a one-paragraph discussion of women in the first chapter serves as one of the only mentions of women’s role in society throughout the entire book. In the end, Peter Sarris’s Empire of Faith, while well researched, proves to fall under the weight of its contradictions.

[Stefan Walet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book packed w info. It is one of those books that you can just start reading again the minute you finish it, and learn as much or more the second time around. For a full 5/5 there is too much focus on who did what to whom in what year. The relatively short parts when it describes social, economic, religious, cultural etc shifts are the best. Whether it was Theuderic or Sigibert who killed Chilperic is less relevant to me as the economic shift from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, or the changes in demographic density following plagues and volcanic eruption and how that affected X, Y and Z.

I read it coz I though it would explain the Arab expansion which it does, but briefly! Focus is on the Germanic successor kingdoms in the west, including a lot on Anglosaxon Britain. That's great, but it's not what I thought I'd be having.

[Hossein · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good

[Jack Stephenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just needed one chapter for my undergraduate studies, ended up reading the entire thing.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

not as interesting as i thought it would be. Too many names, which is no fault of the author.

[Rey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam, 500-700 (Oxford History of Medieval Europe) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition by Peter Sarris

This book is outstanding with all the bells and whistles, maps, excellent footnotes, and chapters broken up nicely into subchapters that keep the flow engaging

After finishing this book I bought Sarris's Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint and Streams of Gold by Kaldellis which felt like a natural fit.

Before reading Empires of Faith I read The New Roman Empire another by Anthony Kaldellis, which is a masterpiece and Theoderic the Great by Hans-Ulrich Wiemer which was outstanding and both were a natural fit to this book, and why I mention them.

I bought Empires of Faith and Theoderic by Wiemer last year when they were twice the Kindle price of today, so I can say at their current cost they are a steal and a wonderful addition to any library.

[Matthew Storm · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent academic resources that nonetheless flies (as it must) over too much history, one of the most remarkable two hundred year stretches ever. It encompassed the collapse of The Western Roman Empire, of Ancient Persia, the improbable survival of the Eastern Roman Empire and the emergence of Islam. The book does an admirable job with too much history and yet, I can't recommend it to the lay reader. This is a book for readers with a very specific interest and a tolerance for the author's dry (though learned) delivery.