How plugged in were mediaeval town and cities to international trade networks? Do we see a collapse of trans-continental trade after the fall of Rome? If it persisted in some form or other what were the goods that were still traded?

Do you agree/disagree with the assertion that the Roman Empire did not truly fall, but rather transformed to create the Europe of the Middle Ages?

I've got two questions for ya! 1) Were there any early forms of public free education in Europe or the Mediterranean world? 2) How aware was the average peasant of the world around them? I'm referring to the geography, cultures, and the political structure of neighboring and distant lands.

The History Channel's Vikings shows most of the vikings using swords and axes, with very few spears to be seen. This conflicts with my understanding that metal and metalworking was expensive, and so armies of nearly every ancient era were composed mostly of spearmen.

Can someone talk about Viking weaponry and metalworking, or about weaponry and metalworking in general during this time period? Were armies (and/or viking raiders) really able to supply their warriors with swords instead of spears?

What was the historical consciousness like during these eras?

We always hear about "standing on the shoulders of giants" in reference to the Renaissance and looking back towards antiquity.. So I've always been curious about this supposed transitory period. Did scholars and kingdoms reflect on their alleged "dark" place in history? How did Scandinavians understand their place in history? Romans? Irish? Etc. Were there events that changed that consciousness?

Everyone loves incredibly broad questions, so feel free to answer in brief! All are welcome to answer for their specific subject area!

I had a sociology professor who frequently drew distinctions between the official Christian religion of Europe and the pagan beliefs of the general populace around 1000 AD. He would argue that the beliefs of the peasantry were at least equal parts pagan and Christian, and that many peasant's beliefs probably bore a closer resemblance to pre-Christian religion than to anything the modern observer would name Christianity.

I know that we generally know very little about the beliefs and lifestyle of an illiterate population, but how much do we know about religious beliefs around 1000 AD (or earlier)? How much truth is there in the idea that priests and monarchs may have been Christian, but that the average peasant or tradesman, while he did attend mass, still retained many pre-Christian beliefs?

For /u/wee_little_puppetman and /u/Aerandir

This period is popular known to be a "stagnant" time between Romans and the Renaissance. Does this bear out in the archeological record? Do cities expand much in this time? Are new villages established? What sort of uhh... archeological overlap is there ? As in, are people building on top of old structures or expanding out? I hope there's some terms that better describe that phenomenon...

What is known about science and technology in early Byzantine empire? Were there important inventions and discoveries made at that time?

Quick question for you deppaneur. Growing up I was a big fan of the old Irish epics, the Tain no cuilgne and the stories of the fianna. Are the social structures portrayed in these works common or realistic? And could you give just a personally chosen fact about the time period for someone who has an interest, but may want to know some more information. Thanks much, and I apologize in advance for spellings.

What was happening during the Dark Ages in Germany?

I created a thread to ask this a few minutes ago, but I thought I might get a good response here as well:

I've created this thread to settle a small debate between two friends of mine regarding how much Christian beliefs and ideas from their neighbours influenced the mythology of Norse paganism.

One of them is adamant that Ragnarok is a creation of Christian missionaries or later Christian revisionism of the old myths. He is also of the opinion that the role of Loki was "rewritten" from a neutral trickster god to the a more Satan-like position by this Christianisation of Viking culture.

The other person in the debate takes the opinion that this apparent change in the nature of various entities in the Norse myths are the result of natural change over time. I'm inclined to agree with this view, although I would think that Christianity did have an influence but more due to cultural osmosis rather than intentional revisionism.

Basically, what we want to know is how Christianity may have influenced the mythology and religion of the Viking peoples.

I was watching Stargate last night, and in the episode Enigma, they claim that the dark ages stunted us technologically fairly severely. Is there much evidence to support this or is it just something people like to say?

I've once read that archeologists found an ancient "graffiti" in Pompeii. Do we have a clues about medieval graffitis, in a meaning of words, drawings, funny sentences etc. written in public places?

Thank you so much for doing this, I have a question (well, a main question with a couple of sub-questions) for you.

How much impact did the political instability of this period have on the peasants? I've read some descriptions in popular history and survey history books that portray the rural peasant as basically watching the political chaos of this period with a shrug because it didn't really matter too much to them who ruled over them as long as they could provide protection and weren't too abusive. Is there some truth to this depiction, or did people actually have opinions about the political and social changes unfolding around them? And were they conscious of potential ethnic/lingustic/religious differences between them and the new rulers of the day, or did those differences not matter much to the "average peasant" (if such a thing can even exist)?

Again, thanks so much for doing this, this is a great example of historical outreach. I think professional scientists often do a better job of communicating with the general public than people in the humanities and social sciences, so this is a great opportunity for people to ask questions directly to an expert in the field.

I'm aware that current academic thinking on this period views it as a period of transition, transformation and change rather than the traditional "dark ages" where people were oppressed by feudalism, superstition and vikings. I'm interested in this traditional view. When did people start to think of this period as "the dark ages"? Was this view created with a political or anti-religious agenda? And have any other periods, places or traditions also emphasised the positives of the "dark ages".

I once had a teacher tell me that, aside from thunder, the loudest thing most medieval peasants were likely to hear was the sound of a church bell, and that bells conferred on the Church some meaningful sort of authority because it made the Church sort of 'in control of time' and 'the loudest game in town'. I've had two sets of questions come from that (well, three if you count 'Is that accurate?');

1. How prevalent were church bells in the Dark Ages in Europe? Was bell-making something easy or difficult to do? Were bells originally used as rough timekeeping pieces (as in times of day, not as in 'we will ring the bells on Christmas') or was that a later innovation?

2. How common were bells that were not in churches - either in government buildings like the much later 'Big Ben' or elsewhere?

On an unrelated note, /u/depanneur, what are some good sources for learning about Irish history during this period? Almost all of the sources I see in my local bookstore are post-Union with Britain and most of the rest are at least post-1169.

Thanks!

How much did the average person really care about debates on heresy, nature of Christ's divinity, etc? Was it purely an intellectual interest?

It's hard for me to imagine the common people actually giving a crap about a lot of the esoteric stuff, except as a means of group-formation.

I adore food history. There are great resources for medieval cookery and economic/gastronomic events like the spice trade. But my Dark Ages food knowledge is sorely lacking. What do we know of the era's recipes, food trends, spices, poems or songs including food, and so forth?

What is writing like in this time period? How common is it for someone to write a new creative work, or a new history? Who would the audience be for such a work and how far might it reach?

Did the pre-Roman peoples of western Europe--Iberia, France, Britain, Germany, etc.--have settlements that could be usefully called cities?

To people in peripheral areas such as fens, deep forests, and hills, and to peoples in the more productive agricultural regions of western Europe, did the changes from Celtic to Roman to post-Roman political organizations entail significant changes in their lives? Or, put another way, can we think of the phenomenon of the Roman empire as one with limited significance outside the higher strata of the population?

How did labor regimes and organization in the territory of the western Roman empire change from 400 to 1000? I'm interested in practices like slavery and serfdom, and the size of land holdings.

Why did Tunis succeed Carthage as the preeminent city in what is now Tunisia?

Did anyplace in early Medieval Western or Eastern Europe outside of the southern Caucasus or Anatolia have significant interest in or knowledge of the Sassanian empire or Iran more general? Also, was there any sustained early-ish Muslim interest in Syriac or Coptic literature and texts?

How much of Roman infrastructure persisted through the Dark Ages? Which structures were most likely to survive, and which were most likely to be repurposed?

How did Rome end up as the Pope's residence and capital of the Roman church? I mean, as far as I understand, the city of Rome was one of the last bastions of paganism and by the time Constantine came to power and the christians took over, the Imperial residence was already in Byzantium. Why did then the Pope ended up staying in Rome?

Got a set of questions.

1. What reactions from mainland Europe followed the Norse invasion of Ireland and the British Isles?

2. Is there any evidence that there were a period of pagan romanticism which would have revived the different pagan faiths? (Doesnt have to be succesful)

3. What was the motive for creating the HRE?

4. Why didnt/what stopped Charles I/Charlemagne (to) go further east or north to conquer the Slavic/Norse people?

5. What was the Byzantine reaction to the Catholic Holy Orders?

6. Why didnt the Byzantine Empire launch orthodox crusades (as far as I know) to retake lost land? (I'm thinking about the Sultanate of Rum)

I'm curious about some Viking history. Can you shed some light on Viking tattoo techniques/meanings or significance? Also I've always wondered about the comparative populations of Scandinavia vs. England from about 300 A.D. to 1000 A.D.

1. Was life in Byzantine Spain much different than it had been when under the control of the Western Roman Empire?
2. What was the papal reaction to the Byzantine reconquest of Rome?
3. How widespread were beliefs in the supernatural/magical in Europe during this time period?
4. What were the reactions to the closing of Plato's Academy by Justinian I?
5. How extensive was direct trade between the early Abbasid Caliphate and Western Europe, that did not flow through Constantinople/the Byzantine Empire?
6. How much contact if any, was there between Roman/Byzantine North Africa, and sub-Saharan peoples?
7. What did people think of the Pyramids of Egypt/the Sphinx during this time period?
8. Where there any attempts of Christian/Islamic synthesis in Spain after the Arab Islamic conquest? If not, why?

What exactly was Greek fire and how was it used?

How did the Arabian peninsula go from being a Pagan society to a Muslim one in such a short space of time?

I think of Christianity in this period as an extension of Roman culture/society/government that never quite died out. From organization, to habit, to writing it seems Roman to me in that while other societal structures of the Roman world collapsed and/or were replaced the Christian/Roman Catholic church is a more or less direct line from Roman government to medieval times.

How much merit does this idea have?

I'm taking a "Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity" class right now, and a point of discussion last class was the increasing prevalence and number of saints in the early church.

He told us about a "pillar saint" named Simeon the Stylite" who stood on top of a pillar most every day and even caught birds by remaining motionless for hours. Are there any other examples of particularly ridiculous/interesting saints that stand out to you?

This is probably a little out of the scope but: where there any Christian-Zoroastrian apologetics or disputations?

Thanks for doing this AMA! I'm currently reading one of the books on this sub's list, Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel by Frances and Joseph Gies. One part of the book describes how lucrative water mills were for the estate owner because of the cut taken from common folk using it, called "multure." This book also mentions how it was illegal for a while to have handheld mills in certain estates since it would cut the profits of the owner. My question is: How did they enforce this prohibition on handheld mills? Did they invade the homes, or was it just an "out of sight, out of mind situation?"

Edit: Too excited to spell

Following the collapse of the Roman Empire what groups lead efforts to form new states? What was the political nature of new entities formed?

I have a few music history questions, if you don't mind.

• What do we know about the evolution of sacred music before Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)? Are there any major composers before her whose works have been reconstructed?

• Do we know where the system of neumatic notation that was used throughout the middle ages and early Renaissance originated?

• What kind of role did sacred music play in the lives of everyday people (if any)?

• What do we know about secular music from the "dark ages", and what kinds of instruments (if any) are thought to be from this period, but were no longer in use by the late middle ages?

• Where did the lute come from and why does it sound/look suspiciously like the Turkish oud?

Hope I'm not too late. I have two questions.

1. What language did Charlemagne speak?

2. I often hear that the Goths were made up various different people. Who were these people? Were they a German (Goth) / Iranian amalgamation or something different?

Was the canon of the Bible, currently used by protestants, set up by Catholics? Or, when did Catholicism take over the early Christian church?

This has been sparking some debate in a forum I contribute to all the time.

Probably for /u/MI13

Are there any other popular theories as to how the Carolingian armies were able to conquer and control the lands that they did besides what is presented in Bernard Bachrach's Early Carolingian Warfare? His thesis is that the armies must have been well trained, supplied, and organized to achieve what they did, but I've heard mumblings from grad students that the numbers are inflated and that there isn't enough evidence for the grand conclusions that are made in the book.

Today I went to the city of Aachen (Aken/Aix la Chapelle), in school I always learned that this was the seat of government of Charlemagne. I however noticed a few things:

• The city isn't located next to any major rivers, it is even located almost exactly between two of them (Maas/Meuse and the Rhur).

• There's a big hill next to city that seems if placed catapults upon you could easily shoot over the wall.

• It isn't located in the center of Charlemagne's empire.

I'm probably wrong in one of these things but I just can't see how this would be a convenient capital so could someone tell me why Aachen was the capital of the Frankish empire.

Hi I am live in Tromsø, Norway, and have a question about my place during this time period. Who lived here, what did they do and had they any connection to the rest of Europe through trade and travels? Thanks :)

Can you give me a ranked list of factions that had the most influence right after the fall of the Roman Empire? You could include middle eastern factions too

Hello! I'm part of the Westeroscraft project where we're recreating a medieval like world (specifically, the Game of Thrones world) in Minecraft. We always strive to get things as realistic as possible, but none of us are historians, so a lot of the time we are just guessing. Would be great to have some questions answered. If any of you are able to expand answers to what would be the case in late medieval times as well then that would be great!

• How big were common people's houses, and how many people would live in a single house? Several floors? Would someone with a trained profession like a baker or a cobbler live in similar conditions to someone like a farmer or a fisherman?

• What were their beds like? Would several people share a single bed?

• How did they prepare food? Did everyone have a stove? Open fire? Oven?

• What were their toilets like? Was it usually outhouses or would that also be placed in the house? What about in cities where several families lived in the same building? What was the system for disposing of the waste (particularly in towns and cities).

• Were there prisons? What were they like?

• How widespread was the use of glass in windows? How rich would you need to be to be able to afford it? And if anyone knows: around when did that start to become common in middle class houses?

• Did bathhouses exist? What were they like?

• How common were cobbled streets? What about wooden streets?

• What could be a typical layout of a farm?

• How did merchant and artisan guilds function? What exactly were their purposes?

• To what extent did cranes exist? (the kind you would maybe use to hoist goods off a ship or higher up a building)

I'm tagging those of you that seem to be the most relevant: /u/Aerandir /u/depanneur /u/GeorgiusFlorentius /u/idjet /u/rittermeister /u/wee_little_puppetman

Thanks in advance!

I've heard people say that drinking alcohol was required to kill bacteria in the water. If this is true, wouldn't everyone from that time period have fetal alcohol syndrome?

How developed was the concept of "knights" during this era? if thet existed during this period, did the average knight in what is now france and England hold land? What kind of structure would land-holding knights have on their land? Would most have just manors or actually some sort of stone castle? Did any knights have castles? In what ways did society see the distinction between "knight" and "lord" if any.

Is Islamic history also considered to be part of the Dark Ages and/or Middle Ages? Because I always thought the concept was mainly restricted to Europe.

What happened within the city of Rome itself in the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries? I assume the population fell precipitously, but how did the remaining residents view it's former grandeur? I can only imagine how it must have been to walk in the shadow of monuments like the Colliseum a few centuries after the fall.

Greetings. A couple of unrelated questions.

First - how influential were the Visigoths on later Spanish institutions and culture?

Second - can you recommend a good academic history of Venice that covers the 9th century? I know we don't have too much information from that period (judging by the books I've looked at, anyway), but where are we getting what information we do have? And those monks who supposedly stole St. Mark's body - are there any good reads for that, or does most of the story come from local tradition and the like?

(My all-time favorite conspiracy theory, not that I lend it too much credence, is that they actually stole the bones of Alexander the Great.)

What records are there of Jews in Europe during this period? I've seen reference to Jews in external texts, but Jews in Europe didn't write all that much stuff during this time--we don't even have Jewish languages from this era!

So, what is there to know about European Jews in the "Dark Ages"? I'm tired of Jewish histories sort of having Jewish communities in Europe magically appear around 900ish, with a vague reference to the Romans probably bringing them there several centuries earlier. What happened in between? Does the "darkness" of the era preclude one from knowing? I mean...if there weren't really Jews writing stuff, should I even be hoping for more detailed info?

Most likely relevant for /u/Aerandir, /u/Ambarenya, and /u/wee_little_puppetman:

Vikings were a major factor in Russia, Ukraine, and the Black Sea during at least part of the time frame being discussed here (Rurik, Varangians, etc.). However, while the cultural influence of Byzantium can clearly be seen on the various polities in the region, there doesn't seem, at least from the perspective of one not intimately familiar with the history, to have been a long-term cultural legacy left by the Vikings in the region.

Are there examples of Viking traditions, language, or religion continuing to influence Russian principalities (or other polities in the region), which lasted beyond the Viking era? Did any continue by the Muscovite era, or its evolution into the Russian Empire?

I've always been curious about what the actual process of converting a Pagan people to monotheism would have looked like. How would missionaries gone about convincing a group of people to abandon the beliefs that had endured for generations? What were the conflicts between those who had accepted the new faith and those who had not like?

How aware were Romans , how revered was Caesar during these ages? Was he still the near god-like figure he is today ? Or was he not as studied due to the current politics.

Also can you make the argument that the Catholic Church became an extension/successor to the Roman Empire to any degree.

Finally, what is what fact or something that interests you from this era that you believe is not particularly well known or deserves more attention

How did the institution of slavery change during Late Antiquity and the end of the Western Empire? Did the Roman latifundia transition into becoming manors, with the slaves becoming serfs? I've read that as many as 60% of the people within the Roman Empire were slaves. As the Western Empire crumbled, how did their legal status change?

As a side question, as more of the general population became Christianized, did the Church frown on Christians owning Christian slaves?

This is going to be a pretty vague and broad question, but...

Was the Saxon culture and the Scandinavian culture during this time period generally the same? What are the differences between the two cultures?

These are questions for all of you, as you represent a variety of regions. In your area of study, how much freedom and autonomy did unmarried and married women have? What restrictions in society, their religion, and their households did they have? What were their occupations? What would their average day be spent doing?

Viking Question! I seem to remember hearing about a viking who was known for his great pants, but I can neither remember his name nor his many accomplishments. This makes me sad, because I would think that someone whose pants were his defining characteristic would be someone I would remember.

In England, what happened to the House of Wessex after the death of Edward the Confessor?

What was the musical culture of the Vikings like, and to a greater extent how important was music outside of the Church?

What would the lower/bottom rung of nobility look like in say, France, of this time period? What would have being their careers?

Would there have being a clear distinction between them and commoners?

With respect to the territories that remained in the hands of Western Roman governors at the time the imperial title was abolished (e.g. the domain of Syagrius, the "Romano-Moorish kingdom," Nepos' territory in Dalmatia), how were they governed? Were they, in essence, orphaned provinces, or did their circumstances force their rulers to make rapid alterations to the Late Roman provincial model? Of what troops were their armies composed, how were they compensated/supplied, and how was tax collection conducted? Was there any possibility that these polities could've viably remained independent in the long run?

I have read that bathing took a drastic decline after the black plague - do to an association with the pores being open and more susceptable to illness (?) how true was this? I am familiar with Durer's depictions of bathhouses- http://www.scottmcd.net/artanalysis/?p=702 , but I know depictions on past traditions were common.

Edit: I just recalled the black plague was after the dark ages, so to edit my question - How was bathing during this time? or Hygeine in general, Was dental hygene a thing? I feel like I frequently see achaelogical remains that seems to have possesed some remarkable dental hygeine.

General question regarding the study of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic History/Archaeology/whatever:

In my undergraduate experience the study of these periods seem to be sharply and artificially divided in the sense that Historians of Religion will neglect to mention material culture, Archaeologists will ignore or place little importance in historical sources while philology - from where i come from - seems to be, entirely, an island of its own.

Is there any truth to this whatsoever in your experience? Do academics in your field(s) do any sort of interdisciplinary study? I'm sort of pessimistic about this because, as a student, i must either choose Archaeology and thus 'renounce' History or vice versa. It drives me nuts that i cannot get to do both at once.

What's the current take on Arthurian Britain?

Read the "Warlord Chronicles" by Bernard Cornwell recently, and I'm curious as to whether the Romano-British and Anglo-Saxons were at each others throats as constantly as he portrayed. I've heard conflicting views on the era that say the supplanting of the native population by Germanic tribes was relatively peaceful, so I'm not sure what to believe on the matter.

On a side note, what little do we know about the nature of interactions between the pagan faiths of Britain and early Christianity at the time?

What is know about Illyrian tribes? What was their relationship with Byzantium and Carolingians. How did they react to Slavs? Were they displaced or just merged? Where did the Slavs come from?

Were the Gauls largely killed or displaced when the Franks invaded, or was Francia largely populated by Gauls, and the two ethnicities slowly merged into one?

On a similar note, were the Britons in England largely killed or displaced by the Anglo-Saxons, or did they also remain and merge into one ethnicity?

What Roman and Greek cultural/ethnic elements got incorporated into the Christian tradition?

Mainly I would like for a scholar to delineate nicely what parts of the Christian tradition (between 400-1000) is Roman and Greek intervetion into Christianity and what parts are inherited from the Apostles. By Christian tradition I include: -theology -spiritual practice (prayers, fasts, holidays etc) -systems of institutional organisation Thank you for your effort

I have a few questions I'm trying to answer for a research paper, but any one of these would help me tremendously.

How was the maintenance of roads funded during the early Islamic period in the East such as the Via Nova Traiana? Or the state-run inns on the roads, Mansiones?

Were churches exempt from contributing to the costs of maintaining the roads? Are there taxes that state institutions - like the church - were not exempt from paying?

Why and how did Byzantine monasticism make its way to Europe?

Does anyone call them "dark ages" anymore?

Wow, I've been studying this period for years and there are some questions that I really want to have answered. If somebody could point me to some good sources/books, that would be wonderful too!

I'd love to know more about the changes in population size and agriculture after the fall of the Roman Empire. I'm mainly interested in the northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire: modern England, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands. I read that agriculture got more advanced during Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Era, while the population only started to grow after the year 1000. This seems very strange to me.

I'd really appreciate it if somebody could tell me more about changes in agriculture and population size during Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Era!

How much sense of nationality did the common folk have? Did people consider themselves part of a nation like today Germans, French, English, Scottish, etc?

Was there a rise in "piracy" during this period?

This might be really general, but could you pick a year, location, and person and tell me what their typical day was like? How might it have differed when the world wasn't in the Dark Ages and was prospering?

Was there ever a chance one Kingdom with support from the Pope could have ruled Europe? What would the effects of this Super-Kingdom gave been?

What role did the early Christian church play in the fall the Roman Empire?

So, I've been doing some reading recently about England ca. 800-1000 CE, and you can see a marked line in English history that begins with The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. That is, a line in which histories are more diligently kept (or readily available).

Now, the Dark Ages has always been associated with a distinct lack of available history. I've read a range of reasons, from marauding Vikings pillaging monasteries to just a general social disinterest in record-keeping. This leads me to my two questions:

1. What changed in Europe that led to more histories being kept and, more importantly, protected.
2. Are there any other documents or annals like The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that mark so dramatic a shift from "almost no history" to "extremely detailed history"?

What do you think of this idea? That the Roman empire during the crisis of the third century, did for the most part end as a single entity, and they with the Gallic Empire and the Palmyrene Empire were three separate kingdoms for a time. Then Aurelian and Probus were the build up to Diocletian's tetrachy, which was in essence a different political structure than the Roman principet had been for the length of the empire. Once the Tetrachy fell, and Constantine came out on top, he began what we now think of as the Byzantine empire, with it's different political and religious customs. The Byzantine empire then split after Theodotious, into East and West, and finally they lost the Western half. In 2 1/2 centuries, from Augustus to Caracalla, there had been 22 Emperors, by the time Aurelian took over less than 50 years later, he was the 44th. It seems all that was really holding the "empire" together during a lot of this time was the bureaucracy, and that there barely was any Emperor until the roots of the Byzantine age took hold.

Sorry for rambling, it's a complicated idea I've been mulling over for awhile.

Slavery ended (mostly) with antiquity and was replaced by serfdom; was this acknowledged by contemporaries, how did they view it, or was it understood as such only by later historians?

When various Germanic tribes would "migrate" and settle in new areas, would entire peoples (men, women, children of all classes and occupations) ethnically cleanse the areas in which they eventually settled? Or would the new group of German warlords kill off the previous ruling elite and then become the new warrior/ruler caste over a larger, but still native subject population? What would the ethnic makeup of a place that was recently settled by a Germanic tribe look like in comparison to how it was before? Thanks.

I've got a question about Saxons and Britain! When the Angles/Saxons/Jutes came to Britain, was it closer to an invasion or was it mostly peaceful? When they were in control of southern Britain, were they like Normans ruling as an elite, or were most of the people there now Anglo-Saxon too?

Is there any evidence that any major Medieval monarchs who professed Christianity only did so for political reasons and were Christians in name only? I'm wondering in particular about Clovis, and in turn, Charlemagne.

Why (and perhaps how) have the scientific works of Islam during this period been so under-represented? I am thinking specifically of Al-Khwarizmi (codifier and creator of algebra in the late 9th century), but during the so-called 'dark ages,' the Islamic world was anything but.

Is this a deliberate westernization of history?

Also, my thanks for doing these. You guys are awesome.

My sixth graders are studying this era, and writing a persuasive essay about what they think was the most influential event in western Europe at the time. I would love to hear an expert's thoughts on this so I can give them the point of view someone who does this for a living.

When reading about Visigothic and Vandal invasions of Italy and North Africa, etc., did that involve mass migrations or Germanic peoples, or was it more of a military invasion, where military conquerors would simply assume leadership roles over the existing population?

What became of the Reds and the Greens after the Nika riots? Were these groups still powerful after the plague of the 540s?

Was Western Europe affected in any way by the Invasions of the Mongols in Eastern and Central Europe?

I wanted to know more about the Arabian/Islamic conquests in Europe, how did they stay that long in the Iberian peninsula, if you could tell me more about their laws in regards to religions other than Islam.

1. What mathematical proofs were produced by which people during which time periods?

2. Which people read Diophantus' "Arithmetica", why, and when?

3. To determine the date of Easter, what was the exact period of the moon used?

4. What was the state of map-making?

5. David Lindberg has proposed a theory that the conflict between Christianity and Aristotle's philosophy in the 13th century caused a lot of research in science itself. During the period 400 CE to 570, what science was produced by the conflict between Christianity and Aristotle?

6. How did the people after 570 CE know the earth was round? (How did people before 570 CE know that the earth was round?)

7. What astronomical observations were made during this time, by who, and where?

8. What concrete physics was discovered during this period, by who, and where?

9. What science was produced by the "Carolingian Renaissance"?

How did the Pepin the Short's kingdom (and other contemporary catholic kingdoms of the former Western Roman Empire like the Lombards) see themselves in relation to the Byzantines? Was there an idea that the empire was their legitimate "liege" as a Christian empire even if they were de facto independent?

I've been reading Perry Anderson's Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. In it he argues that feudalism developed out of a combination of the slave production of the Western Roman Empire and the communal clan production of the Germanic tribes. Do you think this is accurate? Are some other explanations for the change from slave production to feudalism?

How did slavery function in Christendom? How much would slaves cost? What were they used for?

What were early Islamic armies composed of? I've heard that Egyptian (or at least Fatimid) armies had a very large amount of archers, and I remember that early conquests in Iberia as well as the invasion of Aquitaine used light cavalry as a huge advantage over the Franks and Visigoths, who didn't yet have the stirrup I believe. Also, did non-Turkish Muslim states use horse archers?

I hope that this is still responded to, as I know it stretches the time frame by a bit, but the responder can answer as he pleases:

All too often we hear about the Crusades and the European/Byzantine background to the Crusades. What is talked about far less frequently (in part because of a lack of Arab researchers on the topic) is the Arab perspective to the conflict. I have heard many times that the Crusades were just a blimp in the much wider conflict occurring between Shi'ite Fatimid Egypt and the Sunni Seljuk Turks.

So my question is, what was the exact situation leading up to the 1099 Crusades? You had the Fatimids who had arrived in Egypt in 909 (or something like that), and the Seljuks solidified themselves in 1071, but had already begun arriving earlier than that. So what about the different actors, and why was the Middle East so fragile?

An interesting/crazy facts about Al-Hakim, you'd like to share?

What effect did government play in the role of the average citizen? With kingdoms so vast its to imagine how many laws would be forced. Were they taxed? How were taxes collected?

In battles (in general no specific date) how did the army eat? Was it every man for him self or were there barracks and cooks? Just curious how they ate and what their diet was.

Given the sheer size of the Roman Empire, there had to be many different cultures even if they were all under the same government. Once the Western Roman Empire fell, did these different groups seek to differentiate themselves further from each other? Do we see much evidence of different ethnic groups developing a more unique culture, because they wouldn't technically be able to identify as Roman anymore?

Was marriage among the aristocratic classes of Christian Iberia and their Moorish counterparts common?

What was life like for people who didn't have as high a position on the social ladder? Peasants, craftsmen, soldiers, etc.

How was homosexuality punished during this period?

Did the dark ages occur in byzantium?

Was Islam less militant than Christianity in this period?

I've been taking a Medieval Church class and a topic that came up that I was interested in was about pilgrimages. I have never covered this era before so I did not know that they did pilgrimages. Usually I associate that with the pilgrimage to Mecca that Islam advocates. In this era did pilgrimages take place? If so were they an important part of religious thought at that time? To where?

We read about Irish Monks and Monasteries monks doing pilgrimages as as the final part of their religious training but nothing about commoners (or at least the elite) going on pilgrimages. Sorry if there are too many questions!

How did the denizens of the Hellenic peninsula see themselves? Did they consider themselves Romans, Byzantines, Greeks, or just their individual tribe? What were the main prevalent tribes in Greece back throughout your specialty period?

How did people deal with dental pain?

Please contextualize for me whatever you know about the development of mathematics and applied mathematics by the common man. When were trajectories calculated in the bombardment on cities, and how did that compare to dead reckoning assaults? What were merchants using in 'a common way' and how did that play out in architectural work in the period? What were developments in banking and economics that might inform math history?

Can you talk about some of the ways that Medieval Christian cultic practices were influenced by the pagan practices they replaced?

To this day, many catholic congregations have ceremonies where they parade around the image of a saint, an anoint it with holy water and flowers, etc. The whole business always seemed very pagan to me.

How was hygiene and sanitation different then, perhaps in contrast to say Roman times? Rome had sponges on sticks for cleaning yourself, and aqueducts for water and irrigation. I find the loss of that engineering and sanitary knowledge interesting.

Dear panelists, how much do we know about the early Slavic tribes? How did they manage to settle the immense land from Elbe to Oka and from Neva to Danube?

How much exploration of the West African coast happened during this period and how far south did the Europeans sail? Did people have knowledge of how far south Africa went?

Were there any bright spots in education, commerce or anything else we could associate with the Western world of today or the Roman world or was it all really small towns with Serfs tied to the land and local vassals and clergy keeping everyone down? Its hard for me to imagine that for 1,000 years mankind made almost no progress.

What remains extant of Irish jurisprudence from the era preceeding the arrival of the Cambro-Normans?