If the 5th century population of Rome was around 500,000 and was reduced to around 100,000 during the 6th century, where did all of those people disperse to? Was there massive loss of life in the wake of the fall of Rome due to starvation or violence? I just finished reading The Fall of Rome by Bryan Ward-Perkins, but I still don't understand what was happening to the population of the city of Rome during the transitional phase between late antiquity and the dark ages. Anyone with some expertise they can share?
I just finished reading The Fall of Rome by Bryan Ward-Perkins
This is an interesting book, but it's important to keep in mind that Ward-Perkins is pushing back forcefully against a narrative which is closer to a whimpering death.
"Where did the people go" is an excellent question. On the whole, we see a return to local centers of production and a lessening (but not a cessation) of trade. Moreover, it has become increasingly clear that the literary descriptions of the period, which often involve monks founding monasteries in unpopulated wilderness, are inaccurate or downright false. The countryside was not nearly as sparse as we originally believed.
This growing decentralization of production meant that cities were not quite the hubs that they had once been, which meant economic centers started to shift. People left the city, yes, but people also stopped moving to the city. Once the annona - shipments of Egyptian wheat - ceased to come to Rome in the sixth century, it became substantially harder to feed. Moreover, the Lombards did not exactly play nice with Italy in general, and there were several wars between them and the Byzantines. Finally, the Black Death (Y. Pestis) hit in force in the 540s, decimating the Mediterranean.
Some further reading:
McCormick, Michael. Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce A.D. 300-900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Davis, Jennifer R., Michael McCormick, Angeliki E. Laiou, Jan M. Ziolkowski, and Herbert L. Kessler, eds. The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early Medieval Studies. Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Pub. Co, 2008.
Brown, Peter Robert Lamont. The World of Late Antiquity, AD 150-750. History of European Civilization Library. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971.
Wagner, David M, Jennifer Klunk, Michaela Harbeck, Alison Devault, Nicholas Waglechner, Jason W Sahl, Jacob Enk, et al. “Yersinia Pestis and the Plague of Justinian 541–543 AD: A Genomic Analysis.” The Lancet Infectious Diseases 14, no. 4 (April 2014): 319–26. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(13)70323-2.