European Crisis and the Quest to Reclaim Roman Glory

At this point we've established that Americas first peoples migrated to the Western Hemisphere during the Last Ice Age; they spread out over the continents establishing different cultures, cities, cultivated a variety food crops, and told their stories through art...

These nations made war, brokered peace, while some rose, and some fell. Some are well know, and some we may never know. For nearly 15,000 years these tribes or nations or countries developed into complex agricultural societies that spanned from Eastern forests to Southwestern deserts to the Andes in South America to the frozen coastline of Alaska.


Across the ocean, in 27 BCE Caesar Augustus becomes arguably the first true emperor of Rome. After grappling with Julius Caesar and ultimately assassinating him, the Senate of the Roman Republic loses significant power under Augustus putting Senators at odds with whoever the emperor is for most of Roman history. The Romans conquer most of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, building roads, bathes, arenas, civic building, monuments, and walls as they go.


For a few centuries, the Romans hold the line against migrating Germanic tribes. Rome falls in the 5th Century, and Goths, Franks, Saxons, and others spread out into Western Europe. And most of European history afterwards chases after the glory of Rome.


Imagine that it's the year 600 CE, you are a Frankish villager carrying your goods to market. You pass a Roman aqueduct on your way with it's arches flying high into the sky, and you realize that you, your people, and your kingdom have no ability to build that. It's a sort of inferiority complex living in Rome's shadow, but the kingdoms of Europe try hard to rebuild Rome.

• In the 6th Century, Justinian manages to retake parts of the old Roman Empire in the name of the Constantinople.
• In late 8th Century and early 9th Century, Charlemagne conquers much of Western Europe and is crowned Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III.
• A host of kings and emperors wage war across Europe from Charles V to Napoleon to Hitler. Various rulers have tried to rule all of Europe.
• In Eastern Europe the tsar's derived their title from the word caesar.
• In government buildings and museums from Washington DC to London to Paris to Berlin inspiration is taken from Roman architecture 

After the fall of Rome, Europe spends a lot of time in crisis. The Moors conquer modern day Spain, leaving the Franks feeling pressure to the west. Waves of migration and raids from the Norse and the Magyars affect how the nations of Europe develop. Places like Northern France end up being fought over time and again because the feudal system of government and conquest leaves William Duke of Normandy, also King of England. France and England would be at war from Henry V to Joan of Arc in the Hundred Years War.


The one unifying force in Western Europe through most of the Middle Ages was the Roman Catholic Church. The church has a fascinating impact on Europe. Monasteries are where Latin literature and ideas survive. The church provides the inspiration for the construction of churches and cathedrals and the rebuilding of an artisan class. The church is also the unifying force which brought Europe together to massacre the peoples of the Middle East during the Crusades.


The Crusades are Western Europe's first attempt at colonization. The Crusader States are established on the coast of the Mediterranean. The cost in lives of Jews, Muslims, and even Eastern Christians as a result of Crusades may never be known, but we do know that Western Europe benefited in at least two ways: 1) the establishment of trade for goods like silk and spice across the Mediterraneans and 2) rediscovering Greek writing which had been preserved in the Caliphates of the Middle East.


The Latin and Greek works are studied in the universities which spring up around cathedrals. Cities of artisans and traders form around these churches too. It creates a new social class that is not peasant, not clergy, not noble. A little more educated, a little more wealthy, a class that can bring about the Renaissance. The Renaissance is arguably the closest Europeans felt to the Romans since the fall of Rome. Works of art like Michelangelo's David have a distinctly Greco-Roman feel, and that's entirely intentional.


That's not to say that as Europe exited the Middle Ages that it wasn't still a continent in crisis. Increased trade leads to waves of plague as stowaway rodents are off loaded with goods. And eventually around 1000 years after the original fall of Rome, Constantinople the last Eastern Roman city falls to the Ottoman Turks. Much like the Franks once felt pressure from the Moors to the West, Vienna feels the pressure of the Ottomans to the East.


And just for fun, the institution which had been a unifying force for Europe, the Roman Catholic Church, is about to be rocked by the Protestant Reformation. Europeans are about to adventure beyond the Mediterranean during a time of religious turbulence.