EduNETConnect.com - Time Machine

Please select a historical period:

25 years ago / 50 years ago / 80 years ago / 125 years ago / 150 years ago
250 years ago / 400 years ago / 700 years ago / 1,200 years ago
1,500 years ago / 2,000 years ago / 3,000 years ago / 4,000 years ago / 5,000 years ago / 10,000 years ago

1,500 Years Ago in West & North Europe

Roman Britain is invaded by Germanic peoples, including Frisians, Jutes, Saxons and Angles. But, many Germans, especially Frisians, had already settled in Britain during Roman rule as soldiers. Around 500 AD, the final resistance of the Romano-Britons (also called Gaels, the British form of the word "Gauls") is led by the war leader Arthur-- the "king" Arthur of legend. He cannot prevent the permanent settlement of the Germans in south-east Britain, which became known as "Angle-land" or England. The Gaelic people hold out in the mountainous district of the west, which becomes called Gallia, or in the German form of the word, Wales. It should also be said that while there was fighting from time to time, the arrival of the new German settlers was often peaceful.

Celtic raiders from Ireland called "Scotti" arrive in northern Britain. At this time large tribal hill forts are abandoned in favour of smaller, but higher stone fortresses, called "brochs". A broch, which looked like a small tower, could hold an extended family.

The Roman frontier along the Rhine is overrun by German tribes. By this time much of the Roman army was composed of German mercenaries, and sometimes whole clans were settled within the empire to defend the frontier from other hostile tribes. So some of these "invasions" were more like army revolts. Most of Roman Gaul and Spain is divided into a number of small national kingdoms by the invaders. These include: the Franks based in Belgium and the southern Netherlands; the Alamanni on the middle Rhine, the Burgundians (where the French province of Burgundy comes from) and the Visigoths in southern France and Spain. The area around Paris was the centre of a kingdom established by the ex-Roman general Syagrius.

Attila invades Western Europe with a mixed army of Huns and Germans. Although the Huns arrived in eastern Europe as an army of nomadic horse archers, they had become more settled, and most of their forces now fought on foot. In 451 AD, at the battle of Chalons in eastern France, the Roman general Aetius in alliance with the Visigoths and Franks, defeats Attila, who retreats back to Hungary. The stirrup is introduced to Europe by the Huns.

By 540 AD, the Franks had defeated all their rivals and ruled all of the old Roman provinces of Gaul, now called the kingdom of the Franks, or France. The word "Franks" means "free", the "free people", but this term might have been used in the sense of "freebooter" or "free- lance", that is mercenary. We do know the Franks were composed of many different tribes or clans, and it is possible the Franks began as a collection of mercenary bands from different German tribes in the Roman army.

The end of Roman rule in Western Europe saw the loss of some aspects of classical Roman urban culture, but some parts were kept, while the Germans added completely new elements. One example of the blending of the old and new is the Roman villa system of agriculture (large estates or plantations worked by dozens or even hundreds of slaves and labourers, instead of small independent farms) which spread throughout Romanized Europe. It later became mixed with Celtic and German land holding systems to create, in part, the medieval feudal system.

Roman villa

This is a picture of what a villa looked like around 350 AD. This one is a reconstruction of a villa that stood at Chedworth, England, but it is typical of what villas looked like throughout the Western Roman Empire. Compare it to the German farm. What differences and similarities can you find? The villa is built around a central square garden. This is where the owner and his family would live or stay for a visit. Many land owners lived in towns and cities, and had their estates managed by a landlord, in which case the landlord would live here. The main buildings are made of stones or bricks with a tile roof. The villa could include many different workshops, such as a black smith, bake ovens, stables and so on. Gardeners, maids, nannies for small children and other household servants, most of them would be slaves, lived right at the villa. Some field workers would live at the villa, but most would live in small huts with their families in the huge fields surrounding the main villa. Some would be slaves, others would be free people renting land from the land owner. The rent of these tenant farmers would be paid with a share of the crops they grew. A villa could have hundreds of people living there, surrounded by hundreds and even thousands of hectares of fields. Located in or near the villa were orchards, herb gardens, flower gardens and vineyards. Animals kept here included horses, sheep, goats and pigs. A villa was a self-contained community, the focal point in many rural areas of the empire. Many villas survived the collapse of the empire and grew into permanent settlements, what eventually came to be called a village.

German Farm

back to map