not nomadic. They did practice agriculture. Their culture values
strength, courage, and success in battle above anything else. The Goths were divided into two groups: the Visigoths, who settled
eventually in Spain, and the Ostrogoths, who ruled Italy for a while.
The Vandals established themselves northern Africa. The Franks
carved out a kingdom over what is today France and Germany.
The Angles and Saxons invaded Britain. The Lombards established
themselves in northern Italy. All of these tribes mixed with the
earlier Roman populations in the provinces, who were themselves
of mixed blood, so in terms of blood and ethnicity, as well as
culture, Germanic is mixed with Roman/Christian.
These tribes all had kings, but as far as any consistent control over
the countryside goes, they were very haphazard administrations. For
all practical purposes, there was near anarchy in most of Europe;
everyone who had weapons basically had to fend for himself or
herself. As the infrastructure of the empire fell apart, so did trade,
agriculture, and the entire marketing system. The 5th century A.D.
was also a period of widespread famine, a major plague, and a
remarkable decline in the population.
It’s not that there was consistent famine for centuries, but when
a crop failure hit, there was absolutely no backup. There were
no grain reserves kept by the state and no trade to supply grain
from other regions. People had to become more resourceful at
fi nding food in the forests and swamps. During this time, there is
a dramatic increase in the number of wild species of plants and
animals consumed, especially as the countryside became deserted.
People moved onto only the best land to cultivate and abandoned
the hillsides and more diffi cult terrain, most of which returned
to wilderness.
In every way that the Greeks and Romans valued civilized cities
surrounded by miles of well-tilled farms, orchards, and stockyards,
the barbarians valued the wild forest, hunting, fi shing, gathering