Barbarian invasions in Europe during the medieval period ...

[Boojatta]

[struggle4progress]

1. They didn't have barbers back then, because everybody wanted to look like a filthy flower child

So the invasion of barbers is a myth, invented by the hair care products companies to sell bottles of conditioner and 'poo

[rrneck]

6. This thread should stop at this post.

:rofl:

[Deep13]

2. None of the above.

The so-called barbarians were a multitude of ethnic and religious groups who migrated for various reasons. Primarily, they responded to population pressures and displacement by other groups of people, the Mongols, for example. They were violent, of course, but tended to be less so than the Romans.

[Ready4Change]

3. Other: Pagan Manifest Destiny

.

[zazen]

4. do you mean invasions of Roman Empire? cuz that's not medieval

or invasions of post-Roman European settlements by other post-Romans? eg, Danes of Anglo-Saxons, Normans in 11 c. Or invasions of Byzantium from the West or the East? Or the invasion of Visigothic sorta Roman Spain by the Moors?

or am I taking this poll too seriously?

[Boojatta]

5. "cuz that's not medieval"

Perhaps you should describe how you break up the period from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance into named parts. What names do you use for what parts? In particular, what marks the definite end of the medieval period?

[Igel]

7. ... were diverse.

Some were violent. Many weren't. They were just migrations, mostly for economic reasons--climate change in N Europe that caused Goths and Slavs to move south, possible drought in Central Asia and other places that made some tribes there move west.

But they were uncultured and non-Roman, and the Romans (or their descendants) didn't much like their infiltrating the established settlements. Ethnicities didn't like being swamped. Voila. Conflict. (Conflict which is, in fact, very similar to the kinds of conflicts we see now, but which are deemed to be somehow either a perverse form of American exceptionalism or "European exceptionalism".)

The Byzantines were positively aghast at the Slavic influx into the Balkans, the way they overran Greece, many of the Aegean islands, and even came close to repeating the Celts' movements to Asia Minor. The Byzantines were preoccupied with the Islamic conquest. I'm sure the Golad' and such, Baltic tribes around where Moscow is now, were a bit peeved when the Slavs moved in. (Just as the Slavs were displeased when the Germans moved into Poland and the Czech lands.)

Of course, by the "invasions in Europe" you also have to include the more orderly, and therefore more aggressive, Islamic incursions, the conquering of the Iberian peninsula, part of Italy, and SE Europe by Muslims.

[JDPriestly]

8. And let's remember that Rome invaded the homelands of the tribes that

moved south well before the medieval period.

Migration, invasion, the word that you choose depends on your perspective.

[dimbear]

9. Remembering this is the R/T forum, the barbarians revered the Celtic deity Lud.

That's why the were called Luddites. That's why they hated fancy looms.