Europe in the Middle Ages

by Ierne L. Plunket

The author of the Civitas Dei was to have his faith severely tested, for he died amid scenes of desolation and horror that held out no hope of happiness for man on earth. Rome stood at the mercy of barbarians, and Christian Africa was also fast falling under their yoke. These new invaders, the Vandals, were also a German tribe, who, as soon as Stilicho withdrew legions from the Rhine to defend Italy from the Visigoths, broke over the weakened frontier into Gaul, and from there crossed the Pyrenees and marched southwards.

Spain had been one of the richest of Rome’s provinces, and besides her minerals and corn had provided the Empire with not a few rulers as well as famous authors and poets. In her commercial prosperity she had grown, like her neighbours, corrupt and unwarlike, so that the Vandals met with little resistance and plundered and pillaged at their will. Instead of settling down amid their conquests they were driven by the promise of further loot and the pressure of other barbarian tribes following hard on their heels to cross the narrow Strait of Gibraltar and to pursue their way due east along the African coast. In Spain they have left the memory of their presence in the name of one of her fairest provinces, Andalusia.

The chief of the Vandals at this time was Genseric, who not only conquered all the coast-line of North Africa, but also built a fleet that became the terror of the Mediterranean. Like the Goths the Vandals were Christians, but they held the views of Arius and there could be little hope that they would tolerate the orthodox Catholics. Though hardly as inhuman and ruthless as their opponents would have had the world believe, they pillaged and laid waste as they passed; and posterity has since applied the word vandal to the man who wilfully destroys.

The name ‘Hun’ is of even more sinister repute. In the first half of the fifth century the Huns in their triumphant march across Europe were led by their king, Attila, ‘the Scourge of God’, whose boast it was that never grass grew again where his horse’s hoofs had once trod. So short and squat as to be almost deformed, flat-nosed, with a swarthy skin and deep-set eyes, that he would roll hideously when angered, the King loved to inspire terror not only amongst his enemies but in the chieftains under his command. Pity, gentleness, civilization, such words were either unknown or abhorrent to him; and in the towns whose walls were stormed by his troops, old men, women, priests, and children fell alike victims to his sword.

It was his ambition that the name of ‘Attila’ should become a terror to the whole earth, but the extent to which he succeeded in realizing this aim brought a serious check to his arms; for when he reached the boundaries of Gaul, he found that fear had gathered into a single hostile force of formidable size races that had warred for centuries amongst themselves. Here were not only ‘Provincials’, descendants of the Romanized inhabitants of Gaul, but Goths, Franks, Burgundians, and other tribes who, like the Vandals, had forced the passage of the Rhine as soon as the imperial garrisons were weakened or withdrawn. They had little in common save hatred of the Hun, a passion so strong that in a desperate battle on the plain of Chalons they hurled back the Tartar hordes for ever from the lands of Western Europe.

Shaken by his defeat, but sullen and vindictive, Attila turned his thoughts to Italy; and he and his warriors swept across the passes of the Alps and descended on the fertile country lying to the north-west of the Adriatic. The Italians made but a feeble resistance, and the palaces, baths, and amphitheatres of once wealthy towns vanished in smoking ruins.

One important work of construction Attila unconsciously assisted, for the inhabitants of Aquileia, seeking a refuge from their cruel foe, fled to the coast, and there amid the desolate lagoons they and their descendants built for themselves in the course of centuries a new city, Venice, the future ‘Queen of the Adriatic’. Aquileia had been a city of repute, but it can be safely guessed that she would never have attained the world-wide glory that Venice, safe behind her barrier of marshes and with every incentive to naval enterprise, was to establish in the Middle Ages.

From the Adriatic provinces Attila passed to Rome, but refrained from sacking the city. It is said that he was uneasy because the armies of Gaul that had defeated him at Chalons still hung on his rear, threatening to cut off his retreat across the Alps. At any rate, he consented to make terms negotiated by the Pope on behalf of the citizens of Rome. Contemporary accounts declare that the Hun was awed by the sight of Leo I in his priestly robes and by the fearlessness of his bearing, and certainly for his mediation he well deserved the title of ‘Great’ that the people in their gratitude bestowed on him.

Attila, when he left Rome, turned northwards, but died quite shortly after some drunken orgy. The kingdom of massacre and fire that he had built on the terror of his name fell rapidly to pieces, and only the remembrance of that terror remained; while Huns merged themselves in the armies of other tribes or fought together in petty rivalry.

Vandal Sack of Rome