Practice question · Put in order
Arrange the stages by which a Germanic war-band typically became a territorial kingdom.
- Admission across the frontier under a treaty
- Issue of a written law code in the king’s own name
- Assumption of civil authority over a defined region
- Service as federate troops under Roman command
- Quartering on the estates of Roman landowners
Hints
- The sequence begins with a legal act, not a battle.
- Written law comes last, once the authority to issue it already exists.
Show the answer
- Admission across the frontier under a treaty
- Service as federate troops under Roman command
- Quartering on the estates of Roman landowners
- Assumption of civil authority over a defined region
- Issue of a written law code in the king’s own name
Why
Laid out in order, the process looks administrative rather than military, which is Goffart’s central point. The law codes at the end are the giveaway: a king who publishes a Latin abridgement of the Theodosian Code for his Roman subjects is claiming to continue the state, not to have replaced it.
Practise Late Antiquity and the Germanic Kingdoms
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