Willie's+Visigoth+Essay

=Visigoth Essay=  The Visigoths as a people managed to survive for about four hundred years. They did this despite being bumped through Europe due to the attacks of other tribes and their own pursuits in other regions. Because of this the Visigoths were never able to grow in one environment where they might have learned how to perfect their own technologies and industries. Instead they would borrow the designs and overall artistry of more established neighbouring civilizations. This resulted in no distinctive artistic style of their own and little for them to be remembered by. This lack of creative practice lent itself to the Visigoths’ focus on the destructive discipline of war. They would raid and plunder rather than produce or trade their own goods. This allowed them to exist, but it was a violent existence without any assurance of continued survival. As chance had it, after about a century of disorderly settlement in Spain, the Moors came and engulfed the Visigoths completely. What we can learn from the Visigoths’ struggle to exist is the **importance of stability to a successful civilization.** Firstly, the Visigoths never established a longstanding home. The invading Huns pushed out their first settlement in Dacia in the 4th century CE, the Visigoths moving across the Danube river to settle in Thrace (Heather, 147). Here their agricultural endeavours didn’t yield enough food to feed them and they had to rely on Roman grain (Todd, 53). They had not developed efficient methods of food production before they had been driven out of their last home. Now the Visigoths were in a new setting and were presented with new challenges without having learned how to overcome the old ones. After a few battles with the Romans and some time as the first independent barbaric state of the Roman Empire, the Visigoths, under King Alaric, attacked and sacked the wealthy city of Rome in 410 CE (Ferreiro, 32). This was an incredible feat, but it put the Visigoths out of a place to stay again, the Roman state of Thrace no longer being an option (Todd, 53). Eventually they found themselves in Aquitania, Gaul (now part of France), and though Alaric and his men were richer, they had made no lasting developments as a people (Ferriero, 73). The connection between a growing and learning society and its having a fixed place to develop is testament to how crucial stability is. Secondly, there is little that can be recognized as truly Visigothic art or design. Though the Visigoths had an industrial peasant society, the crafts they created were not of their own cultural style (Davis, 129). Combs worn by Visigoth women in 4th century Thrace were artistically designed the same as combs worn by Roman women of the period. Visigoths also preferred to use lamps mass-produced in Rome rather than those of their own potters’ fabrication (Heather, 323). Even so, the Visigoths’ clay and earthenware pots were replicas of Roman ones cast in Bronze. As the Visigoths moved on to more permanent residence in Spain, the architecture designed under their rule was predominantly Romanesque (Ferreiro). They built basilica-style churches, and most structures were of Roman brickwork with Corinthian columns and capitals. These buildings were probably more due to the large Hispano-Roman population than their supposed rulers, the Visigoths having little control over the people of Spain. When the Moors conquered Spain the Visigoths were absorbed by this new culture and their reign came to an end (Todd, 78). Tragically, the lack of distinctive art and design created by their people left little for them to be remembered by, and this has affected how much we know about the Visigoths today. All the civilizations that we consider to be “great” have had art and literature that has impressed upon us the ideals and feelings of their people. Without the stable society in which their artistic industry could have been developed, we know little about the true character of the Visigoths.  Lastly, because the Visigoths had little agricultural or artistic industry, they resorted to violent raids on other peoples to get what they wanted, as well as just to survive. When they lived in Thrace in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, the victims of their attacks would be the Roman provinces in the region of the Danube river (Ferreiro, 23). The Visigothic society and economy was based on the plunder that bands of warriors, lead by a chief, would bring back (24). The chiefs who successfully lead their men to victory and loot, would form the aristocracy, being the wealthiest members of society who would therefore get the most power. Thus, there was violence inherently built in to the system as part of the Visigoths’ way of life. Under the contract that made them an independent state of the Roman Empire, the Visigoths were forced to serve in the Roman army for periods of time (Todd, 54). This established the Visigothic role as a warrior even more, reducing the hope for sustainable practices like growing food. They continued not to develop, technologically or otherwise, relying on the productivity of others to sustain them. When chance gave them a few more centuries in Gaul and Spain, the Visigoths again were given to warlike behaviour, territorializing with the other barbaric tribes (Heather, 342). Military discipline was their only learned aptitude, and with no other commodities with which to negotiate, the Visigoths lived out the end of their rough existence. The Visigoths' frequent migration never allowed them to establish a longstanding home and they could not develop progressively as a people. Their lack of industrial or artistic practice and productivity also left nothign for them to be remembered by. With no other skills, they resorted to a violent way of life which was the basis of their society. From the Visigoths' struggle we can learn of the importance of stability to a successful civilization.