This list was kindly provided by Bryan Ward-Perkins, whose book The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization has made big waves in 2006 as both excellent and provocative.

Here is Professor Ward-Perkins reading list for his students at Trinity College, Oxford, on the Barbarian Kingdoms:


General

R. Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300-1000, 2nd edition 1999, chap.7.

A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 1964, chap.VIII.

B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, 2005, chap.4.


Specific (mainly by kingdom):

P. Heather, The Goths, 1996, chaps. 7 & 8.

J. Moorhead, Theoderic in Italy, 1992, esp. chaps. 3 & 5.

J. Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome, 1994, chaps. (3), 6, 11 and Epilogue.

J. Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons, 1982, chaps. 1 & 2.

E. James, The Franks, 1988, esp. chaps. 3 & 5.

It is important to be aware of the theories of Walter Goffart, for which: W. Goffart, Barbarians and Romans. The Techniques of Accommodation, 1980, chaps. III & IV.

There is no good general survey of the Vandal kingdom in English – but some useful information can be got from Moorhead’s introduction to Victor of Vita (see below).


Useful Sources:

Victor of Vita, History of the Vandal Persecutions, trans. John Moorhead, 1992. For the bad boys in action. The Introduction is also useful.

And, for the good boys:
Cassiodorus, Variae, trans. S.J.B. Barnish, 1992:
Bk I: 4, 10, 17, 18, 45.
Bk II: 1, 8, 16, 21, 24, 32.
Bk III: 13, 20, 30, 31, 39, 44.
Bk IV: 10, 51.
Bk VI: 3.
Bk VIII: 1, 31.
Bk IX: 15, 18, 21, 24, 25.

As well as The ‘Anonymous Valesianus’, Pars Posterior/Latter Part, which is printed at the back of Vol. III of the Loeb edition of Ammianus Marcellinus. Which presents both a rosy and black picture of the Ostrogoths.

Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, Penguin, II.27-43, for Gregory’s wonderful (if bizarre) account of his Christian hero Clovis.


Questions:

Why were the post-Roman kingdoms of the West so ‘Roman’ in nature?

Were there ‘good barbarians’ and ‘bad barbarians’ amongst the settlers of the West? [or, if you prefer: ‘Why were some barbarian rulers of the West so accommodating to the interests and values of their Roman subjects, while others apparently were not?]