Problems comparing Roman Empire and later Europe - Historum

Fantasus · February 2nd, 2012, 10:09 AM

There is some problems comparing the ancient Roman Empire (and to an even much higher degree "classical" Greece) with later "mainstream" European history. For me at least. The question is if it is comparing "apples and pears - or carrots".
How could "Medieval" Europe either have "regressed" or "progressed" since the romans and greeks, unless it inherited either roughly the same territory or the descendant populations of the earlier age?
But muslim rulers inherited a very substantial part in the second halt of the 1.st millenium, Constantinople another part, and the western "Christian" Medieval rulers only a fraction. On the other hand the new "christianised" lands are normally included in later medieval european history, so what are we comparing?
Lands included in most of imperial roman history, that later were not part of medieval "Christian Europe": The North African Coast from Morocco to Egypt, the eastern Meditteranean and Asia minor. Since the eastern "byzantine" tradition is most often not included in western european history but seen as some distinctive "eastern" culture, most of Southeastern (Balkan) Europe can possibly be excluded as well, as will as large parts of Spain and Portugal as well as Sicily and other smaller parts of the southern Meditteranean, for some time. On the other hand "Medieval Europe" got new territories, not included in the "Classical" world and outside the old empire: Most of Modern Germany, the lands at the east, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Baltic. So, much of Europe did not "suffer" from the "loss of Empire" since it was never part of it.

sylla1 · February 2nd, 2012, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fantasus

There is some problems comparing the ancient Roman Empire (and to an even much higher degree "classical" Greece) with later "mainstream" European history. For me at least. The question is if it is comparing "apples and pears - or carrots".
How could "Medieval" Europe either have "regressed" or "progressed" since the romans and greeks, unless it inherited either roughly the same territory or the descendant populations of the earlier age?
But muslim rulers inherited a very substantial part in the second halt of the 1.st millenium, Constantinople another part, and the western "Christian" Medieval rulers only a fraction. On the other hand the new "christianised" lands are normally included in later medieval european history, so what are we comparing?
Lands included in most of imperial roman history, that later were not part of medieval "Christian Europe": The North African Coast from Morocco to Egypt, the eastern Meditteranean and Asia minor. Since the eastern "byzantine" tradition is most often not included in western european history but seen as some distinctive "eastern" culture, most of Southeastern (Balkan) Europe can possibly be excluded as well, as will as large parts of Spain and Portugal as well as Sicily and other smaller parts of the southern Meditteranean, for some time. On the other hand "Medieval Europe" got new territories, not included in the "Classical" world and outside the old empire: Most of Modern Germany, the lands at the east, Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Baltic. So, much of Europe did not "suffer" from the "loss of Empire" since it was never part of it.

Any comparison will always be a problem (even more, a nuissance) as long as ranking the purported relative "merit" of the involved parties may be the main or only goal of such comparison.

Needless to say, such problem & nuissance are exponentially potentiated whenever anachronical comparisons are involved.

Rearding historical analysis (AFAIK one of the explicit goals of Historum) the value of historical comparisons is entirely different; mainly to help the researchers and people in general understand the processes (e.g. social, economic and/or political) undergone by the compared objects of study, let say either societies, nations, or supranational entities.

Needless to say too, and amazing as it may sound, as far as possible one should always try to compare oranges... with let say oranges...