The Restoration of Rome : Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders

It took me longer than normal to get through this - there is a lot in this book - but I enjoyed it greatly. It draws themes from the post-Roman world and traces them through to the Carolingian era and the rise of the Papacy as a true pan-European force in medieval times; the great strength of the book, however, is in tracing why this was not some inevitable and seamless transition of power from Roman Empire to Roman Church. The anti-Whiggish tone is refreshing and thought-provoking, and Heather's writing style keeps you engaged even when the themes being explored are very complex and full of contingencies.

In 476 AD the last vestiges of imperial authority of the Western Roman Empire were cast aside, with there being few obvious reasons why Rome should become yet again a major political center. Flash forward about five hundred years and the Papacy of the Roman Catholic Church is effectively the font of authority in most of Europe. How this highly contingent development came to be is the subject of this book, as Peter Heather (best known as a historian of the barbarian kingdoms of the ‘Dark Ages’) examines the twists and turns of how this became the dominant outcome to the search for stability and security in Europe.

Heather first examines the processes by which Theodoric the Goth, Justinian of Byzantium and Charles the Great apparently show more pulled together the core of the old Western Roman Empire, only for events to overtake these empires. Sometimes this was a result of systems failure, sometimes this was a result of greater forces swamping the imperial initiative, but force and transitory personal ability were never enough to get the job done. The forces aligned at creating a new super power were just too great.

This brings us to the fourth part of Heather’s examination of the reestablishment of legitimate authority in the West, dealing with how the Imperial Papacy emerged from the Carolingian Renaissance, making for an empire based essentially on ideology. The interesting thing for Heather is that this empire was not really a creation of the Roman aristocracy that tended to control the Papacy; it was created by the Church intelligentsia as a response to the fragmentation of imperial authority and the efforts of local kings seeking to control Church resources.

Much of what makes this book a pleasure is that I suspect that Heather has become aware that there is a public readership with the appetite for an involved tale of personal intrigue in the face of tectonic forces, and while I might think that Heather is a little too casual in his language at some points, he does make clear the need for a bit of enlightened skepticism about received theories and ideologies does not mean that there isn’t a great deal to say about events that are often glossed over because the alleged documentation doesn’t exist; call it an example of a well-honed historical imagination in action. show less

Mr. Heather has linked biographies of Theoderic the Ostrogoth ,Justinian, and Charlemagne with an essay on the growth of the Papal Curia to discuss his opinion of the mechanisms and reasons for the replacement of the Roman Empire with the late Medieval Papacy. The prose is crisp though with a little striving for epigrams on occasion.
He is good on the degree to which the Papacy expanded to create a new kind of theocracy setting a lot of the terms and expectations of what we call "Western Christian Civilization". Following the amount of created, rather than actual documentation for the pretensions of the Papacy provides a certain level of sustained irony, that I find entertaining. Does he provide a definitive argument for his show more conclusions?
I'm not yet sure of that. Upon rereading, the book holds up well, both in style and arguments, and not many do. I am tempted to add, for what it is worth, another half star. show less

A very interesting and nicely written book about the various attempts (deliberate or accidental) of the Roman Empire by imperial pretenders and barbarian popes including all the messy politics and the subsequent fall out. Enough details to know what is going on, but not bog the reader down with irrelevant fluff. I managed to stay awake through this book and enjoyed it immensely, which is more than I can say on any other book on Rome by any other author that I have read so far.

La edad media y la caída del imperio romano. De allí la lucha de Europa para lograr de nuevo la centralidad en la historia.