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One of the most fascinating aspects of Norse society was their ability to explore and branch out from their base in Scandinavia.  Norse sailors and colonists spread out across parts of Europe between the eight and eleventh centuries, going as far as Iceland, Greenland and North America. In his recent book, Vikings in America, Dr. Graeme Davis examines the evidence for Norse settlements between the High Arctic and east coast of the United States. We interviewed Dr. Davis by email:

1. How did you become interested in the Vikings and their settlements in North America?

The idea for Vikings in America came in 2003 while I was working on a British Academy funded syntax study at the University of Iceland. Icelanders have an enormous admiration for their Viking founders, and I guess respect for the Viking achievemnet rubbed off! By contrast in the British Isles we seem to have relegated our Viking heritage to the history books while in North America the story is presented as little more than a footnote. I’ve travelled to all the Viking North Atlantic stepping stones: Norway, Orkney, Shetland, Faroes, Iceland, Greenland and Canada – and become aware of how the Viking voyages have influenced all these lands. The story of the Vikings in America needs to be told.

2. You make two claims in your book: first, that Vinland is not located in Newfoundland, but rather in the New England area; second, that the name America did not get its name from the explorer Amerigo Vespucci – instead it is derived from the Old Norse word merki. Neither of these theories have much acceptance from scholars, but they to deserve to be talked about. Could you outline your theories?

Vinland is certainly not Newfoundland. Here we have an area where popular accounts and more thoughtful scholarship diverge. In popular writing on the Vikings the L’Anse aux Meadows settlement on Newfoundland is indeed often equated with Vinland and an assertion made that archaeology has proved the Saga story. It hasn’t; rather archaeology has proved that the Vikings settled one part of America while the Sagas indicate that the Vikings made a settlement in a completely different part. We can be absolutely sure that L’Anse aux Meadows is not the Leifsbudir settlement in Vinland. L’Anse aux Meadows is later than the Vinland settlement described in the Sagas while no-one could equate Newfoundland’s severe winter with the mild winters described for Vinland in the Sagas. In saying that Newfoundland is not Vinland I don’t think I have said anything that any serious scholar would disagree with. Rather Newfoundland may correspond with the Markland of the Sagas. Vinland is somewhere further south, plausibly New England, and may be a term used for a vast area of land rather than a single location. The specific settlement of Leifsbudir in Vinland described in the Sagas must have been somewhere on the American east coast and if we are very lucky we may one day discover it.

That America takes its name from Amerigo Vespucci is a story that has been taught at school to generations of American children. It is hard to challenge because it is so well established, yet it is based solely on a curious piece of marginalia on a single copy of an early world map. Were the map discovered today I doubt any scholar would take seriously the map-maker’s assertion that America is named after Amerigo Vespucci. Rather the map-maker had locked himself into a framework which required him to identify the person after which each continent was named and appears to hit on Amerigo out of desperation. In the sixteenth century a man was referred to by his surname with few knowing his first name; Vespucci’s first name is Amerigo not America; in view of the enormous publicity given to the 1492 Columbus voyage no-one interested in America could be unaware that Columbus was the discoverer. In saying that America is categorically not named after Amerigo Vespucci I think I am on firm foundations. I also know I am inviting controversy by criticizing what has become an American national myth, yet very many people have rightly doubted this myth. The follow up question has to be “why is America called America?” One possibly answer is of course “we don’t know.” I’ve had a go at answering this question by treating the name as an Old Norse word, one that the Vikings frequently used to describe tracts of unfarmed land – merki. While the derivation of America from Amerigo Vespucci is impossible, my proposed derivation is at least possible. I’m aware that other derivations have been suggested, from either Old Norse or English, and at least some of these alternative derivations are also plausible. But of course I prefer mine!

3. Since you wrote this book, an important research project has evaluated the Vinland Map, and concluded it to be genuine (see http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/vinland-map-is-authentic-expert.html). Your own book devotes several pages to the document, but says “the jury remains out” on whether or not it is authentic. With this new evidence available, how does it alter your ideas on the Vikings in America, or are you still unconvinced that is a genuine medieval map?

This new evidence is fascinating! It is from a team led by René Larsen of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and is the result of a substantial study which has been well funded. To date Larsen’s actual report has not been published; rather we have a press release and several presentations. Larsen is very careful not to say the map is genuine – rather he says there is no evidence that it is a forgery. In the absence of his formal report we still don’t know precisely what tests were conducted but I think we can now say that from the perspective of the discipline of manuscript conservation there is no evidence of forgery. This simplifies the often complex arguments around the Vinland Map as we are left with just one substantial objection to the map being genuine – the presence of twentieth century synthetic anatase within the ink. Larsen has put forward the view that the anatase may come from sand used to blot the ink and repeats an existing view that the anatase may be an unusually regular natural formation rather than being synthetic, specifically suggesting that it may possibly be found in certain Swiss sands. The debate on Larsen’s findings has been taken up in an article and forum by Scientific American with a reasonably clear consensus that the anatase is certainly synthetic and that anyway it could not have been introduced in the way Larsen sets out.

Larsen has not solved the disputes around the Vinland Map. Rather he cut through many of the spurious objections to the map being considered genuine and so left us with a situation where the presence of synthetic anatase is the only objection that truly remains. But this single issue is an enormous objection! The two disciplines of conservation and chemistry are producing incompatible results, yet both are certain that they are right.

What we are left with is a logic puzzle! I wonder if in the light of Larsen’s work it may be that we can now speculate on a solution to this puzzle. I think a logical chain of events can at least be advanced, one which explains the apparently conflicting evidence we have. The key I believe is in the character of Ferrajoli, the dealer who presented the map to the world. Ferrajoli was later convicted of manuscript theft. He dealt in manuscripts acquired as war loot and sourced through disreputable intermediaries and was motivated by profit, not considerations of scholarly integrity. One thing there is consensus about is that he didn’t himself forge the Vinland Map – not because he would not have done such a thing but because he did not have the necessary academic skills. My thought is that it is plausible that he acquired from war loot a genuine fifteenth century mappa mundi showing the New World, effectively an ur-Vinland Map. Without provenance (or at least without a provenance that Ferrajoli was going to confess to) such a manuscript was all but worthless. In the days before carbon-14 dating it is hard to see how such a genuine map without a provenance have been accepted as genuine. Rather without provenance it would have been dismissed as a probable forgery. We can imagine Ferrajoli would have found this most frustrating! The idea of creating a context by copying it onto two pages within a genuine manuscript is one that may have occurred to him, as may the idea of letting the scholarly world first see the map alone and then, when (as was inevitable) doubts were raised, producing the rest of the volume as a context for the Vinland Map. Copying something is far easier than forging from scratch, and this is within the competence of Ferrajoli and his associates. My thought is that in the Vinland Map we have a 1950s copy of a genuine fifteenth century map. Very many features of the Vinland Map are right – cartography, paleographic style, the mediaeval Latin complete with a mistake – and Larsen’s key contribution is to stress this, cutting through the spurious objections. All these things are right because the map is a competent copy, and because it has been contextualized within a genuine manuscript of the right date But Ferrajoli or his copyist had to resort to a modern anatase based ink to imitate an aged mediaeval ink, and the development of techniques of analysis have revealed this deception.

Curiously another early map showing Viking North America, the Skalholt Map, is known only from copies. These are honest copies in that they own up to what they are and although copies they are nonetheless important documents. By contrast the Vinland Map in this scenario is a dishonest copy masquerading as genuine. Notwithstanding if a case can be built for the Vinland Map being a 1950s copy of a genuine map it is evidence of a genuine ur-Vinland Map and therefore an important document. Trying to call the Vinland Map either fake or genuine may be seeking to answer a question which is not appropriate.

4. You devote a good section of your book looking at the Viking presence in the high arctic, which includes several archaeological discoveries (see http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2009/06/archaeological-discovery-of-norse.html for another recent find). Considering the harsh climate of that region, what does this reveal about Norse society that they were able to inhabit these places and make a living there?

The recent Baffin Island find is exciting! This is the second confirmed year-round Viking settlement in what is now Canada (or the third if the Ellesmere Island finds are interpreted as year-round.) Now with a second or even third confirmed Canadian settlement site we have the Vikings firmly established in America west of Greenland. Furthermore the location of the Baffin Island site on Hudson Strait supports the idea of Viking exploration of Hudson Bay, suggesting Viking presence in the heart of the North American continent.

Human habitation of the High Arctic says a lot about human societies. Very many peoples have inhabited the arctic and high arctic regions. Greenland alone has a six-thousand year history of settlement, with all those settlements before the Vikings being by Stone Age peoples. Human societies demonstrate time and time again that they can flourish even in these northern latitudes and the Vikings are by no means unique in settling there. But each arctic society has to make special adaptations to the environment, and it is in the Vikings’ special adaptation that we can glimpse something of the special qualities of their society.

The special adaptation of the Viking society that emerged in Greenland and elsewhere in the arctic is that it used trans-oceanic trade to provide materials lacking in the arctic. Trade with Europe was essential for survival. We have to envisage communities in Greenland where every summer season a ship set off for a round trip to Europe and back again. Within those communities most – women as well as men – would at some time in their life make the trip and perhaps make it many times. It is this ceaseless voyaging that is the dominant feature of the society that emerged in Greenland and the arctic. We have a mobile population with everyone an ocean voyager.
The experience of trans-Atlantic voyages in open boats must have been central to the shared experience of the Greenland Vikings. Most voyages from Greenland back to Europe were direct (avoiding the “taxes” that would have been payable through stopping en route) requiring a two to three weeks or more in a small vessel, and for much of the time out of sight of land, and with very real risks of shipwreck. This is the heroic ethic in action.

5. In the end how do you think that the Viking presence in North America should be judged in history textbooks – as a footnote or something more important?

The Apollo moon missions show human beings pushing a technology to the very limits to get men to the moon. We did it! Similarly the Vikings pushed their ship technology to its utter limits in order to voyage the North Atlantic. The story of the Vikings in America is one of the great stories of human achievement and human heroism and should be celebrated as such.

There is a long but unbroken chain from the Vikings in America to the English in America. We sometimes forget that England is a Viking nation, as much the heirs of Viking King Canute as English King Alfred and Celtic King Arthur. John Dee, advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, saw England as the heir to the Vikings and on the basis of the Viking voyages set out an English legal claim to North America, in opposition to the papal division of the New World between Spain and Portugal. England explored in the footsteps not of Columbus but of the Vikings. Without John Dee and without the Vikings it is likely that the USA would be the United States of Columbia, speaking Spanish and have Roman Catholicism as its dominant religion. History would have been different. Today Canada’s sovereign claim to the Canadian High Arctic rests on inherited British claims to the area which go back through John Dee to the Vikings.

Right now we don’t have the evidence to know whether there is a continuous settlement from the Vikings through to the Colonial period – but we may soon have it. DNA studies may provide solutions if they are carried out – we would need DNA samples from early Native American burials, which is both problematic and controversial but in theory possible. Linguistic studies of some Native American languages may show borrowings from Old Norse – there are already some intriguing possibilities within the Algonquian group. Archaeology always has the potential to surprise. The Newport Tower clearly needs a re-assessment in view of some pre-colonial carbon-14 dates from its mortar, while the number of disputed Viking finds in Minnesota may give grounds for hope that one day a find may come to light that gains general acceptance. The recent Baffin Island finds make it that much easier to believe that the Vikings came to Hudson Bay, and at least credible that they came further south. There is every reason to anticipate more finds. We have now found a scatter of Viking artifacts from Baffin Island and Labrador, an immense area which has had relatively scant archaeological attention and may reasonably have much more. We may soon have to conclude that the Vikings in America are a pre-Columbian people, with all the legal and constitutional conundrums this presents.

Viking North America is no footnote. It is one of the greatest stories of human achievement. And the legacy of Viking America touches the day to day life of every American and every Canadian.

We thank Dr. Davis for answering our questions.

Lars Brownworth became a podcasting sensation when he posted a series of short lectures called 12 Byzantine Rulers.  Now, the historian has come out with his book Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization. This overview of Byzantine history runs all the way from the founding of Constantinople in the 4th century AD, to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century.  We interviewed Lars Brownworth by email:

There have been other history books that give an overview of the Byzantine Empire, including recent ones by Judith Herrin and Timothy Gregory. What does your book offer people interested in Byzantium?

I’ve always been a fan of telling history as a story- not so much as a collection of dates or impersonal movements, but as a series of individual lives. Byzantine history in particular lends itself to this perspective because of the unique centrality of the emperor in everyday life. The person on the throne stood halfway to heaven, and the decisions they made shaped the lives of nearly every citizen. Seeing the story through their eyes puts in perspective how imperceptibly at first, with each seemingly small action the east and west drifted apart until the animosity on both sides permanently ruptured relations. This part of Byzantium’s ultimate legacy still deeply impacts the world today.

Having to cover over a thousand years of history in one volume means that you cannot include information about every emperor’s reign, or all historical events. How did you decide what to include in your book, and what you could leave out?

This was a much harder process than I originally had anticipated. (My first draft to my publisher approached a length that no one would possibly have wanted to read.) Some of the selections were easy- the reigns of Justinian, Heraclius, Irene, and Alexius, the founding of Constantinople, the battle of Manzikert, the Fourth Crusade, etc. Others, like the reign of Theophilus had to be included to set up the revival of learning and the religious dispute that erupted into a cold war between Byzantium and Rome. My main concern was to strike a balance between the significant moments that shaped imperial history while keeping the book to a readable length. Unfortunately that meant I had to cut out some very lively material (Justinian II overcoming exile and mutilation to seize the throne, or Constans II getting killed with a soap dish for example) but as I wrote in the introduction, the hope is that it will lead to further reading and part of the joy of Byzantium is in the discovery.

You are also known for your 12 Byzantine Rulers podcast series, which has generated hundreds of thousands of downloads. How did you come up with the idea of doing these podcasts and were you surprised about how popular they became?

The idea originally was to create something like a teaching company lecture. My brother and I had been listening to an excellent series about Egypt by Professor Bob Brier, and he suggested that I do something similar for Byzantine history. I recorded the first episode back in 2004 and promptly forgot about it, getting wrapped up in my teaching schedule. A year later Apple announced that they were accepting podcast submissions to iTunes and on a whim my brother posted it. The response took me completely by surprise. Within a month I was getting emails from all over the world asking when the next episode was going to be released, and I realized I’d actually have to follow through with this project. The release schedule was slow due to my teaching responsibilities, but I was pleasantly surprised that people were willing to follow it to the end.

Your book and podcasts, as well as works by other scholars and writers, have helped revitalized interest in Byzantine history. What do you think is so appealing about their history?

On the most basic level Byzantium is simply a fascinating story. It has the full range of human experience- a thousand years of bloodletting, outrageous luxury, bitter religious disputes, and vaulting ambition. But its impact goes deeper than that. Like the West, it was a Greco-Roman society with Judeo-Christian roots that struggled with- and came to unique conclusions about- questions of immigration, fair taxes, the separation of Church and State, and how to deal with a militant Islam. With its huge impact on both the Islamic and the Western world, it has seldom been more timely or relevant. As one historian has said, ‘Byzantium explains why we are as we are- and how we might be different’.

Finally, there are many primary sources about the Byzantines that are available in English translation. Is their any particular text that you would recommend that people could read after your book?

There are a wealth of sources available for those who want to read about the Byzantines in their own words, though which ones you chose depends on the time period you wish to concentrate on. For early Byzantine history, the best is Procopius- both his official “History of the Wars” and the scandalous ‘Secret History’. For the middle period which covers the Byzantine ‘dark ages’, sources become somewhat scarce, but the two major epochs- the Iconoclastic controversy and the rise of the Macedonian dynasty- are detailed in the wonderful “The History of Leo the Deacon” translated by Alice-Mary Talbot. Finally, for later Byzantine history there is no finer historian than Anna Comnena who was an eyewitness to the Crusades and left her lively account in the “Alexiad”.

We thank Lars Brownworth for answering our questions.

Nancy Goldstone is an American journalist and author who has written or co-written several history books, including Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe.  Her latest book is The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, which examines the life of the 14th century queen of Naples and Sicily.

We interviewed Mrs. Goldstone by email:

How did you become interested in writing a book about Queen Joanna?

Joanna I was the great-great granddaughter of Beatrice of Provence, the youngest of a family of four thirteenth century sisters who all became queens. This family was the subject of my previous book, Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe, and it was during the course of researching that work that I stumbled upon Joanna I. What immediately fascinated me about Queen Joanna was that she not only legally inherited an important, prestigious kingdom, but ruled it in her own right. Women were not supposed to be allowed to do that in the fourteenth century. In fact, at the very same time that Joanna ruled Naples, England and France were fighting the Hundred Years’ War over just this issue–whether inheritance could be passed through a woman–and the answer was a resounding NO. How then did Joanna do it?

You write that “History has not been kind to, or even honest about, Joanna.” How do you characterize previous accounts, by contemporaries and other historians, about Joanna?

Previous works about Joanna fall into two categories: those who villified her for killing her husband (by far the larger group) and those who tried to exonerate her for this crime. Neither group made any attempt at all to assess her reign in terms of effectiveness or political achievement, despite the fact that she ruled for thirty years. The drama of her story simply overwhelmed them. Also, these earlier works are, unfortunately, confused, riddled with errors and often reliant upon blatant conjecture. The Lady Queen is the first biography in English to not only unravel the narrative of her life so it makes sense, but to look beyond her notoriety and focus in a disciplined way upon her reign in order to weigh it in the context of those of her contemporaries.

You also find that Joanna had many accomplishments in her reign, which have often been overlooked. Do you think that Joanna was overall an effective ruler?

Joanna was a VERY effective ruler. Despite continual threats to her government, she helped her kingdom recover from the effects of both a major financial crisis and the plague. She fought off the powerful king of Hungary, put down insurgencies from her many ambitious male cousins, and kept the Free Companies (bands of maurading outlaws) out of Naples for an astounding thirty years, allowing for the return of peace and prosperity. She built hospitals and churches, encouraged women doctors, and was involved in every aspect of governing. Most importantly, though, she engineered a foreign policy that made her one of the most influential leaders in Italy–another achievement for which she gets absolutely no credit in the history books.

The story of Joanna is also one that deals with many political figures from throughout Europe, and even the internal divisions within the Papacy. Are there challenges in writing about medieval politics and making sure your reader does not get bogged down in the often complex details?

Of course there are! And it would have helped if everyone was not named either Louis or Charles. But Joanna’s story is no more complex than Edward III’s, or Henry VIII’s, or Elizabeth I’s. The difference is that these stories, and the names and details associated with them, are familiar to readers through repetition, and through plays and movies, while Joanna’s is not. I’m hoping that mine will be the first of many studies of this important queen–certainly, she merits it. And a mini-series wouldn’t hurt either; my goodness, in comparison to the romance and drama of Joanna’s family, those Tudors are as tame as the Brady Bunch.

We thank Nancy Goldstone for answering our questions

Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen  is the former curator of the Royal Danish Military Museum and author of the book The Gothic War: Rome’s Final Conflict in the West. Written as a general overview of this critical period, The Gothic War opens with a history of the conflict with Persia and the great Roman general Belisarius’s successful conquest of the Vandals in North Africa. After an account of the Ostrogothic tribe and their history, the campaigns of the long war for Italy are described in detail, including the three sieges of Rome, which turned the great city from a bustling metropolis into a desolate ruin. In addition to Belisarius, the Gothic War featured many of history’s most colorful antagonists, including Rome’s Narses the Eunuch, and the Goths’ ruthless and brilliant tactician, Totila. Two appendices provide information about the armies of the Romans and Ostrogoths, including their organization, weapons, and tactics, all of which changed over the course of the war.

We interviewed Mr. Jacobsen by email:

How did you become interested in writing about the Gothic Wars?

Particularly the Gothic War has had my interest ever since my first year at the University of Copenhagen, when I had my first experience with the period. I recall the frustration that we could find no modern book giving an overview of the events of the Gothic War. Instead we had to use the books by Thomas Hodgkin from the 1890s on invasions of Italy. While his knowledge of the subject was vast and the books well written, they were not up to date with regards to the extensive archaeological and historical research made in the 20th century on the Goths and other barbarian tribes, who participated in the war. Furthermore the language and style had become somewhat old-fashioned.

Since then, my interest in the history of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages only grew and I had the opportunity of studying the subject around Europe as both a historian and an archaeologist. Needless to say, I gained a much greater knowledge and understanding of the period. One of my favorite sources for the period was Procopius, who was on the staff of the general Belisarius, who conducted much of the Gothic War. Procopius’ vivid descriptions of the war and his curious observations on the life of the period continues to fascinate me. During my stays in Italy, I was reminded further of the great struggle, when seeing the primitive graves of Lombard warriors in Fiesole above Firenze (Florence) or in the desperate repairs of the broken walls of Rome, where all manners of debris was used to cover the breaches made by the Ostrogoths. To read about events long gone while seeing the physical traces of them is always a stirring experience, while the combination of archaeological and historical sources made it a possible theme for a book. After all, little can be written, if there are no sources on which to base the conclusions.The project was slowly developing in my mind, until six years ago, during a visit to the British School in Rome, it was suggested to me by some colleagues that I write a new book on the subject of the Gothic War. I had just finished a major project and I suppose I felt that the time was right to begin a new.

Your book focuses on the operational and tactical level of this conflict. What are some of the interesting aspects in how Byzantine generals such as Belisarius and Narses conducted their campaigns?

The wars of Justinian changed the way the Romans conducted warfare. After the experiences in the war against the Vandals AD 533-534, in which the highly trained horse archers gained the victories, the Romans changed their army from a more traditional infantry and cavalry army to creating mobile and very flexible forces based on the armored horse archers, who were capable both of shock charges and missile combat. Because of their tactical flexibility, these armies would later defeat much greater armies during the wars against the Ostrogoths and Franks. Perhaps particularly the destruction of the Frankish forces at Capua in 554 showed how superior these armies were. The entire Frankish army of many thousands was destroyed at the loss of eighty Romans.

To me, Belisarius and Narses show the almost scientific skill with which many Roman commanders approached warfare in the period. Belisarius had few, but superior and mobile, forces, and so decided to conduct his strategy of “city-hopping”. He could not face the huge Ostrogothic army in a regular battle, but he could run rings around them and force them into a type of warfare, the sieges, which they had no skill in. Belisarius understood and used the Roman forces and their strengths against the weaknesses of the Ostrogothic forces. His understanding of logistics also continually forced the Ostrogoths on the defensive, by sending out small and quick detachments to cut the supply of the great lumbering infantry army of the Goths. When Belisarius fought on the Eastern frontier and in the Vandal war, he also adapted his tactics according to the opponents, their way of fighting, and to the Roman way of fighting. That is true generalship.

Narses, on the other hand, was up against an Ostrogothic army that was as mobile as the Roman and the skilled King Totila. Narses quickly understood that all the power of the kingdom was tied up in the person of the king and the army. Without the Ostrogothic king and his army, there was no Ostrogothic kingdom. So accordingly Narses gathered an army and struck right at the heart of the Ostrogothic kingdom, and sought an open battle with Totila as soon as possible. The Roman army was unstable because of its large barbarian component and unwieldy because of its size, and he would only be able to keep it in the field for a relatively short while. But it was big and powerful and made for the task of an open battle. After defeating Totila, Narses disbanded his barbarian auxiliaries and turned over to the defensive strategy used by Belisarius and stuck to the cities while the Frankish and Alamannic armies in AD 553-554 marched over Italy. The barbarians were soon faced by logistical problems and when they were weakened and slowed down, he struck at them, again exploiting their weaknesses. After all, how can an unarmored infantry soldier fight a horse archer? Despite that Narses had no background as a general, he showed a great ability nonetheless.

You conclude that while the Byzantines were militarily successful during the reign of Justinian, it may have been that “these conquests weakened rather than strengthened the empire.” Could you tell us more about your ideas on this?

The Roman armies had been weakened by losses, which had not been replaced. Emperor Justinian had recovered a number of provinces, which were completely exhausted after the long struggle and could not support themselves. The borders had become much longer and had to be protected against barbarians, but there were simply no troops or money left to defend them. In 568 the otherwise fairly weak tribe of the Lombards invaded Italy and easily conquered most of it. I’m not claiming that other reasons did not factor in, such as particularly the plague and the costly wars on the eastern borders, but the Roman weakness was evident as their conquests were soon lost again, apart from Africa and parts of Italy. In my opinion, Justinian tried too much at the same time and in so doing failed to take advantage of his early successes. If he had focused on consolidating his conquest of Italy and Africa, he would have had two rich provinces, which would easily be able to supply both revenue and soldiers for their own defense. However, it is also important to understand, that the Roman Empire at the time to some extent was self-defeating. A successful general was automatically a threat to the imperial throne and so the able generals did not survive long in the politics of the court.

You also had the opportunity to be in Italy and see first hand some of the sites and places that you wrote about. Can you tell us about this experience and how it helped your writing?

In my opinion, a book such as The Gothic War cannot be written without having seen first hand as many of the places as possible. Rome is of course the greatest experience. To stand on the old Roman walls and see the desperate repairs of Belisarius, gives an excellent understanding of the Roman defenses during the sieges of Rome. The Mausoleum of Hadrian is also fairly well preserved and seeing it, made me understand better its importance as a fortress commanding one of the bridges across the Tiber. Ostia, the harbour of Rome, is also well preserved, although nothing is left of the defenses there.

The Pass of Furlo and the site of the fortress of Petra Pertusa, where the Via Flaminia is going through the mountains in a tunnel, were also important to see. Nothing is left of the fortress, but seeing the site, it is easy to understand, that the fortress could close the Via Flaminia entirely.

Other sites, such as Spoleto and Fiesole, are important to see to understand the sieges and defenses of the time. When I sometimes write that a fortress is almost unassailable, I mean it – they are simply too difficult to access and can only be starved out. Ravenna is also a great sight for the churches and the Mausoleum of Theoderic the Great, but otherwise the area there has changed too much to really see its superior defensive position – the marshes are drained and the coastline has changed much. I can fully recommend travelling through Italy and tracing the campaigns of the war that decided the future of Italy. It is a great experience and much is left to see.

We thank Mr. Jacobsen for answering our questions.

Edward N. Luttwak is a  senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.  He is an expert on present day military and strategic issues, and has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, and a number of allied governments as well as international corporations and financial institutions.

In 1976 he wrote The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, which examined questions about the Roman army and its defense of the Roman frontier.  He has now written The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, which has garnered much attention and strong sales.

We interviewed Dr. Luttwak by email:

Your academic work has been mostly geared towards writing about present-day military strategy. But you have now written two books that looks about the military strategy of two historical empires, with your first book The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century AD to the Third, and with this new book, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire. Why did you want to examine these historical periods and write these books?

For very different reasons . The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century AD to the Third , is merely my Johns Hopkins PhD dissertation. At the time, I was already working part-time as a Pentagon consultant but I chose the subject because no theme in contemporary strategy was anywhere as interesting as the simple question of how Rome defended its territories (and added to them, now and then). Also, I did not want to waste my days reading the stultified & chaotically duplicative literature of “political science” in which Strategy is imprisoned, when I could read instead in the often elegant, multi-lingual literature of Roman imperial studies.

By contrast, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is the ultimate result of crass ignorance: when I started out thirty years ago, I foolishly thought I could quickly add a Vol II to the well-received Roman book. I soon discovered that the worthwhile literature –even on the general history of the empire –was downright sparse, and that in the strategic realm the most important texts remained unpublished. Second, I discovered that instead of the great edifice of Roman imperial archeology and epigraphy with its wealth of material evidence, one had to rely perilously on narrative sources, few of them well-edited. As I pursued my much-interrupted research over the years, Byzantine studies emerged from near-nullity to make great advances which allowed me to continue –by then I was far too fascinated by the great epic of Byzantine strategic success to give up. Also, in contrast to the Roman book in which I inferred the strategy from conduct, the Byzantines had written it all down in guidebooks and field manuals, in a series of writings especially fascinating in themselves for one who has participated in the writing of modern field manuals

The traditional perception of the Byzantine empire was that they were not particularly effective in military matters. Many readers will probably be able to recall some of their significant defeats, such as the fall of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade (1204) and its later, more permanent fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. But your work wants us to focus on how the Byzantines were able to develop a military strategy that allowed it to fend off “successive waves of invaders for more than eight hundred years.” Could you tell us how do you believe the Byzantines were so successful for such a long period?

The traditional perception is flat wrong — it derives from the Enlightment’s “black legend” of Byzantine decadence (Gibbon, Voltaire et al hated their religiosity) . The eastern empire reacted to the unprecedented threat of Attila’s Huns by inventing a new strategy that saved it in the immediate crisis of the fifth century, and then (after Justinian’s short-lived reversal) and gradually evolved into an entire corpus of concepts, rules & techniques based on a single, paradoxical, principle: do everything possible to raise, equip and train (above all) the best possible army and navy, and then… do everything possible to use them as little as possible. Instead of seeking the battle of attrtition and annihilation in the classic Roman manner, every alternative was to be tried to avoid , or at least minimize the destructive “attrition” combat of main forces. Instead, potential enemies were to be dissuaded, bribed, subverted, weakened by getting others to attack them, sidetracked into other ventures; if enemy forces attacked nonetheless, they were to be contained and delayed by skirmishing, feints and demostrations while the search went on for other powers near or far willing to attack or at least threaten the enemy power; if enemy attacks persisted nonetheless, they were to be met by countering maneuvers designed to exhaust them rather that the destructive combat of main forces, the very last resort. It was not only the precious trained manpower of the empire that this strategy wanted to conserve, but also the enemy’s …because today’s enemy could become tomorrow’s ally.

Two of the most important factors for the success of the Byzantine empire was their ability to use diplomacy and intelligence. Were the way the Byzantines understood these terms or practiced them different from the way the modern world makes use of them?

Not different at all, but their importance was very different, as compared to contemporary practice , not only in the United States.  Intelligence was deemed all important as the only basis of…intelligent action; the Byzantines could not have survived for long with our mix of competent diplomacy, very competent armed forces, and very mediocre Intelligence –even plain language skills are lacking–as well as outrightly incompetent spies and covert operators (I have seen them in inaction, a sad spectacle) . As for diplomacy, for the Byzantines it was the first instrument of statecraft; in addition to other sticks and carrots, it was often powered by bribes–the Byzantines would have ridiculed Robert Goodloe Harper’s 1798 slogan “Millions for defense but not one penny for tribute” , given that there are so many pennies in a million.

Your work suggests that we should take a look a closer look at the long term military strategy of states. Should other medieval historians look into doing this, for example the strategic methods of the Abbasids or the Venetians, and if so, how would you suggest they approach this topic?

For the Abbasids there is much of great interest (they are of course encountered in my book), but the sources are very poor. For Venice the sources are splendid, the general historiography that would provide the context is highly developed, and if anyone will fund the project (incl. a sunny suite on the Grand Canal) , I am prepared to sail tomorrow to study in situ the archival evidence of how strategy was made in memoranda , correspondence, official papers (generous grantors take note: I do know Veneto..) . Seriously, there is much to be studied, including the evolution of the Venetians from insignificant Byzantine subjects to auxiliaries, then allies, then enemies, from defenders of Constantinople to its looters of 1204 (St. Mark’s has aptly been described as a beached pirate ship in stone), and there are great changes of strategic direction that are eminently worth studying.

Finally, you also wrote an article in the journal Foreign Policy entitled “Take Me Back to Constantinople: How Byzantium, not Rome, can help preserve Pax Americana” where you go on to show what lessons from Byzantine statecraft would be useful for the United States. Why did you want to write this article, and how would you respond to the criticism that the world of Byzantium is too far removed from modern day America to make such lessons valid?

I cannot refute that criticism– I can only confess: yes, I sinned against Clio who must be served, not exploited by facile historical analogies (they are all facile). I was seduced into sin by a devilishly persuasive editor, who reacted over-enthusiastically to the book and actually wrote the heading and opening paragraph…. But having confessed most humbly, I must nevertheless recognize that in extreme cases something can perhaps be learned from the Byzantines after all. For example, instead of keeping tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan at a cost of roughly one million per soldier per year, for an annual expenditure of more than forty billion dollars to fight perhaps 25,000 Taliban, the Byzantines would have sent a couple of Pashtu-speaking eunuchs to the Khyber Pass border with bags of gold to buy out and relocate Taliban leaders and followers–and they would have run out of Talibs to purchase long before spending four billion, let alone forty…

We thank Dr. Luttwak for answering our questions.

The Reconquest Kings of Portugal: Political and Cultural Reorientation on the Medieval Frontier, by Stephen Lay examines how Portugal emerged as an independent kingdom between the late Tenth and the mid Thirteenth centuries. This political development took place against the backdrop of a struggle between Christendom and the Islamic world for control over the Iberian Peninsula, but also decisive in the formation of Portugal was a growing European influence being felt throughout the peninsula during these centuries.

Dr Stephen Lay works in the Graduate Studies Office of the Faculty of Medieval & Modern Languages at Oxford University.  We interviewed him by email:

How did you become interested in the history of Medieval Portugal?

I came to Portuguese Studies via an unusual route. While a number of English-language historians have given their attention to the Portuguese Age of Discovery and Empire, my interest in Medieval Portugal developed out of my earlier work on the Crusades. I had been examining the several interventions by passing crusaders at critical points in Portuguese history, most notably at Lisbon in 1147, hoping to trace in these encounters some of the fundamental motivations behind the crusade itself. Before long though, my focus began to widen to take in the attitudes of the local people toward the strange foreigners in their midst. The unique character of the Portuguese began to impress itself on me and, perhaps like the crusaders themselves, I was drawn to the singular mix of the familiar and the exotic Portugal presents to the newcomer.

Many scholars will be more familiar with the Reconquest from the Castilian and Aragonese perspectives. What do you think can be learned from examining the Portuguese experience of the Reconquest?

The reality, and sometimes the very existence, of the Reconquest have become the subject of quite intense debate. Certainly the medieval period saw a complex pattern of coexistence and conflict between Christian and Muslim peoples in Iberia, and historians have sometimes drawn rather selectively on this complex reality to clarify or even to justify their own contemporary attitudes. The Portuguese experience during this period can provide a useful alternative view to the Castilian and Aragonese perspectives. What characterised the Portuguese Reconquest was, I believe, a higher level of international involvement along with a healthy dose of local pragmatism. Visiting crusaders took part in several Portuguese campaigns, sometimes with decisive results. Just as significant though, were the wider political implications of the reconquest for the Portuguese leadership. The first Portuguese kings made quite conscious use of their status as military leaders defending Christendom against Islam, particularly to mediate with European powers. This shrewd use of political capital was ultimately fundamental in their greatest achievement: securing independence from the kings of León-Castile.

You explain that one of the aims of your book is to examine the influence of other Latin Christians/Europeans during the 12th and 13th centuries. Why do you want to explore this issue?

Cultural misunderstanding can sometimes provide a greater insight than those things people consciously choose to reveal. At the beginning of the eleventh century Portuguese society was, in common with the neighbouring Spanish kingdoms, characterised by a fluidity in political, social and cultural forms. Identity tended to be constructed on local foundations and as a result there was an unusual degree of tolerance toward religious and cultural differences. By the end of the eleventh century, however, this pragmatic tolerance had been challenged by a growing engagement with the Latin Christian culture of Europe. Political and ecclesiastical changes were the most obvious signs of a deeper cultural realignment; more subtle still was a shifting sense of identity as the Portuguese began to see themselves not simply in local terms, but increasingly as defenders of the frontier of Europe as a whole. This was, I believe, a decisive period in the subsequent development of Portugal, with wide implications for later history. Moreover this gradual social transformation also provides a unique insight into the process that created Europe as a whole.

The primary sources for the history of Portugal are strong for the 12th century, but less so for the 13th century. What might you suggest to be some of the potential research topics for scholars interested in examining the Portuguese reconquest?

Certainly the nature of primary source material changes during the thirteenth century. The writing of narrative history tapers off – and indeed the reason for this might in itself provide an interesting focus of research. However the production of other types of source material continued unabated. Rich collections of grants and title deeds, town charters, and official letters and treaties have survived. These sources would all bear a closer scrutiny than they have yet received. Moreover the story such sources tell extends beyond the reconquest in its narrowest sense to reveal something quite unexpected. For in fact in Portugal there was not one reconquest but two. The first was a purely territorial struggle between Christian and Muslim Portuguese for control of the land. A second, more pervasive, struggle was waged for the cultural orientation of the resulting society. A consideration of Portuguese society during this transitional phase has its own intrinsic interest as well as reflecting in often highly revealing ways fundamental developments in the wider medieval world.

We thank Dr. Lay for answering our questions.

Dr. Michael Bratchel is a Lecturer in History at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa.  He works on Italian Renaissance History and focuses on the city of Lucca during the Later Middle Ages.  His latest book Medieval Lucca: And the Evolution of the Renaissance State, which is the first scholarly study to cover the history of the entire region from classical antiquity to the end of the fifteenth century.  We interviewed him by email:

This is your second book on medieval Lucca. What are the differences between Medieval Lucca and the Evolution of the Renaissance State and your earlier work Lucca 1430-1494: The Reconstruction of an Italian City-Republic?

The earlier book was a general history of Lucca from the restoration of the republic in 1430 to the first French invasion of Italy in 1494. Although the events set in motion by the first French expedition impacted rather less decisively on Lucca than on some other parts of the Italian peninsula, the period 1430-1494 seems to me to constitute a coherent chapter in the political history of Lucca – perhaps the last period when Lucca was truly able to pursue independent political and foreign policy initiatives. The earlier book offered a political narrative of a neglected period in the history of Lucca (against a background of debates around urban party formation that were then current in Italian historiography). It attempted a structural analysis of Lucchese politics, whilst also exploring the economic history of Lucca as an important manufacturing and banking centre, investment by the Lucchese patriciate in the countryside, and the role of the Lucchese Church. The first book probably attracted most attention for its chapter on relations between the hegemonic city and its subject communities. It is this theme that has been taken up in the second book. The new book is concerned with the evolution of the Lucchese state and the nature of Lucca’s rule over its subject territories. This project required a much broader perspective. The first book treats a few decades in the socio-political and socio-economic history of Lucca; the second book looks at the creation and organization of a city territory over one and a half millennia – from the foundation myths to the end of the fifteenth century.

Most scholarship on the development of Italian city-states has focused on some of the larger cities such as Florence and Venice. Why do you think it is important to look at a city like Lucca?

Certainly there is a deeply rooted assumption in Anglo-Saxon circles that Italianists must be working on Florence – or else that they should be. There is no doubt that in fifteenth-century Italy the future was to lie with a small number of regional powers: Milan, Venice, Florence; less fashionably with Genoa and Siena. An abiding Whiggism dictates that future success stories should determine those areas of the past most worthy of historical study. The preoccupation with Florence and Venice is legitimized in the recent profusion of studies on the emergence and defining qualities of the regional – or territorial – state (which Lucca was not). An infatuation with the elite culture of the Renaissance has not unreasonably focused attention on Florence (though too often at the expense of the minor princely courts, of Rome, and of the kingdom of Naples).

It is difficult to respond to the question why it is important “to look at a city like Lucca” – in part because there were very few Italian cities like Lucca. In Lucca the city-republic (characteristic of the medieval Italian political scene) survived until 1799 (and lingered on, radically transformed, until 1805); Lucca became part of the grand duchy of Tuscany only in 1847. For this reason alone, Lucca was a very distinctive – if not unique – political entity. I would feel more comfortable explaining why the Lucchese case-study was ideally suited to the purposes of the present study.

First, Lucca was a city of very considerable importance during the early middle ages – the period covered in the initial chapters of the book. Its archival sources for the early middle ages, and the weight of scholarship (Italian, Anglo-American, German) built on these resources, are very largely unrivalled. Without the foundations provided by early medievalists working on Lucca over more than a century the crafting of the book (in the shape that I wanted) would have been impossible. Secondly, Lucca survived as an independent city-republic into, and beyond, the period (from the fourteenth century) when Italian archival records become overwhelmingly, bewilderingly, dense. No other state would have enabled me to study in such depth a functioning, old-style, Italian city-republic – or to draw the distinctions that I have attempted between the traditional communal experience and the new regional states of the future. Thirdly, medieval Lucca controlled a relatively large city-territory; the later Lucchese state was small (though not insignificant) in comparison with later state formations. Working within a reasonably restricted geographical compass, I have been able to explore (under the microscope, so to speak) a whole range of issues relating to village structures and to relationships with the ruling city in ways that would have been difficult to execute on a larger canvas.

One theme I came across in reading your book is the role of the contado - the countryside ruled by Lucca. What are the kind of questions that historians should examine when looking at the relationship between city-states and the rural areas that surround them?

Medieval Lucca might be seen as a view of Lucchese history from the countryside. The approach has its dangers. In Lucca, as elsewhere, policies towards the countryside were affected by the great political upheavals of urban life. I have given attention – though perhaps insufficient prominence – to the impact of changing regimes (consular, podestral, popular), and to citizen responses to external challenges and threats. The balance has been determined by my own interest in rural life, and by the conviction that rivalries, conflicts, and initiatives within the countryside were often as important in shaping the course of events as were interventions from the city.

Studies of state-building have been much preoccupied by the measure and apparatus of control exercised from the centre. Regional differences in this regard explain the interest and importance of local studies like Medieval Lucca. Lucca by the fifteenth century was a very weak state, and typifies the mosaic of local autonomies and fiscal entities that historians have found elsewhere in Italy. At the same time, city-republics – ruled from a single urban centre – aimed at a degree of centralization, uniformity, and control much more pronounced than that attained by larger and later political formations. Historians might ask how far Lucca was typical of other medieval city-republics. Insofar as the new territorial states were amalgamations of city-republics, historians might well ask how far and in what ways the constituent units were transformed through subordination to an overweaning central power.

The subsequent characteristics of Italian city-states have been often associated with the existence, power, or fragility of a rural nobility. Lucca’s distinctiveness has been attributed to the urbanity of the Lucchese nobility and to the weakness of private seigneurial power within all parts of the Lucchese state. In Medieval Lucca I have explored the alleged urban base of Lucca’s great families, and a range of issues normally treated under the label “the conquest of the contado“. I am not an early medievalist and hope that the conclusions that I have reached will prove a fruitful starting-point for future studies. Similarly with regard to the typology. The contrast between a lesser urban-based and a greater country-based aristocracy seems generally unhelpful in the case of Lucca; in other regions it arguably provides a sharper reflection of reality. But recently scholars have begun to question the intrinsic differences in aristocratic landed power traditionally posited – even within Tuscany between Florence, Siena, Lucca, Pisa, and Arezzo. Future studies of the relationship between cities and their subject territories will continue to clarify and refine the differences and the similarities.

I have tried to devote as much attention to the economy and society as to the governance and administration of the Lucchese state – though the two themes are only pursued in separate chapters for the fifteenth century (the area of my own expertise, and the period towards which the whole book is directed). I look (as I have done on other occasions) at citizen investment in the countryside – intense within the Lucchese plain and in the region of low hills surrounding the city; disappearing almost completely in the more distant vicariates. More generally I ask questions about market integration, and how far the Lucchese state constituted an economically functional region (which it did not). Throughout the book my main focus is on Lucca, and on the history of a city-territory that is of interest in its own right. But in treating relations between city and subordinate countryside (economically, politically, administratively), I have tried always to ask questions that place the Lucchese case-study within the current historiography of northern and central Italy.

Your extensive research has taken you into several archives in Lucca. Would you have any suggestions for other historians who want to work on medieval Lucca about what they might find in the city’s archives?

Lucca’s archives are immensely rich in political, administrative, court, and notarial records, particularly from the fourteenth century. They are less well endowed with mercantile records (excluding those of the court of merchants, but most definitely including merchant account books) and family diaries (memorie e note). In most fields of study the Lucchese archives would challenge the most determined and diligent of scholars – though they remain less deterring than the larger of the Italian state archives.

Students of Lucca are advantaged by the excellent inventory published by Salvatore Bongi (Inventario del Regio Archivio di Stato in Lucca, 4 vols. (Lucca, 1872-88) – reprinted in 1999 with the additions and corrections of Giorgio Tori). Manuscript inventories provide details of individual volumes within the various archival series. Further published inventories – relating primarily to acquired family archives (archivi gentilizi) – have appeared regularly since 1946. Perhaps more unique to Lucca are the labours of Claudio Ferri. In 1991 Ferri published an index of notarial acts relating to communes within the Lucchese state, the administrative divisions of Lucca itself, and to hospitals, monasteries, and churches of the entire territory between 1245 and 1499 (L’Archivio dei Notari di Lucca – Istituto Storico Lucchese, Strumenti per la ricerca ii). In 2004 Ferri published an index of notarial acts relating to artisanal, mercantile, financial, and professional activities in Lucca and throughout its territories, 1245-1499 (L’Archivio dei Notari di Lucca – Istituto Storico Lucchese, Strumenti per la ricerca vi). Anyone wishing to work on the communities, institutions, trades, crafts, or professions of medieval Lucca and its territories have at their disposal an index of the massive notarial archives that would be difficult to parallel in any other major state archive.

As important as the state archives is the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Lucca, most famous internationally for its collection of more than 1600 parchments that predate the year 1000 (almost 300 of which are pre-800). The parchments obviously become more plentiful for later centuries, but the earliest ones constitute an essential source for the study of the Lombard and Carolingian periods, not only in the histories of the diocese of Lucca itself but more generally for the history of the whole of northern and central Italy. The Archivio Storico Diocesano contains court records relating to the independent administrative and judicial powers of the Lucchese Church (both with regard to ecclesiastical discipline and to the governance of those parts of the Lucchese territory over which the Church exercised secular authority). It also houses notarial registers that significantly predate the earliest records preserved in the Archivio di Stato, and that provide an important source for anyone working on the social, political, economic, and ecclesiastical history of Tuscany in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The third major repository within the city of Lucca itself is the Biblioteca Statale in Lucca, which has a rich collection of geneological material for anyone wishing to pursue the history of individual Lucchese families. The Biblioteca Statale also contains numerous copies of Lucchese chronicles (mostly unpublished). Beyond the city borders there are significant communal archives in Camaiore, Gallicano, and Pietrasanta (useful largely for the deliberations of local councils). And, of course, a great deal of material is preserved in neighbouring state archives – particularly relating to areas of the Lucchese state that passed out of Lucchese political control and fell under the rule of an adjoining state – notably Florence and Genoa.

Finally, what new research topics are you now working on?

I have been approached by an Italian publisher with a view to producing an Italian translation of Lucca 1430-1494: The Reconstruction of an Italian City-Republic. That book is now fifteen years old (if we exclude the reprint of 2004). I would not want it to reappear without the correction of (relatively few) mistakes, and without some significant rewriting to take account of publications and scholarship since the early 1990s. I have spent a considerable amount of time working on a revised edition – that now exists on my computer and in manuscript. The project has been delayed (perhaps even shelved) in the current economic climate. But a fully revised manuscript of Lucca 1430-1494 now exists – when and if it should be called for.

I have just completed an article requested for a Festschrift: an article entitled “The Countryside and Rural Life in the Fifteenth-Century Lucchesia”. The article, less tied to the theme of state-building, explores the direction of rural change in the decades after 1400 hinted at in Medieval Lucca. At the end of this year (2009) I will be returning to Lucca to work on a couple of villages situated in the eastern margins of the Lucchese plain. And I have continuing (though often thwarted) ambitions to prepare for publication work completed many years ago on Lucchese merchants in Constantinople and on fifteenth-century Lucchese silk manufacture.

We thank Dr. Bratchel for answering our questions.