Editing Late antiquity (section)

==Terminology==
The term {{lang|de|Spätantike}}, literally 'late antiquity', has been used by German-speaking historians since its popularization by [[Alois Riegl]] in the early 20th century.<ref>A. Giardina, "Esplosione di tardoantico", ''Studi storici'' 40 (1999).</ref> It was given currency in English partly by the writings of [[Peter Robert Lamont Brown|Peter Brown]], whose survey ''The World of Late Antiquity'' (1971) revised the [[Edward Gibbon|Gibbon]] view of a stale and ossified Classical culture, in favour of a vibrant time of renewals and beginnings, and whose ''The Making of Late Antiquity'' offered a new paradigm of understanding the changes in Western culture of the time in order to confront Sir [[Richard Southern]]'s ''The Making of the Middle Ages''.<ref>Glen W. Bowersock, "The Vanishing Paradigm of the Fall of Rome", ''Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences'' '''49'''.8 (May 1996:29–43) p. 34.</ref>[[File:Germanischer Sklave.jpg|thumb|Late 4th-century Roman bust of a Germanic slave in [[Augusta Treverorum]] ([[Trier]]) in [[Belgica Prima]], seat of the [[praetorian prefecture of Gaul]] ([[Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier]])]]

The continuities between the [[History of the Roman Empire|later Roman Empire]],<ref>The Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity dates this as follows: [http://www.ocla.ox.ac.uk/sect_lre.shtml "The late Roman period (which we are defining as, roughly, CE 250–450)..."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706031310/http://www.ocla.ox.ac.uk/sect_lre.shtml |date=2017-07-06 }}</ref> as it was reorganized by [[Diocletian]] (r. 284–305), and the [[Early Middle Ages]] are stressed by writers{{who?|date=December 2023}} who wish to emphasize that the seeds of medieval culture were already developing in the [[Christianization|Christianized]] empire, and that they continued to do so in the Eastern Roman Empire or [[Byzantine Empire]] at least until the [[Early Muslim conquests|coming of Islam]]. Concurrently, some migrating [[Germanic peoples|Germanic tribes]] such as the [[Ostrogoths]] and [[Visigoths]] saw themselves as perpetuating the "Roman" tradition. While the usage "Late Antiquity" suggests that the social and cultural priorities of [[classical antiquity]] endured throughout [[Europe]] into the [[Middle Ages]], the usage of "Early Middle Ages" or "Early Byzantine" emphasizes a break with the classical past, and the term "[[Migration Period]]" tends to de-emphasize the disruptions in the former Western Roman Empire caused by the creation of Germanic kingdoms within its borders beginning with the ''[[Foederati|foedus]]'' with the [[Goths]] in Aquitania in 418.<ref>A recent thesis advanced by Peter Heather of Oxford posits the Goths, Hunnic Empire, and the [[Crossing of the Rhine|Rhine invaders of 406]] (Alans, Suevi, Vandals) as the direct causes of the Western Roman Empire's crippling; ''The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the Barbarians'', OUP 2005.</ref>

The general decline of population, technological knowledge and standards of living in Europe during this period became the archetypal example of [[societal collapse]] for writers from the [[Renaissance]]. As a result of this decline, and the relative scarcity of historical records from Europe in particular, the period from roughly the early fifth century until the [[Carolingian Renaissance]] (or later still) was referred to as the "[[Dark Ages (historiography)|Dark Ages]]". This term has mostly been abandoned as a name for a historiographical epoch, being replaced by "Late Antiquity" in the periodization of the late Western Roman Empire, the early Byzantine Empire and the Early Middle Ages.<ref name="clark">Gilian Clark, ''Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction'' (Oxford 2011), pp. 1–2.</ref> The term is seldom applied to Britain; the collapse of Roman rule in the island in the early fifth century is seen as a unique aspect of European history in the period.{{sfn|Dark|2000|p=12}}