This is pretty wrong. The view you describe arises from the complete renewal in the history of the Middle Ages that occurred from the 1950s onwards, and which established that the commonly called "Dark Ages" weren't so dark after all.
But that's not to say that there wasn't a precipitous drop in life quality after the end of the Roman Empire. Recent archeological finds have improved our understanding of the details of Roman daily life way beyond what we used to know even thirty years ago.
For a good and accessible overview of the latest finds in Roman archeology, I'd recommend "The Fall of the Roman Empire and the End of Civilization" by archeologist and historian Bryan Ward Perkins.
He highlights how much the Roman world had in common with our own period, most notably in terms of mass production of standardized goods (e.g. pottery), integration and specialization of local economies in a globalized market throughout the Empire.
The breakdown of this Empire-wide integration led to a dramatic decline in standards of living. To take just two examples extracted from the book:
- pottery finds in Britain reveal that before the Roman conquest, the vessels commonly used were all locally produced and of average quality. The integration in the Empire brought the mass-produced, standardized, high quality Roman pottery into the British economy, so much so that all levels of society had access to it (as illustrated by the archeological finds). This competition drove the British pottery industry out of the market, to the extent that by the time the Romans had to abandon Britain, there was no significant pottery production on the British isles anymore. The outcome is that the potteries found in the tombs of the first Anglo-Saxon kings are of a much poorer quality than those of the British peasants five centuries earlier - to say nothing of the Roman-made pottery a hundred years before.
- In the Roman Empire, thanks to mass production of roof tiles, almost every house had roofs made of clay tiles. This provides a host of benefits, notably in terms of durability and improved health thanks to increased insulation from humidity. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, European housebuilding went back to starch roofs - which in addition to be a poor way to protect yourself from rain or humidity can be a breeding ground for diseases and pests. It wasn't until the late 15th century that the prevalence of tiled roofs reached an extent comparable to that of the Roman world more than a millennia earlier.
I really recommend this book, it shows how the past 15 years of archeological finds have illuminated how close the Roman society was to a sort of proto-consumer society; and how much was lost when it disappeared.
This is interesting stuff, thanks. It's also fun to think about the remarkable advances in things like geared devices, automatons and water wheels in the Hellenistic period through to the end of the Western Empire. Most famously the Antikythera device: http://hist.science.online.fr/antikythera/MORE-DOCS/Greek%20...
It's tantalizing to imagine the next steps from these sorts of devices, like windmills, clocks, programmable mechanical looms, steam power, etc. Given the quality of the engineering in the Antikythera mechanism, it might have been within the technological abilities of Greco-Roman society to develop a classical era version of industrialization. Of course, then you get into the whole debate about whether a slave society has an economic impetus to industrialize (I think they do, following Sidney Mintz's point in "Sweetness and Power" that Caribbean sugar plantations in the 18th century were proto-industrial, factory-like spaces, but that's another discussion).
1/ you say that anglo-saxon kings had lower quality pottery. I said many in the former western part of the empire were better off because they were under a more local, less taxing government, and more affordable
2/ are you saying that 100% people during the roman empire had brick houses and clay roofs? They had not - it seems it was a middle class city trait. After the empire, cities declined and more independent villages developed nearer to actual production areas.
It also looks like you are mostly talking of the british isles post-Rome, which are not representative of how the continent went through the fading away of direct Rome government.
If you were to ask a villager in current France under the (elected) Clovis rule - 5 years before Rome is sacked - if his great grandfather was better off 50 years earlier under a roman militaristic region governor? Probably would be happier.
Another question would be: was the "end" of the roman empire a more prosperous time than its beginning? No it wasn't - trade was higher between 1-200AD than in the 4-5th century. And that's my whole point: the (western) Roman Empire wasn't sustainable, depended on cheap slave labor and conquests, and was not designed to solve new problems.
But that's not to say that there wasn't a precipitous drop in life quality after the end of the Roman Empire. Recent archeological finds have improved our understanding of the details of Roman daily life way beyond what we used to know even thirty years ago.
For a good and accessible overview of the latest finds in Roman archeology, I'd recommend "The Fall of the Roman Empire and the End of Civilization" by archeologist and historian Bryan Ward Perkins.
He highlights how much the Roman world had in common with our own period, most notably in terms of mass production of standardized goods (e.g. pottery), integration and specialization of local economies in a globalized market throughout the Empire.
The breakdown of this Empire-wide integration led to a dramatic decline in standards of living. To take just two examples extracted from the book:
- pottery finds in Britain reveal that before the Roman conquest, the vessels commonly used were all locally produced and of average quality. The integration in the Empire brought the mass-produced, standardized, high quality Roman pottery into the British economy, so much so that all levels of society had access to it (as illustrated by the archeological finds). This competition drove the British pottery industry out of the market, to the extent that by the time the Romans had to abandon Britain, there was no significant pottery production on the British isles anymore. The outcome is that the potteries found in the tombs of the first Anglo-Saxon kings are of a much poorer quality than those of the British peasants five centuries earlier - to say nothing of the Roman-made pottery a hundred years before.
- In the Roman Empire, thanks to mass production of roof tiles, almost every house had roofs made of clay tiles. This provides a host of benefits, notably in terms of durability and improved health thanks to increased insulation from humidity. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, European housebuilding went back to starch roofs - which in addition to be a poor way to protect yourself from rain or humidity can be a breeding ground for diseases and pests. It wasn't until the late 15th century that the prevalence of tiled roofs reached an extent comparable to that of the Roman world more than a millennia earlier.
I really recommend this book, it shows how the past 15 years of archeological finds have illuminated how close the Roman society was to a sort of proto-consumer society; and how much was lost when it disappeared.