The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 6 of 10)

I grew up with the spectacular Minnesota State Fair. I would attend one day with my friends, mostly for the midway, and return the next day by myself. I'd wander the livestock barns, envying those lucky 4-H kids who actually got to live in the dorms above their stock or even get to curl up next to their heifer. Building after building of Home Ec arts, food, furniture, even a cow sculpted of butter. Such riches!

p>Washington State is blessed with at least 4 State fairs, Yakima, Monroe, Lynden and Puyllup. When we lived there, we would attend at least 3 of them. Granted, they aren't as big as the MN. extravaganza, but they have grilled onions, corn dogs, and Fisher Scones with raspberry preserves. br> -- Marcia Fox br> Stockton, California /p> p> NEW LIGHT br> Re: Brandon Crocker's Were the Dark Ages That Dark? : /p>

I am writing in response to the review by Brandon Crocker of Brian Ward-Perkins' recent survey of the archaeological material in the period c. 400-c.700 that Professor Ward-Perkins claims demonstrates the fall of Roman civilization. Mr. Crocker would have the readers of the Spectator believe that scholars who oppose the doom and gloom scenario proposed by Ward-Perkins are motivated some type of "PC" agenda to see the "good" Romans succeed in face of the "bad" Germans. This type of nonsense is not worthy of a respected journal of public opinion such as The American Spectator.

I write both as a conservative and as a specialist in medieval history. The Late Roman empire was particularly aggressive in pursuing policies that would be characterized today as statist. The central government imposed an enormous tax burden on both labor and capital to maintain an imperial superstructure that consisted of not only an enormous army, but also an exceptionally large welfare state. To take just one example, in the neighborhood of 250,000 people in the city of Rome, itself, were supported by public allocations of grain, oil, and wine that were paid for out of taxation from the provinces. The collapse of central control over the western provinces over the course of the fifth century led inter alia to an enormous reduction in the tax burden imposed on the population. This led, in turn, to a sustained period of economic growth throughout the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. The archaeological evidence, far from showing populations declines, as Ward-Perkins would have it, shows rather consistent population expansion, in both the urban and rural context. Moreover, a thorough reading of the surviving written sources from this period also shows continued prosperity. The tendency of scholars such as Ward-Perkins to cherry pick quotations from sources out of context in order to support the doom and gloom model has been the subject of numerous scholarly studies, with which Mr. Crocker apparently is unfamiliar.

To provide just two examples of the misleading nature of both Ward-Perkins' study and Mr. Crocker's review, it should be noted that the sixth century saw the foundation of not fewer than 150 major monasteries within the former provinces of Gaul. Each monastery required vast wealth to support the monks and their large numbers of slaves, servants, and dependents. This wealth was generated, in large part, by donations from the laity. In addition, the sixth century saw the construction of enormous cathedral complexes in dozens of cities in the Gallic provinces. The buildings in these complexes were more numerous, larger, and more expensive than any construction efforts over a comparable period of centralized imperial rule in the cities of Gaul. Of course, building projects of this type, which required very large numbers of both unskilled and skilled workman as well as huge amounts of capital, were only possible in periods of economic growth, when resources could be diverted from the basic effort to feed the population.

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