• Ko-Fi

    Hello, Dark Ages Listeners. The first episode of Season Two will be dropping tomorrow. It felt very good to be back in front of the mic, and I hope you all enjoy it. Just a small announcement here that you can now support the show through Ko-fi; it’s like a digital tip-jar. Just hit this…

  • 22. The End of the Beginning

    22. The End of the Beginning

    474 to 476 CE In which we kill off the Western Roman Empire, and then dig through the remains to try and figure out what happened. More importantly, where do we go from here? Here we are ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, come to witness the end of the Roman Empire in the west,…

  • 21. Alas, Britain

    21. Alas, Britain

    c. 367 to c. 460 CE Britain was abandoned by Rome early compared to the rest of it’s territory, and what followed wasn’t pretty. Okay, so, we have arrived at the much-teased episode about post Roman Britain. Hopefully I haven’t hyped this too much; I do try my best to manage expectations. A few days…

  • 20. Gepids East Goths and Huns, Oh My

    20. Gepids East Goths and Huns, Oh My

    453 CE to 460 CE Out of the wreckage of Attila’s empire, new peoples emerge. New actors inject new elements into the political game of the late Roman empire British Museum entry for the Gepids, with some artefacts History Files Article and Regnal List of the Gepids Scirian Earring found at Bakod Puszta The problem…

  • 19. King Euric

    19. King Euric

    466 to around 473 The Visigoths break out, under the leadership of their new and aggressive King Euric. Inside the empire, another emperor falls to Ricimer’s scheming. An appropriate map for this episode is here. Over the last few episodes, we’ve been pretty tied up in Imperial politics, with the coup of Majorian and Ricimer,…

  • 18. All or Nothing: The Battle of Cape Bon

    18. All or Nothing: The Battle of Cape Bon

    461 to 468 CE If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss… -Rudyard Kipling, If The East and West combine forces in one great push to take Africa backs…

  • 17. The Phantom Kingdom

    17. The Phantom Kingdom

    456 to 464 CE Emperor Majorian and his Right-Hand man Ricimer attempt to pull the empire back from the brink after the departure of Avitus. But there’s a snake in the grass, a fly in the ointment, and a bad apple in the barrel. It all leads to the creation of a new entity called…

  • 16. Speaking Frankly

    16. Speaking Frankly

    The Franks, Part I 280 to 480 CE We welcome the Franks onto the stage of Europe, and look at their origins, early history, ferocious reputation, and the way modern politics work their way into the telling of history. The floodgates have opened, and now the puns cannot be stopped. Kyrie eleison. We have arrived…

  • Transcripts

    Just to let everyone know, I have begun to place transcripts for each episode on the relevant post. I’ve done the most recent four, and will back-fill as I go along. Hopefully you’ll find that helpful or interesting, or you might ignore it entirely, which is okay too.

  • 15. Unmitigated Gaul

    15. Unmitigated Gaul

    418 CE to 456 CE A senator by the name of Eparchius Avitus is dragooned into filling the imperial shoes left behind by the well-aimed brick that took out Petronius Maximus. His life gives a framework for discussing the place of southern Gaul within the Roman empire, and how the Visigoths were settling in. And…