intro/what was so good about 410 CE?

For anyone who doesn't know, or isn't big on dates, the year 410 C.E. saw the Visigoths under Alaric sacking Rome and the Roman legions saying their last goodbyes to Britain.

What was so good about that? The statement probably deserves some explanation right off the bat.

It's often easy to view historical events, especially in the distant past with too much detachment. We don't mean to suggest through our blog's URL that the killing of many innocent people that accompanied the sack of Rome was a good thing. They were, after all, real people with real lives, not plastic Risk soldiers on a map. What we do mean to suggest is simply that Rome doesn't have a monopoly on what was positive in the ancient world, and that the societies that emerged as the Western Roman empire contracted and its influence decreased weren't "bad." They didn't exist in opposition to the "good" which Roman civilization stood for (and in many cases they were heavily Romanized anyway, but that's beside the point here). We're just trying to question the notion that the "dark ages" were the awful, savage time the History Channel and others outlets often make them out to be. The mainly Germanic and Celtic societies which gained prominence in late antiquity had very much to offer in terms of culture, the arts, and even government. We just want to celebrate that often underrepresented view.

As for what we'll be blogging about, it's kind of open ended. We'll try to touch on all the aspects of medieval studies that interest us, as well the places where the middle ages and pop culture meet, which may or may not make us angry.