Auxilia asked:<br>
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It's common knowledge that after the fall of the western (and eventually eastern) Roman Empire, much of the bright light of Roman civilisation was dimmed (I wouldn't say it was extinguished), ushering in a period popularly referred to as the Dark Ages.<br>
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Like a lot of things which are 'common knowledge' this popular understanding is rather oversimplified and can be misleading. While the collapse of central authority meant that many things 'declined', recent historical work emphasises the continuity between the Late Roman and Early Medieval period - and avoids perjorative terms like 'Dark Ages' and value judgements like 'the bright light of Roman civilisation'.<br>
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To my understanding, the military technology and overall knowledge that reached a great apex in Roman times gradually fell into decline as the Dark Ages progressed. IIRC this 'de-evolution' continued until the Middle Ages, where military technology and organisation began to climb back up from the relative depths they had sunk into after the collapse of the Roman Empire.<br>
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The period 500-1500 is generally referred to as the 'Middle Ages' or the 'medieval period', with the first half (the so-called "dark Ages') being the 'early medieval period' and the second half being the 'late' or 'high medieval period.' As for 'de-evolution' - this could be said to have begun before the Middle Ages, or the 'fall' of the Roman Empire. Or a better way to look at it is to acknowledge that different types of society have different military needs and very different economic capacities to fulfill them. One thing that a large economy like the Roman Empire made possible was a large, well-equipped standing army of professionals. Not only did the riches of the Empire make this army possible, they also made it necessary. As the Empire declined economically this army became increasingly difficult to sustain and, when it disintergrated, the kingdoms which suceeded it developed new military structures to meet their new and very different military needs.<br>
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Sometimes those needs were rather similar to those of the old Empire - protection of long borders against multiple external threats with occasional pre-emptive or expansionary aggression. This was the case with the early Carolingian Frankish kingdom, and recent research indicates that the Frankish army had a highly sophisticated infrastructure, system of supply, arms production system, tactics and command - all of which allowed it to fight extensive campaigns, often on several fronts, for years on end. Bernard Bachrach's recetn book [url=http://"www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812235339/qid=1026123633/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-0073841-0255021"] Early Carolingian Warfare [/url] examines the evidence for this army organisation and concludes it was every bit as sophisticated as that of the Romans and some of its campaigns dwarfed the numbers and logistics involved in, for example, Caesar's conquest of Gaul. And this was in the so-called 'Dark Ages'. Since it evolved out of a combination of Late Roman military institutions and of Merovingian Germanic tribal organisation, it wasn't a professional, standing army like that of Rome, but that's largely because it didn't need to be.<br>
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As far as military technology is concerned, a Carolingian army was equipped in a manner which was fairly similar to that of a Late Roman army, though it probably had more heavy cavalry which would have used stirrups - something unknown to the Romans. Contrary to popular belief (and Hollywood) medieval battles were not chaotic free-for-alls with wild mellees of untrained warriors or peasant levies armed with pitchforks. The warrior elite trained from childhood in both individual combat and formation fighting. Most early medieval societies set aside time for the training of men of military age and fighting in formed ranks made up a large part fo that training. And, with exceptions like the rather large armies of the Carolingian Franks, most medieval armies were relatively small and made up of the aristocratic classes, who lived to fight, and mercenary units who fought for a living. So these armies were professional without being standing armies in the Roman sense.<br>
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So if you are asking when professional standing armies rose again, the answer is not until the modern period.<br>
If the question is when did armies start using formed ranks, unit formations and drills, the answer is they never stopped.<br>
If the question is when did armies regain the scale and sophistication of the Roman military infrastructure of supply, armament and deployment, the answer is in the Eighth Century in Frankia.<br>
If the question is when did armies gain the level of technology seen in Roman armour and siege engines - again this technology was never lost, though it was less common in the smaller armies of the early medieval period. By 1000 AD, however, military technology was leaving the Romans well behind and siege warfare was an art which was being raised to a new level. And by the Fourteenth Century armour reached a level of sophisticaiton never seen before.<br>
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Sorry if that's a confusing answer, but its a tricky question.<br>
Cheers, <p>Tim O'Neill / Thiudareiks Flavius
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