What Did Medieval People Know About The Roman Empire?
What it was like to live in the shadow of a great empire
There is an image that modern people have of Early Medieval peoples. The people are dirty, disheveled and can often be found huddling underneath Roman aqueducts. They squat in ruins that they don’t understand and whisper about gods long dead. When asked, these poor people don’t know what an aqueduct is nor do they know how to rebuild the ones that have fallen. This is the proverbial Dark Ages.
How much did Medieval people really know about the Roman Empire? It turns out, they knew quite a lot.
In fact, nearly everything during the Medieval Period was done with the ghost of the Western Roman Empire hovering over the shoulder of Europe.
Common Language
After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Latin continued to be used as a common language throughout the old empire. Classical Latin evolved into Vulgar Latin which was heavily used up until the 9th century. The shared language of Rome kept people connected to the past, connected to each other and allowed people to read the old…
