Ferdinand Lot (1886–1952)

As we live in a decadent age in which the decline of the West, Christianity and, I fear, the original and still the greatest exemplar of liberal democracy, the United States, is rushing us headlong into a civilizational eclipse, I was motivated to pull down from the shelves a classic work of academic history that I had first read 52 years ago during my undergraduate days.

Ferdinand Lot's masterpiece was first published in 1921 having been begun in 1913 but interrupted by another world historical event in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo. A second edition was published in 1950, the year before Lot died. What Lot bequeathed to his intellectual heirs was a comprehensive account of the decline of Rome stretching back to the third century, A.D., the collapse of the Western Empire with the defeat of the army of Romulus Augustulus by the Ostrogoths led by Odoacer in 476, a detailed account of the attempts to recover the Western territories by Constantinople, and a history of the rise and decline of the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Lombards and Franks up to the time of Charles Martel in the 8th century, He thus concludes his epic study just at the time of rise of Islam in Western Europe and just before the dawn of the Carolingian age which took its name from Charlemagne.

This is an exhaustive history, and in many ways an exhausting one. It certainly took me a lot longer to navigate the second time around. Lot covers all aspects of the political and military history of the roughly 500 year period in his scope. But he also does a deep dive into the economic and social arrangements, religious conflict between the older pagan modes and orders and those of their Christian successors. He touches at some length on the struggle within Christianity between the Fathers of the (Catholic) Church and adherents of the various Christian heresies: Arians, Nestorians, Pelagians, Monophysites, et. al. I had forgotten or not absorbed the fact that Arianism did not fade from the scene after losing out at the Council of Nicea in 325. In fact, Arianism proved to be a thriving force among most notably the Goths who ruled large swaths of Italy, Gaul and Spain before being defeated by an imperial reconquista carried out by Justinian, the rise of the Franks in Gaul and their defeat by the forces of Islam in Spain in the year 711.

Lot's thesis takes as its point of departure a political crisis in the aftermath of the assassination of the emperor Alexander Severus in 235. The turmoil nearly brought the empire to an early demise but for the efforts of three successive emperors from Illyria, roughly the area of the former Yugoslavia. The resolution of the political crisis was ultimately due to the recognition by Diocletian and Constantine that the empire was overextended and indefensible. Thus in 330, twelve years after what turned out to be a world historical victory at the battle of Milviian Bridge, and five years after he convened the world historical Council of Nicaea, Constantine split the empire in two and created a "second Rome" at Constantinople.

But the resolution of the political crisis only put off the day of reckoning. Rome itself was a city populated by drones. It was totally reliant on the provinces for its food. Labor was considered declasse. The civic spirit had been hollowed out. The armies of Rome were already sourced from barbarian tribes and eventually were led by barbarian kings. Outsourcing national security did not end well for the Western Empire.

Access to precious minerals became more restricted over time. The currency became debased and in some areas its circulation nearly disappeared altogether so that taxes were customarily paid in kind. At the same time the needs of the state for revenues and the products of agriculture were so demanding that in the late Empire laws were instituted that for the first time legally bound peasants to the soil regardless of their legal status as freemen. Thus, the roots of what eventually became the serfdom of medieval feudal society were implanted in late imperial Rome.

The decline of Roman society in the late empire was also manifested in the debasement of the fine arts, sculpture, painting, music and in the quality of literature. To some degree this was a result of the impact of Christianity which attacked any art inspired by the old pagan mythologies. But art that is not state supported requires patrons with surplus wealth that can be used to commission works of artists. But the collapse of the currency, of necessity, had an adverse impact on art. Eventually, the ability to create in what Lot calls the "plastic arts", e.g., sculpture in marble dies out and the skills needed disappear as their transmission from masters to students eventually dies out.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly was a corruption and collapse of public spirit caused by the progressive narrowing of the scope of politics due to the ongoing fragmentation of the empire, a decentralized field of action occurring at the same time as an increasingly centralized authority. I would add to Lot's thesis the fact that as Roman citizenship was extended to non-Roman, non-Latinate populations across the empire, the citizens of Rome were hollowed out consumers of the wealth of the state and contributed nearly nothing to it. Over time they clambered "into the cart" and left the pulling to the barbarians who became their masters.

The second and third parts of Lot's work chronicles the downfall of the Western Empire, the rise and decline of the barbarian kingdoms that filled the vacuum in Italy, Gaul, Spain, Britain and North Africa, the partially successful, but ultimately futile attempt by Justinian to reunite the West with the Eastern Empire under the auspices of Constantinople and the triumph of the Franks in Gaul and the territories along the Rhine. The first Frankish dynasty known to history as the Merovingians taking its name from one Merovech, a fifth century king of the Salian Franks, whose grandson Clovis was the political and military talent who accomplished the conquest of Gaul and inaugurated the dynasty that lasted from roughly 486 to 721 when it was finally defeated by Charles Martel who Lot credits as the actual founder of the Carolingian dynasty. It might be worth noting that the Merovingian dynasty which has completely disappeared from our consciousness endured for about the same length of time as the United States under its present constitution.

It had always been my impression that the fall of the Western Empire was a done deal in the wake of the the victory of Odoacer in 476 AD. But as Lot points out life in Rome and in the western provinces continued as before. There was no real consciousness of a world historical event having occurred. This was due in part to the fact that many of the barbarian kings had to some degree been serving as Roman allies or mercenary armies in the service of Rome. Moreover, there was an attempt by Justinian operating out of the Eastern imperial capital in Constantinople to reconquer the Western provinces and unite them to the empire. Ultimately, Justinian's resources were overextended and the reconquista ended in failure. The decline of the Roman civilization could not be arrested and the rise of new forces and institutions in the form of Islamic aggression, the influence and authority of the Papacy and the taking root of the feudal system of vassalage and the rise of the aristocracy marked the end of Roman civilization and its replacement by what came to called medieval modes and orders.

One final footnote to this review of Lot's masterpiece. It features a 26 page bibliography with the works cited listed from I to DCCXLII in Roman numerals. I thought that was an amusing touch.… (más)

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Lot-Etude-sur-le-lancelot-en-prose/1336803

> Jullian Camille. Ferdinand Lot, Étude sur le Lancelot en prose (fasc. CCXXVI de la Bibl. de l'École des Hautes Études), 1918.
In: Revue des Études Anciennes. Tome 22, 1920, n°2. pp. 154-155. … ; (en ligne),
URL : https://www.persee.fr/doc/rea_0035-2004_1920_num_22_2_2115_t1_0154_0000_3

> ETUDE SUR LE LANCELOT EN PROSE, de Ferdinand Lot. — Ferdinand Lot s’efforce d’y prouver que le corpus du Lancelot-Graal est dû à un seul auteur (thèse qui a été fort contestée depuis, sans qu’aucune preuve ait pu être fournie du contraire). Dans la grande tradition des dièses universitaires du début du siècle, il est amené, pour ce faire, à exprimer et vérifier jour après jour la chronologie du récit, et à en justifier toutes les prétendues invraisemblances. Une analyse très détaillée de toutes les parties de l’oeuvre permet de prendre connaissance de textes peu faciles d’accès (dont la première partie du roman : l’Estoire del Saint Graal). Plusieurs appendices très instructifs sur le sens de l’oeuvre complètent ce travail titanesque. Honoré Champion éditeur - 1954 (écrit en 1918).
—Revue Française de Yoga, (5), Janv. 1992… (más)