That's very reasonable. But there was a slow collapse of the economy that is an intermediate cause in the chain of events that is central to the fall.
You can speculate what caused that collapse, that in turn caused the fall and there are also many causes to consider, but again, there is one intermediate cause that is Christianism. The religion altered several aspects of the economy: slavery, commerce and lending.
Now you can again speculate about what make them think it was a good idea to adopt Christianism as official religion. If a previous crisis existed that shook the foundations of the empire. Anyway, it seems the solution solved nothing.
The eastern half of the empire was just as Christian and didn’t collapse for another thousand years, so you can’t really point to Christianity as the cause.
I don’t know why people obsess over finding a cause for the fall of Rome when it was one of the world’s longest lasting empires. We should be more interested in how it endured for over a millennia (nearly two thousand years if you count the Republic) whereas most continent-spanning empires fell apart in a handful of centuries or even decades.
That's actually quite a good remark. The most compelling theory I have read on the fall of the western part of the empire was that a mode of production based a land based elite that relied on slavery came to have a lot of limitations. The war machine kept it going as new land could be given to fighting soldiers (that would become less of a threat when settled) and fueled the economy with ever more slave.
When Rome invaded the hellenistic region, there was already an established economy that relied a lot less on big domains worked by slaves and that region managed to keep it that way. Thus when the slave mode of production came to a dead end, it was the part of the empire that relied massively on it that collapsed.
Another interesting point was that the adoption of Christianity made the elite even bigger with the whole Church apparatus now living the life and putting even more pressure on the system.
> mode of production based a land based elite that relied on slavery came to have a lot of limitations
This whole theory came from the 60s where Marxist historiography was very popular and really is not based on much.
It just basically taking the Marxism 101 and plastering it over the historical empire and the source base for it is a few political speeches.
Modern history that looks this can almost universally not verify many of these claims based on the sources used. Making incredibly complex economic argument to analyses a society where we have almost 0 visibility on economic data is quite a tall order.
By the time the empire was at maximum size, the Roman citizenship was very broad and while large scale slave agriculture was still a thing the majority of the empire was not large scale slave agriculture. Certainty far less so then it was in late Republic where the amount of slaves compared to the amount of citizenship was far higher.
The reality is that by 300-400 century Roman was a pretty advanced economy that had a very significant private sector, banking, a mix of all kinds of agricultural system and a huge amount of trade. Modern research suggest analyzing Rome as some elite land based economy is a really bad idea.
> Another interesting point was that the adoption of Christianity made the elite even bigger with the whole Church apparatus now living the life and putting even more pressure on the system.
This fails to account for the fact that Paganism also had many state sponsored position and that the state spent a lot on religious festivals. Both in Rome and all over the empire.
Also, it has to be considered that Christianity only became relevant by the point where the problems of the Western empire were already very apparent and the constant civil wars of the 300rd century caused massive problems.
In effect, Christianity is really more the result of the Roman instability then the cause.
Ooops I must have found it too compelling only because it aligned with my worldview (and was well written). Thanks for taking the time to assess those arguments.
If you blame Christianity, what about all of Constantine's other major changes? Was it the Tetrarchy? The formation of Constantinople? The restructuring of the government or military? The introduction of a new currency? All monumental changes that had about as much of an effect as the change of religious policy.
I'm no fan of Christianity, but the claim that it was central to the fall always comes off as somewhat lazy. Religion needed reform, and maybe they could have done it in a different manner which would have led to a more stable West but it just as likely could have destroyed the East.
If you blame Christianity, what about all of Constantine's other major changes?
It's the Economy, Steve. In particular, if you discourage commerce, you're playing with fire in an empire with such an extension.
I'm no fan of Christianity, but the claim that it was central to the fall always comes off as somewhat lazy.
I thought I'd added enough nuance. The three aspects I mentioned are not trivial and can be connected directly. In fact, it's not something that just occured to me, there's abundant literature on them and are considered most probable causes by a lot of scolars.
It is, to say the least, not obvious that Constantine's conversion to Christianity was the thing he did that had most impact on commerce in the Roman Empire.
You did indeed mention "three aspects". But merely mentioning a thing proves nothing. For instance, you say that the Roman Empire's adoption of Christianity had an effect on the practice of slavery, which had an effect on commerce. Plausible, for sure. But Christian Rome didn't abolish slavery or slave-trading, or anything like that. Do you have evidence that what changes Christianity brought to the institution of slavery in the Roman Empire actually harmed its economy?
Again, you mention lending. Many Christians have been opposed to lending at interest, or to lending at (what they see as) excessive interest. But so far as I can tell the Roman Empire did not abolish or greatly restrict lending when it became Christian. Constantine himself set a maximum interest rate of 12%, which doesn't seem unreasonably low, and it seems that that stayed in place for at least the next couple of centuries. (And, in particular, until after the fall of the Western empire.)
So I think you need more detail and more evidence for the claim you're making.
Also: "Christianism"? The usual term is "Christianity", as I'm sure you know. People sometimes make a distinction between "Islam" the religion and "Islamism" the political ideology, but if you make a similar distinction then it seems to me that what the Roman Empire converted to was Christianity rather than Christianism. Are you making that distinction, or some other distinction, or are you just hoping that your choice of wording will annoy Christians?
(I am not a Christian and think it's very plausible that the Roman Empire's adoption of Christianity was bad for it and for the world. Also, possibly, for Christianity. So I'm not making the criticisms I do out of a desire to support Christianity and suppress criticism of it.)
> The religion altered several aspects of the economy: slavery, commerce and lending.
It does seem that the western half of the empire was more dependent on slavery. But Christianity wasn’t the only factor in that. With fewer conquests there were fewer slaves to take.
OK, let's say breeding humans is less efficient than making wars, to keep the slave supply. But if in a scarcity market you impose an outright ban, would it improve the situation?
For the Economy, I ask, not sure if slaves were better off.
Also, the ban wasn't the only effect I mentioned. Actually it seems that attacking commerce and credit could be even more debilitating.
You can speculate what caused that collapse, that in turn caused the fall and there are also many causes to consider, but again, there is one intermediate cause that is Christianism. The religion altered several aspects of the economy: slavery, commerce and lending.
Now you can again speculate about what make them think it was a good idea to adopt Christianism as official religion. If a previous crisis existed that shook the foundations of the empire. Anyway, it seems the solution solved nothing.
So xxx --> Christianism --> Economy --> Fall