If Rome never became christian how would this affect the Germanic kingdoms later ?

Lets say for whatever reason Rome never Christianizes and it never becomes widespread, however the empire still falls because of the OTL reasons and the Germanic migrations start , however if these tribes were never christianized how does this affect the kingdoms they build in the ruins of the empire ? Will they be a pagan medieval society (although in a pagan society laws would be very different for example more bathing, women with more power etc.) or will they retain some form of primitive tribal structure like they did be fore the migration era ? What kinds of buildings would they build ?
 
Lets say for whatever reason Rome never Christianizes and it never becomes widespread, however the empire still falls because of the OTL reasons and the Germanic migrations start , however if these tribes were never christianized how does this affect the kingdoms they build in the ruins of the empire ? Will they be a pagan medieval society (although in a pagan society laws would be very different for example more bathing, women with more power etc.) or will they retain some form of primitive tribal structure like they did be fore the migration era ? What kinds of buildings would they build ?

First of all, even if Christianity fails to spread around, that does not mean that Graeco-Roman paganism will survive indefinitely, as its limits had been stress-tested for centuries by then, and new, more attracting religions that appealed to a part of man, whether be it reason, sense of unity or whatever.

But, let's assume that Christianity fails for whatever reasons, and the other religions do not take up its mantle.

The answer is very simple: Paganism, at least the European one, has a concept that can be summed up as "if the enemy wins despite all the odds and we suffer disasters all the time then it means that the enemy's gods are more powerful than ours. Let's convert right now!"

So, this means that Germanic Paganism becomes dominant instead, maybe influenced by religious philosophies developed by the Graeco-roman pagans, maybe not. Without the Church around to keep knowledge around, I think that the Dark Ages may get even more Dark, but in the sense of begin even more obscure than they are now. In fact,I'd dare to say that there would be a full-on technological regression to the second century Before common Era.
 
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The answer is very simple: Paganism, at least the European one, has a concept that can be summed up as "if the enemy wins despite all the odds and we suffer disasters all the time then it means that the enemy's gods are more powerful than ours. Let's convert right now!"

So, this means that Germanic Paganism becomes dominant instead, maybe influenced by religious philosophies developed by the Graeco-roman pagans, maybe not. Without the Church around to keep knowledge around, I think that the Dark Ages may get even more Dark, but in the sense of begin even more obscure than they are now. In fact,I'd dare to say that there would be a full-on technological regression to the second century Before common Era.

Er, no. That is not how Greco-Roman pagans perceived things. They would percieve setbacks like that as being due either to natural forces or to their gods being disrespected or offended in some way. They would not decide, 'oh, these guys' gods are stronger, lets abandon thousands of years of tradition for the ways of foreigners, instead of just incorporating those foreign gods and rites into our own system'. What you would get would be syncretism(sp?) wherein Germanic gods are identified with/as Mediterranean gods or absorbed into the pantheon in their own right.
Mostly you seem to be under the misconception that polytheistic religions are mutually exclusive in a similar manner to Abrahamic faiths. They were and are not. One could, and some do, worship multiple pantheons of gods, or only some gods from one, or some taken from two or more, or smaller, local gods. Overall, religiously, you would end up with gradations, in heavily Germanic areas you'd get worship of Germanic gods, in areas with significant mixing of Germanic and Romantic peoples you'd get a composite religion including gods and myths from both sides, as had already previously happened with the Roman conquests of Celtic lands, and in places without any significant Germanic settlement, religious practices would not change.
I am not being terribly eloquent, and I appologise for that, but the gist I am trying to communicate is that Mediterranean Polytheism was an incredibly flexible religion, being already composed of many older belief systems, and would not have been overthrown or particularly disturbed by the introduction of Germanic paganism to the mix, for neither was exclusive in the same manner as Christianity.

On the matter of technological decline, I rather doubt it would be as bad as you posit. There were centres of learning and scholarship before Christianity, and I rather doubt that the scholastic tradition of the Roman world would die out without the Church. Especially as most of the 'barbarians' admired Roman culture and often attempted to emulate it.
 
I think technology wouldn't be regressed either we actually have a real historical example the Ubii who populated Colonia Agrippa who wanted to be Romanized and wanted to become Roman citizens they spoke Latin in addition to worshipping roman Gods or perhaps a syncretization I heard the romans even built for them a shrine to their matron Goddesses.

As far as cities go do you think it would be mostly Roman design or would the tribes develop on their own. I think Romanized tribes like the Ubii and Batavi and others may be the powerhouses of Romanization among the tribes with most of them becoming Roman styled in architecture and a blend of cultures in clothing and custom and social hierarchy( with changes like the Germanic concept of not owning women and Blood Feuds being incorporated into law almost taking over the gladiator part of roman society). What does anyone else think ?
 
I'd dare to say that there would be a full-on technological regression to the second century Before common Era.
Technologically speaking, in many respects the second century BCE had more knowledge available to it than 4th or 5th century Europe. Not even Galen knew as much as Hippocrates, and Aristarchos knew more than Ptolemy. And that was merely in the second century CE.
 

jahenders

Banned
I would tend to agree that the decline won't be quite as severe as suggested for some of the reasons you posit. However, without a large, powerful, wide spread church, what organizations in the fading Roman world are going to have the focus and the resources to copy and preserve copies of so many texts? Many copies (sometimes almost all) of lots of writings were lost in the various wars and barbarian invasions. In some cases, the Church then had the only known copy of some things and had a structure/process to then copy and re-distribute that knowledge. Without some such group, you might have an isolated copy somewhere in the middle east, but it might be centuries before that knowledge makes its way back to France, Germany, or England.

So, I think you would have some level of decline in some areas and, especially, a considerable slowdown in the advancement of knowledge because people might know how to keep doing what they're doing, but they might have to derive the (then lost) underlying principles in order to really advance.

On the matter of technological decline, I rather doubt it would be as bad as you posit. There were centres of learning and scholarship before Christianity, and I rather doubt that the scholastic tradition of the Roman world would die out without the Church. Especially as most of the 'barbarians' admired Roman culture and often attempted to emulate it.
 
On the matter of technological decline, I rather doubt it would be as bad as you posit. There were centres of learning and scholarship before Christianity, and I rather doubt that the scholastic tradition of the Roman world would die out without the Church. Especially as most of the 'barbarians' admired Roman culture and often attempted to emulate it.

Who are the centers of literacy and scholarly learning in your proposed society? What great non-Christian writers do we know of from the dark ages?
 
Who are the centers of literacy and scholarly learning in your proposed society? What great non-Christian writers do we know of from the dark ages?

Assuming you mean European non-Christians, since there were plenty of Persian, Chinese and Indian writers during the European Dark Ages, there weren't very many 'civilised' non-Christian peoples in Europe through the Dark Ages. The Franks, Visigoth, Byzantines etc were Christians, the non-Christians were more tribal groups like the Slavs, Angles and Saxons, Jutes and Avars. When these various peoples became 'civilised', they converted to Christianity, so at least were nominal Christians. Don't forget that literacy was scarce enough at this time, but amongst pagans even more so, since many didn't have developed writing systems and even more so didn't have the time to write epics.
 
Who are the centers of literacy and scholarly learning in your proposed society? What great non-Christian writers do we know of from the dark ages?
The eastern empire still exists you know. Anyway, Cassiodorus was writing as an aide to Theodoric, so I don't see why his analogue ITTL wouldn't still write. Jordanes was a Roman bureaucrat of Gothic descent-I'm pretty certain his analogue could still write ITTL as well.

I don't see why writing and scholarly learning can't be the preserve of secular bureaucrats as it had always been previously?
 
The eastern empire still exists you know.

Sure, but a western Europe that has to rediscover literacy, or start from a lower base, is very different. I wouldn't be surprised if post-Roman Britain becomes loses literacy completely. Maybe not the Franks, but...
 
Sure, but a western Europe that has to rediscover literacy, or start from a lower base, is very different. I wouldn't be surprised if post-Roman Britain becomes loses literacy completely. Maybe not the Franks, but...
I made some edits in the post. For sure, there will be some dropoff, but I feel it's being extremely exaggerated in this thread (not sure about sub-Roman Britain though).
 
In the post-Roman West, from what I've read, there were two (somewhat interrelated) main vehicles for preserving knowledge and Roman ways.

First there was the Church, which preserved and copied many old texts, and to an extent took over some functions of law and administration. Without the Church, I'm not sure what vehicle is going to preserve such a large bulk of old knowledge. Perhaps one will spring up, but I can't imagine what it would be.

Then there are the educated, land-owning aristocrats. These include folks such as the Symmachi of Rome, who I believe provided consuls and urban prefects under the Ostrogoths, and Gallo-Romans such as Sidonius Apollonaris. These guys variously served in the courts of German kings (helping formulate law codes, for instance), administered their local areas, and made the Church bishopric system a part of the aristocratic secular cursus honorum (helping link the Church with secular administration and government).

These aristocrats, if denied the Church as a vehicle for developing their power and influence and preserving their status, will simply find other ways -- further exploiting the opportunities existing at the German royal courts, for example.

So while losing the Church is bound to hurt in one way -- the preservation of old texts -- I don't think it will badly affect the other primary vehicle for transmission of Roman ways (the aristocratic element). These will continue to look out for their own interests, and in the process pass along a fair amount of Roman learning and administrative techniques.
 
In terms of how paganisms might develop it might be useful to look at the collective of philosophies and religions known as Hinduism. That's essentially the most prominent example of an Indo-European paganism (Vedic religion) syncreticising with other beliefs to form something new.
 
It would be interesting if the Christian missionaries made inroads within the Germans. We could see the Volkwanderung reframed as a holy war against the decadence of the Greco-Roman Pagans. This could result in a much more decentralised and heterodox church, with each tribe having it's own autonomous church and theology. This could actually significantly dull the appeal of Christianity in the long run, depending on the influx of Neo Platonic ideas.
 
I don't see why writing and scholarly learning can't be the preserve of secular bureaucrats as it had always been previously?
Mostly because bureaucracy is a state function, and since we've already stated that the state is going to fall, then presumably the state bureaucracy will follow suit. One could argue that the barbarians may attempt to keep the bureaucracy intact in order to aid in their rule, but since they had far more difficulty preserving Roman bureaucracy than Roman religion I feel it's safe to assume that the church had a leg up on secular scholars, likely because they were big and powerful, but not threatening and with a massive diplomatic range.

Secular scholars will undoubtedly still save much, but I have my doubts that they will do as well as the church of OTL in doing so, if only because they will inevitably be less organized and have fewer resources.
 
Mostly because bureaucracy is a state function, and since we've already stated that the state is going to fall, then presumably the state bureaucracy will follow suit. One could argue that the barbarians may attempt to keep the bureaucracy intact in order to aid in their rule, but since they had far more difficulty preserving Roman bureaucracy than Roman religion I feel it's safe to assume that the church had a leg up on secular scholars, likely because they were big and powerful, but not threatening and with a massive diplomatic range.

Secular scholars will undoubtedly still save much, but I have my doubts that they will do as well as the church of OTL in doing so, if only because they will inevitably be less organized and have fewer resources.
The German states essentially coopted and inserted themselves into the existing Roman government structure OTL, I don't see why this wouldn't be the same ITTL.
 
I'm thinking that the Germanic successor kingdoms would probably Romanize slightly and start building cities and more settled agriculture.

Also to beclear this timeline has no Christianity I wanted to end up with a purely Germanic or Celtic or Roman Syncretized Pagan kingdoms that take the place and ultimately build there own empires in the shadow of Rome. Iwas thinking that the Customs and laws like Blood feuds and duels and human sacrifice might remain in less romanized areas where more romanized states pick up on Roman laws such as well as reading and writing Latin and eventually transliterating Proto-Germanic. Also I imagine a resurgent Gaul split between the Franks and a Romanized successor version of Gaul. For England much like OTL Saxons Invade and it becomes mostly germano-celtic.
 
In terms of how paganisms might develop it might be useful to look at the collective of philosophies and religions known as Hinduism. That's essentially the most prominent example of an Indo-European paganism (Vedic religion) syncreticising with other beliefs to form something new.
That's probably the most similar way it might turn out. There's a bit of an overemphasis on the polytheistic aspects (both in paganism and Hinduism), as it's the most obviously exotic, but what I find most interesting is how both have strong ties to various philosophical traditions. Given enough time and space, there's no reason that European paganism might not develop further into a diverse but somewhat structurally unified religion. There already was a tendency to equate foreign gods with their 'cognates', even though it could be hit-and-miss.

Hmm, I'm writing this down. Could make an interesting TL out of it.
 
Without the Church, there were still plenty of educated upper-class Gallo-Romans, Hispano-Romans and Italians who were traditionally receiving an education for entering public office as their predecessors during the Republican era of Roman history had done.

The Church had gotten into the practice of monopolising education before the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire. If the Franks, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Burgundians and Lombards had conquered a predominantly Graeco-Roman polytheistic empire, they would have simply co-opted the bureaucratic services of provincial Roman aristocrats who were willing to adapt to their change of leadership. The "barbarian" kings were mostly people who were well-enough acquianted with all things Roman and wanted to preserve many of the benefits of Roman culture, and weren't simply the ignorant savages obsessed with destruction as they were depicted by Roman writers.

Even Attila employed as a notarius a certain Pannonian-born Roman officer named Orestes, who would later become the father of Romulus Augustulus, the last recognized emperor of the Western Empire.

I am dubious about the oft-repeated claim that the Church necessarily "preserved learning". They kept a tight grip on learning, but not for purely altruisitic reasons.
 
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