Abstract

This thesis deals with how eighteenth-century English historian Edward Gibbon approached the issues of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. After a historical presentation of the western Roman Empire until 476 CE (the year of its alleged demise), this thesis presents Gibbon’s arguments in order to counter them with examples from the Ostrogothic and Frankish kingdoms. Against Gibbon’s argument that Christianity causes the empires decline and fall, the thesis argues for a series of transformations and a certain degree of continuity in the Ostrogothic and Frankish kingdoms. New Germanic kings fused Roman culture and Christian customs with their own traditions to give themselves legitimacy and continue the traditions of the past.