The Historiographical Crisis of the Fifth Century: Towards a New Paradigm for Late Antique and Early Medieval Historiography

Abstract A previous paper in Millennium 21 (2024) demonstrated the significance of a lost Reichenau codex for the transmission of late antique and early medieval chronicles. As a follow-up, this paper now presents the larger picture in which these findings can be integrated: 1) There was a golden age of Latin ‘minor historiography’ between 420/430 and 450/460 AD, which has not been recognised in its own right until now. 2) This golden age ended abruptly in the 450s – the ‘historiographical crisis of the fifth century’. 3) Beyond the written word, this crisis was linked to a very real (political) crisis in the dissemination of imperial information and dating practice, for which consular dating is recognised as a central source. 4) A strained revival, with writers continuing or revising previous chronicles, did not occur until around 500 AD, but in a new, now distinctly post-imperial form. 5) The texts produced across these different phases and developments reached the Middle Ages in miscellanies such as the Re‍ichenauiensis , all of which can only be fully understood against the background outlined here. 6) For disciplinary and editorial reasons, the texts and developments discussed here have been frequently under-researched and overlooked. At the same time, they are not only central to our image of the end of antiquity, but also to historiography in the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The paper thus also serves as a general introduction to the texts discussed in the process of developing a new overall picture of late antique/early medieval ‘minor historiography’.