I recently found out I have Viking and Goth heritage.
Basically — the most interesting ancestors I have lived shortly before or in a period popularly known as the “Dark Ages,” which are generally considered to fall within the 5th–10th century AD after the Decline of Rome. But I wanted to look further back since my genealogy implied my ancestors left Africa, entered Europe, got it on with Neandertals, and then never left.
But when I was researching, I found hardly anything. And I don’t give up on blank search results, so I dug into pre-Roman Europe beyond my DNA. I noticed something interesting. There’s no indigenous culture. Not named anyway. So I paid attention to which cultures were dismissed and which were adopted by white supremacy.
We already know about Vikings being adopted by white supremacy but what was interesting was that I had a hard time finding Visigoth information that wasn’t antisemitic. That’s when I noticed a distinct common denominator: Rome. Not just Rome, though. The fall of Rome.
A few internet searches later, I had a “holy shit” moment. This isn’t a new connection. White supremacists have idolized Rome for years. Much of their narrative starts around that time. But no one has ever really looked deep into it.
Why this had to be a series
I’m normally pretty good at cutting down a lot of information to a few main points and publishing it, but this story is complex with a ton of moving parts. I found that cutting information to make this a shorter article drew away from the importance of some of those parts. I said “fuck it” and made it a series.
The reason for that is there are several key facts that should have been taught in school, but weren’t. There are details that need to be re-evaluated and connected in light of those details.
That’s by design. So much of this story was intentionally minimized and erased and rewritten.
The time between now and the fall of Rome comprises 5% of human history. It wasn’t that long ago.
Overview
It was impossible to make this a reasonably long article, so I’ve cut it up into five parts:
Introduction (this one)
Rome
Indigenous Europe
The Dark Ages
Discussion
We aren’t going in chronological order, but the order I felt made the most sense. I’m starting with a discussion on the fall of Rome because we need to clearly set the stage, but then I’m going to go backward and discuss Indigenous Europe because we need to understand indigenous Europe to understand the rhetoric of the Middle Ages and how it set the stage for colonialism.
Did Rome Really Fall?
When researching, this was a question that continuously came up in my mind. If the Roman Empire ever truly died or if it was repurposed.
Rome didn’t invent white supremacy, but it created the structure necessary for white supremacy. The “Dark Ages” was really a time blurred because the structure was being perfected. There wasn’t just a power vacuum. There was a narrative one. I don’t think it is because we don’t know much about the “Dark Ages” that white supremacists adhere to it. I think there’s a very specific reason we know little about it.
We can actually trace many of our hierarchical customs today back to Rome. Europe was not Roman. Rome conquered Europe. I wrote another article on Celtic druids and conquest. My family never left Europe and were not Roman. They were druids, farmers, builders, and artists.
Rome is dead, I think. But it set a standard no one knew how to deviate from when it died. Rome invented systematically rewriting cultural stories, and that lived on in the Dark Ages to the Early Modern Period to 4Chan.
This is the story about how Rome ruined everything.
Photo by Works Cited
This is a compilation of the works I've been referencing so far and they will be used in future articles.
Cole, Juan. “Yes, White Supremacists, Some Vikings Were Muslims & Thor Was Brown.” Informed Comment, 18 Oct. 2017, www.juancole.com/2017/10/supremacists-vikings-muslims.html.
Gabriele, Matthew. “Vikings, Crusaders, Confederates: Misunderstood Historical Imagery at the January 6 Capitol Insurrection.” Perspectives on History, 12 Jan. 2021, www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2021/vikings-crusaders-confederates-misunderstood-historical-imagery-at-the-january-6-capitol-insurrection.
Heng, Geraldine. “Did Race and Racism Exist in the Middle Ages?” Not Even Past, 1 Mar. 2018, notevenpast.org/did-race-and-racism-exist-in-the-middle-ages.
Liebeschuetz, Wolf. “Was There a Crisis of the Third Century?” Impact of Empire, edited by O. Hekster et al., vol. 7, Crises and the Roman Empire, 2007, pp. 11–20. Crossref, doi:10.1163/ej.9789004160507.i-448.11.
Mark, Joshua. “The Crisis of the Third Century.” World History Encyclopedia, 9 Nov. 2017, www.ancient.eu/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century.
McLean, John. “Crises of the Roman Empire | Western Civilization.” Lumen Learning, OER Services, courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/chapter/crises-of-the-roman-empire. Accessed 7 Apr. 2021.
Mcmaster, Geoff. “White Supremacists Are Misappropriating Norse Mythology, Says Expert.” Folio, 30 July 2020, www.ualberta.ca/folio/2020/07/white-supremacists-are-misappropriating-norse-mythology-says-expert.html.
Mommsen, Theodore E. “Petrarch’s Conception of the ‘Dark Ages.’” Speculum, vol. 17, no. 2, 1942, pp. 226–42. Crossref, doi:10.2307/2856364.
Pruitt, Sarah. “6 Reasons the Dark Ages Weren’t So Dark.” HISTORY, 29 Aug. 2018, www.history.com/news/6-reasons-the-dark-ages-werent-so-dark.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Arnold of Brescia | Italian Religious Reformer.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 1999, www.britannica.com/biography/Arnold-of-Brescia.