All language subtitles for BBC.The.Dark.Ages.An.Age.Of.Light.2of4.What.The.Barbarians.Did.For.Us.PDTV.XviD.AC3.MVGroup.org.eng

The word "barbarian"
is a misleading expression.

And the art that goes with it
is misleading, too.

This picture was painted in 1890
by an arrogant French painter

called Joseph-Noel Sylvestre.

It shows the Sack of Rome
in 410 AD by the Visigoths.

The Visigoths were a so-called
barbarian tribe.

You can't miss them, they're
the ones without any clothes on.

It's such nonsense.

The Visigoths
were never naked savages,

clambering about Rome,
destroying civilisation.

They were pioneering Europeans
who produced beautiful art

and who achieved important things.

It was actually these so-called
barbarians who invented trousers.

Riding a horse
was much easier in trousers.

So if it wasn't for the Barbarians,
we'd all be wearing togas.

So this is a film
about misunderstood peoples.

And their misunderstood
achievements.

About how we've got the Dark Ages
wrong, again.

And about a word whose meaning
has been warped by time.

It's this word here. Barbarian.

The Dark Ages go roughly from the
fourth century to roughly the 11th.

And I've been looking at the art
made in these years,

trying to convince you
that it wasn't dark at all.

In this film, I'll be leaping to the
defence of the so-called barbarians.

The word "barbarian" actually
comes from the ancient Greek.

Its original meaning was someone
whose language you can't understand.

A foreigner.

You know like we say,
"It all sounds like Greek to me"

when we can't understand something,

well, the Greeks said,
"It all sounds like bar bar bar."

So it was an onomatopoeic word.

Anyone who spoke a funny foreign
language was a barbarian.

The same word, "barbara",
can be found in Sanskrit,

the ancient language of India.

Where it means gibberish
or stammering.

And if you're actually called
Barbara, like Barbara Windsor

or Barbra Streisand, then I'm afraid
your name means "barbarian woman".

And you, Madame, are particularly
in touch with your barbarian self.

When the Romans took over the word
it came to mean anybody,

anywhere, who wasn't a Roman.

So the Persians were barbarians.
The Indians, the Chinese.

The entire non-Roman world.

It isn't just this word barbarian
that has been demonised

and distorted.

You open your dictionary and start
looking for words

with bad, Dark Ages connotations,
you'll find lots of them.

Take this word here. Vandal.

The Vandals were actually
another fascinating

and creative ancient peoples
who made things like this.

But their name has been stolen from
them and turned into something dark.

Or what about the Goths?

Today Goths are oily punks with dyed
black hair who worship the devil.

But in real life, in Roman times,
the Goths were fabulous,

international creatives who made the
most beautiful Bible I've ever seen.

But the worst of these so-called
barbarians,

these forgotten ancient peoples
whose reputation has been trashed
by the Romans,

the very worst of them
were the Huns.

WOLF CRIES

HORSE WHINNIES

SHOUTING

Poor Huns!

If anyone in ancient history
deserves some rebranding,

it's this notorious
nation of energetic invaders.

No-one had a good word
to say about them.

The Goth historian, Jordanis,
tells us they were scarcely human,

a stunted, puny and faithless tribe.

Christian writers were even harsher.

According to a Christian cleric
writing in Syria,

the Huns eat the flesh of children.

And drink the blood of women.

It's like reading
a bad airport paperback.

The Christians were determined
to demonise all pagans

and they were particularly
determined to demonise the Huns.

So we can't trust the Christian
clerics. We need to trust the art.

And that tells a different story.

In the First World War, the British
began calling the Germans "Huns".

It was the worst insult
they could think of.

But also, very bad geography,

because the Huns
were not from Germany.

Exactly where they came
from is one of the big mysteries
of the Dark Ages.

Nobody knows for sure.

But it was somewhere out here,
in the Euro Asian steppe.

Somewhere far away and different.

The first record of the Huns
in Europe dates from around 376 AD,

when a group of retreating
Goths turned up

here on the banks of the Danube and
begged the Romans to take them in.

The fleeing Goths had been pushed
out of their lands

by a nation of nomads,
coming in from the east.

A fighting tribe,
of whom everyone was scared.

Huns were fierce warriors,
there's no denying that.

But not all the time.

Like all nomads, they lived
a precarious, travelling existence.

They moved around in small family
groups, menfolk, women and goats.

The default lifestyle of the Huns
was a tinkerish domesticity.

And among the splendid Hunnic
objects they've left behind,

the defining ones are these
battered Hunnic cauldrons,

preserved in the museum in Budapest.

In these robust vessels,
the Huns cooked their goats

and boiled their water.

"A man can live to 50..." is an old
Kazakh sating that still circulates.

"..But a cauldron will live to 100."

Something else we know about
the Huns is that they loved gold.

Oh, how the Huns loved gold.

The Hunnic graves
that have been dug up,

the buried caches of treasure
and valuables,

reveal such a deep and instinctive
passion for treasure.

These days, we've lost sight
of gold's crazy, hypnotic power.

And that special relationship
it enjoys with the sun.

The Incas called it
"the sweat of the gods".

And in the Dark Ages, gold was
a substance with a magical presence.

And the Huns loved it in a visceral
and unbalanced way.

In my book, that's a good reason
to love them back.

WOLF HOWLS

Because they spend
so much of their life on the move,

travelling from pasture to pasture,

the Huns had a particularly creative
relationship with the natural world.

Hun treasure is dominated
by exquisite animal forms.

In the Hermitage Museum
in St Petersburg,

there's a wonderful
piece of jewellery.

It's a golden bit of a bangle,
or a neck torque, like one of these.

And it's this piece here at the end,

shaped so atmospherically
like the head of a creeping wolf.

This is gold that nurses
an intense symbolic ambition,

to commune
with the natural world.

To speak to it
and steal some of its power.

To steal the power of the wolf.

WOLF HOWLS

Another animal that was dear to them
was the eagle.

They probably used eagles
to hunt with,

as nomads of the Steppes still do.

And the great bird in the sky
inspired such beautiful Hun bling.

Eagles have a special significance
for the Hun.

They were ready-made symbols
of power and beauty combined.

And right across
the barbarian world,

these garnet-studded eagle brooches
became noticeably popular.

This powerful new relationship
to the natural world

was one of the great barbarian
contributions to civilisation.

And then of course there was
the magnificent Hunnic horse art.

The Huns depended
on their horses totally

and they loved them deeply,
so, of course,

they made sure their horses
looked suitably splendid, too.

These are the remains of
a full-length Hunnic horse ornament,

fashioned delicately from gold

and studded so generously
with precious stones.

Lucky is the horse
who got to wear this.

The Huns would ride into battle with
wolfskin pulled down on their faces,

screaming demonically
in a deliberate effort

to get inside their enemy's heads.

Now, this was dark, psychological
warfare. Very sophisticated.

And one of the reasons the Huns
were so easy to demonise

is because they looked so strange.

They practised ritual deformation,

and their skulls were deliberately
misshapen at birth.

Infant Huns would have
their heads tightly bound

so they grew into these uncanny
and elongated Mekon shapes.

And on these deformed heads
of theirs,

the Huns would balance spectacular
crowns of unimaginable preciousness.

So the big question is,
where did the Huns get the gold?

They were nomads, not miners, and
although they were busy tradesmen,

you'd need to trade
an awful lot of goatskins

for the amount of gold
left behind by the Huns.

They didn't trade for it. The Huns
got their gold more directly.

Straight from the Romans.

Because their bows were so lethal
and their horsemen so skilled,

the Huns were soon operating
a protection racket

across most of the Roman Empire.

What they'd do is invade somewhere,
or threaten to invade somewhere,

and then demand large quantities
of gold to go away again.

The Romans,
cowardly diplomats that they were,

preferred to pay them
than to fight them.

And by the time the Hunnic Empire
was at its largest extent,

the Huns were receiving
2,500 pounds of gold coins

from the Romans every year.

2,500 pounds of gold...

every year,
to melt down and turn into art.

A few tribes of nomads
raiding along these Roman borders

could never have pressurised
the Romans into giving up

these ENORMOUS quantities of gold.

So we need to forget this image
of the Huns as a tribal horde

sweeping across Europe,

because they were something much
more sophisticated than that.

This is a map of the Hunnic Empire
under Attila.

It's the bits in orange.
And just look at the size of it!

All this was Hunnic.

This wasn't a bunch of nomads on
the make, this was a rival empire.

The new superpower of the Dark Ages
turned up to take on the Romans.

I've kept Attila back,
because the moment you mention him,

the story of the Huns
takes on a satanic glint.

All the Huns were
demonised by history,

but Attila was demonised
most of all.

The exciting thing is
we actually know a lot about him.

A Roman diplomat called Priscus
was sent on one of these

diplomatic missions
to negotiate with the Huns,

and he has left behind
a vivid account of his journey.

And this gentleman here is building
a replica of Attila's palace

on the actual sight of which
he thinks it actually stood.

So, Janos, when did you first
become interested in Attila?

TRANSLATION:

I bought this land 20 years ago
to breed horses.

That was when we came across
the history of this site.

Priscus, the Byzantine ambassador,
visited Attila in 450 AD,

and describes how he found
his way here.

And he definitely identified this
place as the site of Attila's palace.

That's why we'd like to erect
a memorial to him here,

by constructing a wooden palace.

Janos's palace will be
created in timber,

exactly as Priscus describes.

It's shaped like a giant nomad's
tent, a kind of glorified yurt,

with two wooden towers
rising cockily at the front.

Priscus tells us that
when he arrived,

he was treated to an enormous
banquet, served on silver plates.

And a procession of young women
dressed in white veils

came out to sing for him.

Attila himself was simply dressed

and ate nothing but meat
on a wooden platter.

While the guests were given goblets
of gold and silver.

What does Attila mean
to the Hungarian people?

Because, for a lot of people
in Europe,

he has a very bad reputation,
but not here.

In Hungary, he seems to be
thought of more as a hero.

TRANSLATION:
When people say Attila was a
barbarian, that's something I reject.

It's not something I believe.

He spoke eight languages by the age
of 15 and laid Europe at his feet.

Someone unintelligent - a barbarian -
could not have done the things
that Attila did.

Only someone blessed
with special talents.

Did Attila's palace really
look like this?

I very much doubt it.

But neither do I think Janos's
fantasy is more misleading

than all the other Hun fantasies

about satanic hordes
sweeping through Europe.

HUNNIC BATTLE CRIES

By the time Attila
became their ruler,

the Huns had created a complex
political system.

Their huge empire was actually
a federation of many nations.

A kind of barbarian EU,
opposed to the Romans,

with Goths and Burgundians,
Alans, even a few Greeks,

all linked together
and ruled by Attila.

So I'm here at the
Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

There's something really spectacular
I just have to show you.

When this was dug out of the ground
on the Romanian border in 1799,

it was thought to be Attila
the Hun's personal dinner service.

You can see why they thought that.
Just look at how splendid this is.

23 golden vessels.

Nearly ten kilos of pure gold.

Today, no-one thinks this was
Attila's dinner service.

The most recent thinking is that
it was left behind by the Avars,

one of those mysterious tribes
that emerged from the confederation
of the Huns.

They obviously ha that special
relationship with nature, too.

This magnificent bull-headed bowl
is another example of powerful,

natural magic channelled into gold.

This is what the Dark Ages
were capable of.

This is what makes these times
is so exciting.

That bull bowl has a power to it.

An animal energy that you just
don't get later on when art loses

this connection
to the basic stuff of life.

The Empire of the Huns
didn't last long.

For a few decades, it rivalled
the Romans. And then it was gone.

Attila,
the glue that held it all together,

had a taste for young brides.

But on his final wedding night,
he drank himself into a stupor,

took his latest bride to bed,
and promptly died of a heart attack.

They found him the next morning
with blood streaming down his nose.

What we would call these days
"a rock star's death".

Within a few years,
Attila's empire was gone.

Torn apart by feuds
and incompetence.

But the Huns had done their job.

They had punched a hole in the
invincible reputation of the Romans.

Now, all manner of barbarian
was queueing up to pour through it.

When we think of the barbarians,

we think of hordes
of bellicose warriors

storming across the plains
to attack Rome.

But that's wrong.
HORSE WHINNIES

It was more of a migration.

Think of those wagon trains
rolling across the American West,

full of brave pioneers
searching for a new future.

That's a more accurate image,

particularly in the case of another
great barbarian nation whose name

has been well and truly blackened by
Dark Age propaganda - the Vandals.

Neigh!

According to my
Shorter Oxford Dictionary,

a vandal is "a wilful or ignorant
destroyer of anything beautiful,

"venerable
or worthy of preservation."

That's what it meant in 1663, but
it shouldn't be what it means today.

The story of the Vandals
is actually rather poignant.

They were basically
a nation of Germanic farmers,

living peacefully in central Europe

until the Huns pushed them out.

For a while, they ended up here
in Spain, until a group of Goths

pushed them out of there as well,

and the poor old vandals had to move
on again to here - North Africa.

In 429 AD, 80,000 people came across
the Straits of Gibraltar,

crammed onto small boats.

A kingdom on the move,
looking for a homeland.

The vandals had arrived in Africa.

Originally, this word "vandal"
meant something like "wanderer".

Someone who is
looking for something.

It comes from the same Germanic root
as the English word "to wend",

as in "I was wending my way home
from work."

And the Vandals were great wenders
and great wanderers.

The Vandals who arrived here
in Africa were led

by a formidable king
called Genseric.

If you think of the Vandals
as a lost people

and Africa as the promised land,

then Genseric was their Moses,

leading them across the oceans.

They made their way
along the North African coast here,

attacking cities, collecting
followers, absorbing territory,

until, eventually, in 439 AD,
they reached their destination...

..Carthage.

Carthage was the second-largest city
in the Western Roman Empire.

Busy, rich,
a crucial trading centre.

The Romans depended on it for
the olive oil they burned in lamps

and the wheat from which
they made their bread.

When the Vandals took Carthage,
they shocked the Roman Empire.

The capture of Carthage
was surprisingly peaceful.

Genseric was so clever.

He entered the city on the 19th
October, the day of the Roman Games.

Sports day.

Now, the Romans,
who were obsessed with sports,

were far too interested
in the gladiatorial combat

and the chariot racing
to fight the Vandals.

BATTLE CRIES

Thus, Genseric and his Vandal army

strolled into the second-largest
city of the Western Roman Empire,

took control of it, and stayed there
for the next century.

People used to think the Vandals
went about destroying

and pillaging Carthage
as soon as they got here.

But today, we know they didn't.

The most remarkable thing about
the Vandal occupation of Africa

is not how much they destroyed,
but how little.

Later on, angry Romans and
Christians writing of these events

made sure they blackened
the Vandals' reputation

as they did with all the barbarians.

But the art that remains from these
times tells a different story.

To signal their new status
as overlords of Rome's
most prosperous province,

the Vandals did what
the nouveau riche always do -

they spent money on the arts.

Their jewellers were commanded
to make gorgeous Vandal bling,

And out in the countryside, they
built elegant villas for themselves

and filled them with
superb decorations.

That's the Julius mosaic. It's one
of the masterpieces of the period.

And Julius himself is sitting there
in his white robe,

and he's the man
who commissioned the mosaic.

No-one is 100% certain

if this was made just before
the Vandals got here or just after.

And that is the most
telling thing about it.

This is how rich Romans lived
and also rich Vandals.

Julius's house, where this was
found, is shown in the middle -

the posh, fortified villa.

Those domes at the back
are the bathhouses,

the equivalent today
of a luxury swimming pool.

All around the villa are busy scenes
of rural life in North Africa.

Up on the left, that's winter.
See the people picking olives?

That's what you did in winter.

On the other side,
on the right, is summer.

See the shepherds
with their summer flock

and those fields
of ripe wheat behind them.

Down here are spring and autumn.

Spring is the season of flowers,
and there's Mrs Julius in her garden

admiring herself in a mirror

while a servant brings her
a bowl of roses.

They are beautiful and so is she.

On the other side, it is autumn,
and there's Lord Julius himself,

sitting on a throne in his orchard,

while a labourer brings him
a basket of grapes

and a hare is caught
running about the vines.

This is mosaic making of the highest
calibre. So imaginative and clever.

It isn't just a portrait
of Julius and his house,

this is a visualisation
of the perfect lifestyle.

A rural dream made real.

The message here
is how glorious life is

when man lives in harmony
with nature.

When order prevails and the land
is fertile and balanced.

Welcome to the good life in Africa.

Instead of knocking down Carthage,

the Vandals set about
making it more homely.

They put small houses in the huge
Roman clearings and, famously,

an ambitious new bathhouse
was built here

by the art-loving Vandal king,
Thrasamund.

Bathhouses were hugely important
in Roman society.

They were a kind of social club
where people would chat and gossip,

a bit like modern health clubs,
except much cheaper.

Roman bathhouses
had two main spaces -

a hot room, or caldarium,
that heated you up,

and a cold room, or frigidarium,
that cooled you down.

The largest of all the Roman bath
complexes was here in Carthage -
the Antonine Baths,

built in the second century by
the Roman emperor, Antoninus Pius.

These are the ruins.

So imagine how big
the baths must have been.

Long before the Vandals
conquered Carthage,

the Antonine Baths
had fallen into disrepair.

So the Vandal king, Thrasamund,
built some new ones.

We know a lot about Thrasamund's
baths, because, amazingly,

a collection of Vandal poems
on the subject have survived.

That's right. Vandal poems.

The Vandals were particularly
keen on poetry, and hundreds

of poems written here in Carthage
in the Vandal years have survived.

And this thick body
of unexpected literature

tells us so much about them.

A poet called Felix has left behind
an evocative description

of Thrasamund's bathhouse.

"This magnificent monument
was erected by Royal command

"Where water and fire
display their obedience."

There were no less than five poems
by Felix about these great baths,

and the big idea in all of them
is this dramatic contrast between

the cool, refreshing springs
of the frigidarium

and the hot, boiling waters
of the caldarium.

Here, says Felix,

"I see spring waters exist
harmoniously with flames.

"Here, the shivering nymph
is startled by the fiery bath."

Felix's poems were displayed
all around you as you bathed,

as mosaics, so they surrounded you,
pushed their way into your thoughts,

and as you read them,
you are prompted to marvel

at this great miracle
achieved here by Thrasamund.

In the Vandal baths, Thrasamund
has achieved the ultimate harmony -

"Thrasamund has united
fire and water."

OWL HOOTS AND WOLF HOWLS

Goth-Goth...

There we are.

Gothic. "Barbarous, rude, uncouth."

Gothic. Ah, here we are.

"Goth - one of a Germanic tribe
who invaded the Roman Empire."

In the lexicon of hate
spawned by the Dark Ages,

a special place is set aside
for the Goths.

The Dark Ages are full of nasties,

but the Goths
are particularly spooky.

THUNDER RUMBLES

If you walked down the street
where I live in London,

in Camden Town, you'll find plenty
of modern Goths wandering about.

They are dressed from
head to toe in black

and covered in satanic insignia.

And they're trying so hard
to look doomy.

And I just want to
give them all a big hug

and tell them to cheer up,
because if they want to be Goths,

they should be like real Goths -

energetic, colourful, inventive.

The kind of people who did that.

Stunning, isn't it?

I love the way the mosaic sparkles
with all that gold

and throws light all round the dome.
It's so exciting.

But there's something peculiar
about it too.

Something slightly awkward.

That's obviously Jesus up there
being baptised,

but why is he so pink and flaccid,
and not very divine?

How did Jesus end up like this?

Originally, the Goths came from
up here - the Baltic Coast.

They were farmers,
successful farmers,

but when their population exploded,

they made their way south
to the Black Sea,

searching for better land
and better farming conditions.

When the Goths moved south,

they came into direct contact
with the Roman Empire,

and their history
immediately grew more problematic.

It would take me several programmes
to deal with the twists and turns

in relation to the Goths
and their migrations,

but to boil it down
to its essentials,

when they settled here in the south,

they found themselves in the way
of the Huns coming in from the east.

So, to get away from them,
the Goths split in two.

Now, some of them
fled across the Danube here,

and begged the Roman Empire
to let them in.

And they became the Visigoths,
or western Goths,

and they settled initially here
in France and finally in Spain.

But the other ones,
they stayed put over here

and joined the Huns in the
Hunnic Empire, and they became

the Ostrogoths, or eastern Goths,

and they are the ones who did this.

When you think of barbarians,
you think instinctively of pagans,

don't you?

Of godless and violent people
with strange and primitive beliefs.

Conan the Barbarian is hardly
altar boy material, is he?

Actually, most of the barbarians
were Christians. Even the Vandals.

So were the Ostrogoths
and Visigoths.

All of them were converted to
Christianity in the fourth century.

However, the form of Christianity
they were converted to was unusual.

The reason why this Christ looks
so unfamiliar and even peculiar,

is because he is an Aryan Christ,
and not a Catholic one.

And Aryan Christianity is different.

Aryanism was a Christian heresy.

A different form of Christianity
proposed by a priest called Arius

in Alexandria in Egypt
in the fourth century.

From there,
it spread across the Roman Empire

and then out among the Barbarians.

The Aryans believed that Jesus
was different from God.

He was divine, yes. But less so.

The Catholics believed that God and
Jesus, father and son, were equal.

Two different forms of the same
great divinity.

But the Aryans disagreed. For them,
God the Father was the one true God.

He was the God at the top.
And Jesus, his son, was below him.

And that's why the Jesus
up here in the baptistery mosaic

looks so wimpish.

This is a Jesus who is
more like the rest of us.

Less divine, more human.

Perhaps that's why
the Barbarians preferred him.

He's less imperial,
and more like them.

This is Ravenna, in northern Italy.
The capital of the Ostrogoths.

Right across the Empire,

Catholics and Aryans distrusted
each other as only co-believers can.

But in Ravenna,
it was the Aryans who held sway.

And it was Aryanism
that created this.

It was a bit like the Sunnis
and the Shia in Islam.

Same religion,
different only in its details.

But so antagonistic
towards each other.

The Ostrogoths were led
by a formidable Aryan king

called Theodoric.

And it was Theodoric
who built this.

Theodoric had been brought
up in Constantinople

in the court
of the Eastern Roman Empire.

He had been sent there
by his own father as a hostage,

and educated as a Roman.

So he was sophisticated and clever.

Having gained the trust of the Roman
emperor Zeno in Constantinople,

Theodoric persuaded Zeno
to let him come to Italy

and reconquer it from another
Germanic despot, called Odoacer.

Theodoric invited Odoacer
to a banquet in his honour

and there, he murdered him
with his bare hands, or so they say.

And thus, Theodoric made himself
ruler of all Italy,

based here in Ravenna.

Under the Ostrogoths,
Ravenna thrived as never before.

This is the great
Basilica of San Apollinaire,

that Theodoric built
early in the sixth century.

And then filled with this
spectacular parade of mosaics.

Up on the ceiling,

a baby-faced Aryan Christ performs
such a lively set of miracles.

Raising Lazarus from the dead.
Conjuring up miraculous fish.

So up there, is the story of the
young Jesus performing his miracles.

And on the other side over there,
the other end of the story.

Christ's terrible death
and resurrection.

The Last Supper.

The kiss of Judas.

Below that, there is this great
golden procession,

the 22 virgins bearing
sumptuous crowns.

Lined up to pay homage to the
Virgin Mary. With Jesus in her lap.

On the other side, in a kind
of Aryan call and response,

the 26 martyrs,
dressed more simply in white

and advancing in a mighty procession
towards the enthroned Jesus.

What marvellous religious
theatre this is.

What vivid and exciting mosaics.

And all you pretend Goths in Camden,
if you're watching,

the REAL Goths made this.

Unfortunately, later on
when the Roman emperor Justinian

reconquered Ravenna
for the Byzantines,

he set about tampering with
what Theodoric had done,

removing what he could
of the Aryans.

So see this portrait here?

That's actually Theodoric,

but Justinian has taken over
his identity

and he is pretending to be him.

This, they say, is what is left
of Theodoric's Ravenna palace.

You can see it
inside San Apollinaire as well.

A great golden palace filled once
with magnificent
Ostrogoth treasures.

There is a museum in Romania,
in Bucharest,

that is bursting
with this Ostrogoth bling.

And personally,
I'd be happy to put on some shades

and just stare at it
for the next few days.

But we can't.

Because back in Ravenna, the story
of the Ostrogoths has darkened

and grown eerie.

When Justinian conquered Ravenna,
he had all signs of Theodoric

and the Ostrogoths removed.

And the great mosaic palace is now
a ghost town with no-one in it.

Though if you look very carefully,
you can still make out

a few of the bodiless Ostrogoth
hands that remain.

Theodoric left his mark
on many art forms.

But the one that surprises me most

is this totally unexpected
piece of Dark Age literature.

The Silver Bible is a Gothic gospel
book written in Gothic

with the Gothic alphabet.

It was written in northern Italy,
probably in Ravenna.

And probably for the Gothic,
the Ostrogothic king,

Theodoric the Great,

in the beginning
of the sixth century.

Most people imagine that what used
to be called the barbarian tribes,

such as the Goths,
didn't have a literature.

But this, of course,
is written in the Gothic language.

Yes. And that's very remarkable,

because we don't know anything
about the other Germanic languages.

But Gothic language
is preserved in this manuscript.

It's very beautiful to look at.

It's got these lovely purple pages
with the silver writing on it.

Yes. It's the imperial colour,
the purple colour.

And Theodoric the Great,

he got permission from the East Roman
Emperor to use this purple colour.

And he behaved and acted
like a Roman emperor.

Theodoric, who lived to be over 70,
deserves to be remembered

as one of the great achievers
of the Dark Ages.

This is where he was buried.
His mausoleum, in Ravenna.

And I can't think of another
building anywhere that looks

anything like this.

What eerie
and inventive architecture.

I love this thing.
It's so stocky and unusual.

A unique example of Ostrogoth
building which seems to have

popped out of nowhere,
and that's just the outside.

Wait you see the inside.

Theodoric died in 526 AD,

and was buried here in this
huge sarcophagus,

shaped like a Roman bath.

I find this such a spooky space.

And it's absolutely unique.

That roof is made from a single
piece of Istrian stone.

It's a metre thick, 33 metres wide,

and weighs 300 tonnes.

To get it here from Istria,

which is roughly where modern
Croatia is, they had to load

it onto an enormous raft
and sail it across the Adriatic.

Can you imagine?

That cross up above,
that's original, too.

There used to be silver stars
all around it,

so when you look up in here, it was
like looking up at the sky at night.

There are some exciting
stories about Theodoric's death.

Some say he went mad after seeing
one of his victims

inside the head of a fish.

Others say he was
thrown from a volcano.

One thing's certain.

The Ostrogoth empire he created
collapsed quickly after his death.

Justinian reclaimed Ravenna.

The Ostrogoth era was over.

So that's the end
of the Ostrogoths,

but what about the Visigoths,
or Western Goths?

The Goths in Spain, over here.

What happened to them,
you might be thinking?

And what did they achieve?

Well, rather a lot, as it happens.

This is Palencia, in Spain,

and what you're looking at is
the oldest surviving Spanish church,

built in the seventh century
by the Visigoths.

The Visigoths ruled Spain
from around 500 AD

to around 700 AD.

That's 200 years,
but you hardly ever hear about them.

You hear about the Romans in Spain,
you hear about the Muslims in Spain,

but you don't hear
about the Visigoths.

One cruel wag has christened
them the Invisi-goths,

which is very unfair.

If you hunt around in Spain,

you'll find plenty of evidence
of Visigoth achievement,

like this rustic enunciation,
carved into an emerald.

And sometimes, you don't have
to look hard at all to see

the Visigoths showing off
their Dark Age skills.

Like these superb Visigoth crowns,

with the name of the King
who commissioned them

spelled out helpfully
for the hard of remembering.

Aren't they magnificent?

Those Visigoth crowns are not
for wearing on your head.

They're what's called votive crowns,

and they are for hanging
above an altar in a church.

Like the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths
were originally Aryans,

but here in Spain, they were
surrounded by Roman Catholics,

and quickly adopted the Romanic
version of Christianity.

And that's when they built these
exciting and inventive

Visigoth churches.

This is the church of St John
the Baptist in Palencia.

It's been remodelled here and there,

but most of what you see is
Visigoth.

The story goes that the Visigoth
king Recesvinto built this church

to thank God for curing him
of liver disease.

He washed himself just out here,
in the holy waters of Palencia.

And was suddenly cured.

Recesvinto was on his way north
to fight the Basques,

so he was particularly grateful
for his miraculous cure,

and even put up a plaque with
the date the church was finished.

January 3rd, 661 AD.

Recesvinto's plaque is surrounded
by typically vigorous bits

of Visigoth decoration.
So energetic and busy.

Completely unlike anything
the Romans came up with.

I really like this Visigoth
church decoration.

When I look at it, I feel as
if I can hear a sculptor whistling.

There's something so boisterous
about it,

something real and untutored.

It's as if,
for the first time in art,

we're hearing from the common man.

This wasn't made by an artiste,
this was made by a bloke.

Someone with big hands, who's
speaking to us across the ages.

The sheer inventiveness of these
Visigoths is so invigorating.

I mean, look at these arches.
They're special, right?

Why are they special?
Because they look like one of these.

I don't know how much
you know about arches.

But if you're any
sort of student at all,

you'll know that horseshoe
arches are remarkable.

Your bog standard arch certainly
wasn't shaped like this.

Before the Visigoths invented
these, arches were semicircular.

They came round like that,
and that's it.

But these horseshoe arches,
they come down to here,

and they have a very
different effect.

Horseshoe arches look wider,
airier, taller, more elegant,

as if a sail has been unfurled
and filled with wind.

They're more playful, too.
Less stern.

This is architecture doing more
than has been asked of it.

This isn't just holding
something up.

This is having fun
and looking good.

So the Visigoths invented this
elegant horseshoe arches,

and these were a brilliant
barbarian invention.

But although the Visigoths invented
them, they didn't perfect them.

It was someone else who did that.

The perfectors
of the horseshoe arch

are the subject of the next film,
when we look at the art of Islam.

In the hands of Islamic artists,
the horseshoe arch would create

architecture of
spine-tingling beauty.

It's yet another of the great
achievements of the Dark Ages.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media