Dawn of Mediaeval Europe: 476-918

This volume by the British historian J.H.B. Masterman (1867-1933) is a short survey of the first four centuries after the fall of Rome. The author writes of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, who sought to impose order on a shattered Italy, of the rise of the Franks under Clovis, and of the resurgence of the Eastern Empire under Justinian and his general, Belisarius. At the close of the book, Charlemagne's descendants are wrangling for power among themselves, while, writes Masterman, from "the north came the Norsemen, ravaging and plundering along every river valley which their long ships could sail; from the south came the Saracens, the pirates of the Mediterranean, and ... a foe more fierce and implacable still appeared on the eastern frontier in the Magyars or Hungarians." - Summary by Pamela Nagami