The Renaissance Book

If you enjoyed either of Peter Wells' prior books, The Barbarians Speak or The Battle that Stopped Rome, then his latest work will be a delight. If you haven't read any of Wells' books, I highly recommend them, but especially Barbarians to Angels. I discovered the book in the midst of researching the Migration Era and after having encountered Walter Goffart's critique of current scholarship about both the end of the Roman Empire and the "German-ness" of the barbarians who both attacked and defended the Empire (Barbarian Tides: the Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire). Goffart asserts (rather stridently) that the Empire was not destroyed by barbarian hordes and that those same barbarians did not self-identify as German, Germanic, or any other cohesive rubric based on language or land. He also exposes (what he sees as) a bias of German nationalism, even to the present day, in scholarship on the Migration Age, the Dark Ages, and the rise of medieval Europe.
Wells deftly avoids this debated territory while throwing fresh (and revealing) light on the character of the Dark Ages. As he states in his conclusion (on page 200):

"For the auxiliary soldier serving on the Rhine frontier at the end of the Roman period, for the farmers in villages in central France, and for the elites in northern centers such as Gudme, in Denmark, and Helgö, in Sweden, there was no abrupt fall of the imperial power. The changes that were taking place from the fifth to the eighth century were gradual; they would not have been perceived as abrupt or transformational to anyone living at the time. It is the way we think about change in the past, and the way we sometimes place too much faith in texts concerning warfare and mass migrations of people, that can lead us astray. If we examine instead the material evidence left by people who lived during these centuries, we come to a very different understanding of what those times were like."

This paragraph is, in my opinion, the best summary of the book and an example of Wells' style throughout: respectfully critiquing past scholarship, clarifying the current evidence available, and painting a portrait of the time with particular case studies that illustrate both the Roman and barbarian perspectives on events.
The first four chapters of the book introduce the reader to the history of the time period and address some of the past trends in scholarship on that history. Much the same information could be gleaned from dozens of other books aimed at the general reader, such as The Early Germans by Malcom Todd, but I found Wells' summary of the history far better. Perhaps it is just that I've read a lot on the subject already and reading Wells helped me think about it all cohesively, but I like to think Wells writes with more clarity for a lay reader than anyone else I've read.
Beginning with Chapter 5, "What Happened to the Roman Cities?" and continuing through Chapter 7, "New Centers in the North", Wells begins considering the archaeological evidence for the Dark Ages, which reveals continuous occupation and growth in former imperial cities like Regensburg, Mainz, and Cologne, as well as in sites like Gudme, Helgö, and Hedeby which were beyond the Roman frontier. Chapter 6, with its in-depth look at London, is particularly helpful for gaining a sense of how settlements continued, yet developed differently, from imperial times. The remaining six chapters build on this theme, detailing aspects of daily life, trade, religion, agriculture, crafts, and the arts. Wells gives the reader a very tangible impression of what it was like to live in the Dark Ages: a time which was very prosperous in spite of frequent political upheaval. Thanks to the spread of the moldboard plow, introduced in the 5th century, and other agricultural improvements of the time, most individuals had sufficient nutrition to grow to "average heights [that:] were not achieved again until the twentieth century" (page 140). Extensive trade, in addition to raiding for plunder, allowed considerable hoards of treasure to be collected by elites and then deposited either as offerings or for safekeeping. Northern art styles of semi-abstract, interlocking animals and faces, flourished and further developed in Christian monasteries to create such works as the Book of Kells.
In his treatment of religion, Wells proves almost friendly to a Heathen reader. I have never before encountered a historian of this period who favors continuity in traditional belief and practice from pre-Christian Europe into the Christian Middle Ages. This is a point that Wells stresses several times, especially in Chapter 11, "Spread of the New Religion", citing archaeological evidence of traditional burial practices in Christian contexts, traditional artwork and mythological themes incorporated (or even hidden) alongside Christian imagery, and similar examples. While it is true that Christianity changed the cultures it converted, that change was considerably more gradual than prior histories of the time have allowed. Not only was the general populace very slow to adopt proper Christian practice, but even recently converted rulers held to old traditions. How long, and how many of, such traditional practices survived is debatable, but as Wells puts it: "Wearing or carrying charms, saying prayers before meals, decorating Christmas trees, colouring eggs at Easter, and tossing coins into fountains are parts of practices that were carried out by the prehistoric peoples of Europe. What people think today when they toss their pennies, dimes, and quarters into water may not be very different from what eighth-century Britons thought as they threw their swords into the Thames at London" (pages 184-5).
If you have an interest in the Migration Age or the fall of the Roman Empire or else the origins of medieval Europe, Barbarians to Angels is an excellent introduction to the time period. Wells provides a current understanding of the period, from history to archaeology, with an ear for the evidence itself rather than for the rhetoric of past historians. It is also a most enjoyable book to read. Wells' style is very direct and tends to tell a story, making it far more appealing than histories beholden to a particular theoretical stance. One comes away from the book with a clear sense of the reality of the Dark Ages, which was quite far from the incoherent image of violence and deprivation that we've all grown up with.