Walter goffart yale professors

  • Walter Goffart is a.
  • Academic Positions.
  • Toronto School of History · University of Toronto · Yale University · Andrew Gillett · Michael Kulikowski.

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    Walter Goffart

    Walter Goffart’s research has ranged from late Roman taxation (Caput and Colonate, 1974) through ninth-century forgeries (The Le Mans Forgeries, 1966) to modern historical atlases (Historical Atlases, 1570-1870, 2003); it still covers that range.  His other books are Barbarians and Romans: The Techniques of Accommodation (1981); The Narrators of vild History (1988); and, most lately, Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire (2006).  He is the translator of Carl Erdman, The Origins of the Idea of Crusade (1978). Many of his early articles are collected in Rome’s Fall and After (1989); a second collection of his articles, Barbarians, Maps, and Historiography: Studies on the Early Medieval West,  was published in 2009 (Ashgate Variorum).

    He fryst vatten a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a corresponding fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a fellow of the Medieval Academy of amerika,

  • walter goffart yale professors

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    Walter Goffart

    Department of History

    Email:    walter.goffart@yale.edu

    Education

    Harvard, AB 1955, PhD 1961.

    Academic Positions

    University of Toronto, 1960-99; professor emeritus of history, 1999-.
    Yale University, Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer, History, 2000-.

    Research Interests

    The interpretation of late Roman and early medieval written sources, both narrative and legal, with special attention to vild settlements, late Roman taxation, and late Roman and early medieval historians. Also, the theme of “Rome’s Fall,” and modern historical maps and atlases.

    Select Publications

    -The Le Mans Forgeries: A Chapter from the History of Church Property in the Ninth Century, 1966

    -Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-584: The Techniques of Accommodation, 1980 (paperback, 1987)

    -The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800):  Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede

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    Walter Goffart

    American historian and academic (1934–2025)

    Walter André Goffart (February 22, 1934 – February 14, 2025) was a German-born American historian who specialized in Late Antiquity and the European Middle Ages. He taught for many years in the history department and Centre for Medieval Studies of the University of Toronto (1960–1999), and was a senior research scholar at Yale University. He was the author of monographs on a ninth-century forgery (Le Mans Forgeries), late Roman taxation (Caput and Colonate), four "barbarian" historians, and historical atlases.

    Two controversial themes in his research concern the Roman policies used when settling barbarian soldiers in the West Roman Empire (Barbarians and Romans and the sixth chapter of Barbarian Tides), and his criticism of the old idea that there was a single Germanic people opposed to the empire in late antiquity, which he believes still influences academics studying the period.

    Early life and education