Walter Andre Goffart is a historian of the later Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 and the early Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 who specializes in research on the barbarian

Barbarian

Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...

 kingdoms of those periods. He is a senior research scholar and lecturer at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

.

He is a 1955 graduate of Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, where he also received his doctorate in 1961. He was awarded the Haskins Medal

Haskins Medal

The Haskins Medal is an annual medal awarded by the Medieval Academy of America. It is awarded for the production of a distinguished book in the field of medieval studies.-Award:...

 in 1991. He taught history at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 from 1960 to 1999. After retirement from Toronto, he joined the history faculty of Yale in 2000.

Alexander C. Murray edited a Festschrift

Festschrift

In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...

 for Goffart called After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History (1999).

Selected bibliography

• The Fredegar Problem reconsidered", in: Speculum. A Journal of Medieval Studies 38:2 (1963), pp. 206-241.
• The Le Mans Forgeries (1966)
• Caput and Colonate (1974)
• Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-584: The Techniques of Accommodation (1980)
• Hetware and Hugas: Datable Anachronisms in Beowulf in: The Dating of Beowulf, ed. Colin Chase (1981), pp. 83-100.
• Rome, Constantinople, and the Barbarian, in: American Historical Review 86:2 (1981), pp. 275-306.
• Foreigners in the 'Histories' of Gregory of Tour, in: Florilegium 4 (1982), pp. 80-99.
• The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550-800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (1988)
• Rome's Fall and After (1989)
• The Theme of 'The Barbarian Invasions' in Late Antique and Modern Historiography, in: W. Goffart (ed.), Rome's Fall and After, London 1989, pp. 111-132.
• Conspicuous by absence: heroism in the early Frankish era (6th-7th cent.), in: Teresa Pàroli (ed.), La Funzione dell'eroe germanico: Storicità, metafora, paradigma. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studio Roma, 6-8 maggio 1993 (Philologia: Saggi - richerche - edizioni 2), Rom 1995, pp. 41-56.
• The barbarians in late antiquity and how they were accommodated in the West, in: B. H. Rosenwein and L. K. Little (ed.), Debating the Middle Ages. Issues and readings, Malden, Mass. 1998, pp. 25-44.
• Historical Atlases: The First Three Hundred Years (2003).
• Conspicuously absent: Martial Heroism in the Histories of Gregory of Tours and its likes, in: K. Mitchell and I. N. Wood (ed.), The World of Gregory of Tours, vol. v. 8 (Cultures, Beliefs, and Traditions 8), Leiden 2002, pp. 365-393.
• The narrators of barbarian history (A.D. 550-800). Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon, Notre Dame 2 2005.
• Jordanes's Getica and the Disputed Authenticity of Gothic Origins from Scandinavia, in: Speculum 80 (2005), pp. 379-98.
• Barbarian Tides: the Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire (2006)
• Frankish military duty and the fate of Roman taxation, in: Early Medieval Europe 16:2 (2008), pp. 166-190.
• Rome's Final Conquest: The Barbarians, in: History Compass 6:3 (2008), pp. 855-883.
• Barbarians, Maps, and Historiography. Studies on the Early Medieval West (2009)
• The Technique of Barbarian Settlement in the Fifth Century: A Personal, Streamlined Account with Ten Additional Comments, in: Journal of Late Antiquity 3:1 (2010), pp. 65-98.

External links

• Canadian Who's Who 2001, Volume 36 by Elizabeth Lumley: p. 500
• Walter Goffart at Yale University