16 Facts About Walter Goffart

Walter Andre Goffart was a German-born American historian who specialized in Late Antiquity and the European Middle Ages.

Walter Goffart taught for many years in the history department and Centre for Medieval Studies of the University of Toronto, and was a senior research scholar at Yale University.

Walter Goffart was the author of monographs on a ninth-century forgery, late Roman taxation, four "barbarian" historians, and historical atlases.

Walter Goffart was born in Berlin on February 22,1934, the son of Francis-Leo Goffart and Andree Steinberg.

Walter Goffart's father was a Belgian diplomat, while his mother, born in Cairo, had French and Romanian-Jewish parents.

Walter Goffart became a lecturer at the University of Toronto in 1960.

Walter Goffart was appointed an associate professor at the University of Toronto in 1966, and a full professor in 1971.

Walter Goffart retired from the University of Toronto as a professor emeritus in 1999.

Walter Goffart was a member of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, the American Historical Association, and the Haskins Society.

Alexander C Murray edited a Festschrift for Goffart called After Rome's Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History.

Walter Goffart was known as a strong critic of several traditional assumptions which are still common in history writing about the late Roman empire and the early middle ages.

Walter Goffart argued that the use of terms like "German" and "Germanic" to refer to all northern European barbarians in late antiquity has had serious implications for the understanding of events, implying that there was a one-to-one confrontation of Germanic barbarians against Roman civilization.

Walter Goffart stressed Roman continuity after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, arguing that the "Germans" are first found in the Carolingian age, when a tradition of having a separate king for Frankish-ruled territories east of the Rhine started.

Walter Goffart had two children, Vivian and Andrea, from his first marriage, and one granddaughter, Eva.

Walter Goffart had been married to Roberta Frank, a medievalist, since 1977.

Walter Goffart died in New Haven, Connecticut on February 14,2025, at the age of 90.