Dark Age Economics: Origins of Towns and Trade, A.D.600-1000

Literature & Fiction

Hodges, Richard

Poetry

Gerald Duckworth Co Ltd

It was in the second half of the first millennium A.D. that northern Europe took on the basic configuration that it now presents. Recently a wealth of new archaeological evidence has emerged to enable historians to assess the growth of international trade and the evolution of towns in this crucial period. This book analyses models of economic evelopment in the light of this new evidence to evaluate not only the changing character of the first post-Roman urban centers but also the organization of the countryside which supported them. Boat remains, coins and trade artifacts are all examined. Finally, a general account is offered of the role of towns and trade in the creation of Western Europe. This is the first synthesis of its kind for the medieval period, and confirms the importance of archaeology as a major source of evidence for an understanding of the economic history of the Dark Ages.

Dark Age Economics: Origins of Towns and Trade, A.D.600-1000 (New Approaches in Archaeology)

Business & Money

Economics

Bristol Classical Press

Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe:

Mohammed, Charlemagne & The Origins Of Europe: Archaeology and the Pirenne Thesis

History

Europe

The Anglo-Saxon achievement: Archaeology & the beginnings of English society

"Villa to Village" challenges the historical view that hilltop villages in Italy were first founded in the tenth century. Drawing upon recent excavations, the authors show that the makings of the medieval village lie in the demise of the Roman villa in late antiquity. The book describes the lively debate between archaeologists and historians on this issue. It also examines the evidence for the first manorial villages of the Carolingian era and describes how these were transformed into the familiar feudal villages that are characteristic of much of Italy.

Villa to Village: The Transformation of the Roman Countryside (Debates in Archaeology)

Francovich, Riccardo

Ancient Civilizations

"In Goodbye to the Vikings?", Richard Hodges uses new archaeological evidence to re-read the familiar history of the early Middle Ages. Taking his examples from the fifth to the tenth centuries, he re-examines many familiar themes, including the identity of King Arthur, the Pirenne thesis, Marc Bloch on feudalism, the significance of nationalism in early medieval archaeology and the place of the Vikings in European history. Some of the studies are wide-ranging, while others re-examine the archaeology of the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno (Italy) in detail. This book shows how archaeology is making us appreciate the changing rhythms of early medieval Europe, especially in terms of the contacts made by traders, pilgrims and travellers.

Goodbye to the Vikings? Re-reading Early Medieval Archaeology

In Dark Age Economics: a new audit, Richard Hodges reviews and enlarges upon the debate that continues since his ground-breaking Dark Age Economics: the origins of towns and trade was first published. This book pays special attention is given to new archaeological evidence for managing agrarian economies and how this shaped the evolution of the earliest medieval urban communities. Ranging across western Europe, with an emphasis upon the role of the Church as an agent of change, the author advances a new thesis about the shift from the consumption economies of Antiquity to the emphasis on production in the Middle Ages.

Dark Age Economics: A New Audit (Duckworth Debates in Archaeology)

Henri Pirennewas a Belgian historian whose career was devoted to promoting the thesis since named after him. His claim (in Mohammed and Charlemagne, 1939) was that the classical world survived the Germanic invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries, that the Islamic conquests destroyed the classical world by putting an end to Mediterranean trade upon which the classical world relied, and that the Carolingian Renaissance was due entirely to domestic resources. This thesis was disputed from the start, but mainly on the terms of literary evidence. In this concise, well argued book, Richard Hodges and David Whitehouse use data from archaeology to challenge all of these claims.

Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe: Archaeology and the Pirenne Thesis

Politics & Social Sciences

WHITEHOUSE, David

Archaeology

Cornell Univ Pr

Beginning in 1981, Richard Hodges supervised the excavation of the Benedictine monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, one of the great centers of Dark Age Europe, situated in spectacular mountain country in central Italy. The existence of the monastery has long been known from a twelfth-century illuminated manuscript, and the excavations threw vivid light on its epic history. This richly illustrated book tells of the discoveries made by Hodges's team, with the Samnite and Roman origins of the site charted in detail and the magnificence of the monastery's early medieval period fully elaborated. Light in the Dark Ages traces the history of San Vincenzo from the monastery's spectacular rise as a result of Charlemagne's patronage to its cataclysmic sack by Arab marauders in 881, demonstrating the relation between the treasures unearthed and their political context.

Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo Al Volturno

Social Sciences

NCROL

The archaeology of the period A.D. 500-1000 has taken off in the Mediterranean (where prehistoric and classical studies formerly enjoyed a virtual monopoly in most areas) and in the Islamic world. Here, as in northern Europe, field survey, careful excavation and improved methods of dating are beginning to supply information which now is not only more abundant but also of much higher quality than ever before. The 'New Archaeology', pioneered in the United States in the 1960s, has taught the archaeologist the value of anthropological models in the study of the past. The new data and models positively compel us to take a new look at the written sources and reconsider the 'making of the Middle Ages'. 
Mohammed, Charlemagne, and the Origins of Europe attempts to prove the point. Henri Pirenne's classic history of Europe between the fifth and ninth centuries, Mohammed and Charlemagne, although published on the eve of the Second World War, remains an important work. Many parts of its bold framework have been attacked, but seldom decisively, for until now the evidence has been insufficient. In their concise book, Richard Hodges and David Whitehouse review the 'Pirenne thesis' in the light of archaeological information from northern Europe, the Mediterranean and western Asia. In doing so, they have two objectives: to tackle the major issue of the origins of the Carolingian Empire and to indicate the almost staggering potential of the archaeological data. This book, then, is an attempt to rekindle interest in an important set of questions and to draw attention to new sets of data―and to persuade readers to look across traditional boundaries between classical and medieval, east and west, history and archaeology.

Mohammed, Charlemagne, and the Origins of Europe: The Pirenne Thesis in the Light of Archaeology

Africa

Cornell University Press

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