Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800
Edición de la obra Framing the Early Middle Ages
| Autor | Chris Wickham |
|---|---|
| Editorial | Oxford University Press |
| Fecha de publicación | 2005-11-10 |
| Lugar | Oxford, UK |
| Idioma | inglés |
| Páginas | 1018 |
| Formato | Hardcover |
| ISBN-13 | 9780199264490 |
| ISBN-10 | 019926449X |
| OCLC | 1405650797 |
| Número de Cutter | W637f |
The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country. This book integrates documentary and archaeological evidence together, and provides a history of the period 400—800, by means of systematic comparative analyses of each of the regions of the latest Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt (only the Slav areas are left out). The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These are only a partial picture of the period, but they are intended as a framing for other developments, without which those other developments cannot be properly understood. The book argues that only a complex comparative analysis can act as the basis for a wider synthesis. The book takes all different developments as typical, and constructs a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it.