Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: the history of Europe 500–700
- 1 The later Roman Empire
- 2 The Barbarian invasions
- 3 The sources and their interpretation
- PART I THE SIXTH CENTURY
- PART II THE SEVENTH CENTURY
- PART III THEMES AND PROBLEMS
- 20 The Jews in Europe 500–1050
- 21 Kings and kingship
- 22 The Mediterranean economy
- 23 The Northern Seas (fifth to eighth centuries)
- 24 Money and coinage
- 25 Church structure and organisation
- 26 Christianisation and the dissemination of Christian teaching
- 27 Education and learning
- 28A Art and architecture of western Europe
- 28B Art and architecture: the East
- List of Primary sources
- Bibliography of secondary works arranged by chapter
- Index
- Frontispiece"
- Plate section"
- Map 3 Gaul/Francia in the sixth and seventh centuries"
- References
22 - The Mediterranean economy
from PART III - THEMES AND PROBLEMS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
By
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: the history of Europe 500–700
- 1 The later Roman Empire
- 2 The Barbarian invasions
- 3 The sources and their interpretation
- PART I THE SIXTH CENTURY
- PART II THE SEVENTH CENTURY
- PART III THEMES AND PROBLEMS
- 20 The Jews in Europe 500–1050
- 21 Kings and kingship
- 22 The Mediterranean economy
- 23 The Northern Seas (fifth to eighth centuries)
- 24 Money and coinage
- 25 Church structure and organisation
- 26 Christianisation and the dissemination of Christian teaching
- 27 Education and learning
- 28A Art and architecture of western Europe
- 28B Art and architecture: the East
- List of Primary sources
- Bibliography of secondary works arranged by chapter
- Index
- Frontispiece"
- Plate section"
- Map 3 Gaul/Francia in the sixth and seventh centuries"
- References
Summary
contexts: evidence and antecedents
Two issues that shape any general interpretation of the Mediterranean economy of the sixth and seventh centuries are the problems of the available evidence and the question of the nature of the ancient economy that preceded it. The limitations of the written sources are well known. In particular, no documentary data survive of a type that permits any serious attempt at quantitative analysis. Instead of the records which are the stuff of economic history, we usually have only stories. There are a handful of short texts that are wholly or partly concerned with economic matters. For the most part, however, we depend upon anecdotal indications afforded by a host of authors united by little more than their indifference to economic affairs, in whose writings the fleeting appearances of merchants or traded goods are almost invariably tangential. Gregory of Tours, for example, reports how a ship from Spain put in at Marseilles in 588, carrying the ‘usual cargo’. He tells us this to provide the context for an outbreak of the plague, disseminated through the port via the purchase of this merchandise, but in the absence of any other direct references to Mediterranean exchange between Spain and Francia in this period, its nature remains a matter for speculation. Even Leontius of Naples’ Life of St John the Almsgiver, which offers an exceptional series of insights into the commercial relationships of the church of Alexandria in the early seventh century, does so less from any sense of their intrinsic importance than because of their value as illustrations of the charitable behaviour of its main protagonist.
Keywords
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- The New Cambridge Medieval History , pp. 605 - 638Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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