Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce AD 300-900
This is the first comprehensive analysis of the economic transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages in over sixty years. It brings fresh evidence to bear on the fall of the Roman empire and the origins of the medieval economy. The book uses new material from recent excavations, and develops a new method for the study of hundreds of travelers to reconstitute the communications infrastructure that conveyed those travelers--ship sailings, overland routes--linking Europe to Africa and Asia,...
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A comprehensive analysis of economic transition between the later Roman empire and Charlemagne's reigne.
List of mapsList of figuresList of tablesList of chartsPrefaceList of abbreviationsCommerce, communications, and the origins of the European economy1Pt. IThe End of the World251The end of the ancient world272Late Roman industry: case studies in decline423Land and river communications in late antiquity644Sea change in late antiquity83The end of the ancient economy: a provisional balance sheet115Pt. IIPeople on the Move1235A few western faces1296Two hundred more western envoys and pilgrims: group portrait1517Byzantine faces1748Easterners heading west: group portrait2119Traders, slaves, and exiles237People on the move270Pt. IIIThings that Traveled28110Hagiographical horizons; collecting exotic relics in early medieval France28311"Virtual" coins and communications31912Real money: Arab and Byzantine coins around Carolingian Europe343Things that traveled385Pt. IVThe Patterns of Change39113The experience of travel39314Secular rhythms: communications over time43115Seasonal rhythms44416Time under way46917"Spaces of sea": Europe's western Mediterranean communications50118Venetian breakthrough: European communications in the central Mediterranean52319New overland routes548The patterns of change565Pt. VCommerce57120Early medieval trading worlds57321Where are the Merchants? Italy61422Merchants and markets of Frankland63923Connections67024Where are the wares? Eastern imports to Europe69625European exports to Africa and Asia729At the origins of the European economy778App. 1Checklist of Mediterranean travelers, 700-900799App. 2Mentions of mancosi to 850811App. 3Catalogue of Arab and Byzantine coins in the west815App. 4A register of Mediterranean communications, 700-900852Bibliography973Primary sources973Secondary sources991Index1048
\ From the Publisher"...an erudite corpus of information, this book is impressive..." SPECULUM\ "One of the most appealing aspects of the book is McCormick's diffidence. He marshals enormous collections of evidence, makes insightful deductions....No serious academic library supporing upper level history research can be without this outstanding, if 'provisional,' survey of a topic which is now more clear to us." Catholic Library World\ "McCormick has produced a large and ambitious work whose substantive objective is to establish that travel and trade developed significanlty earlier in Europe...than some medival historians have been prepared to believe... The book is...important, addressing as it does a difficult period in economic history....Recommended for academic and research collections, upper-division undergraduate through faculty." Choice\ "McCormick has written a Decline and Fall for the twenty-first century. This big book...should transform our view of pre-modern history and the ways in which it may be studied....his brilliant book will shatter most people's conceptions of the Dark Ages." The Times Literary Supplement\ "The book is rich with practical details of early medieval travel, the storms, fevers, delays, miracles and pirates...Unlike some of his European counterparts amongst historians, McCormick is also archaelogically literate, recognizing the huge advances of the last thirty years, but accurately hitting upon many of the remaining lacunae, both in Mediterranean urban archaelogy and in northern Europe...The maps are consistent, clear and accurate...strategy, endurance, organization and resources win wars. McCormick has all of these things, and this is indeed a monumental and inspiring achievement. Cambridge University Press is to be congratulated on a polished and well-edited production." EH.NET\ "An awesome book... The results are little short of extraordinary. McCormick has established a benchmark for what, as he rightly points out, has been a virtual world lost between those studying East and West, and North and South. Time will show what a massively useful work this is." Agrarian History Review\ "Indisputably a monumental study." International Journal of Maritime History\ "McCormick's book is a masterpiece of craft … McCormick, like Bloch and Pirenne, is writing a different kind of economic history: 'economic history as cultural history' … McCormick has carried the best work of the early twentieth century on into the twenty-first - not just by adding more lanes, but by carving out a whole new route." The New Republic\ \ \
