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

Front Cover
Cornell University Press, 1983 - 181 pages

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.

 

Contents

The Decline of the Western Empire
20
The Eastern Mediterranean 500850
54
North Sea Trade and Commerce 500800
77
Charlemagne and the Viking Connection
102
The Abbasid Caliphate
123
The End of an Era
158
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

Abbasid caliph amphorae Arabs archaeological archaeological evidence Asia Baghdad Baltic Sea British School Bryan Ward-Perkins buildings Byzantine Byzantium Carolingian Carolingian Renaissance Carthage cent centre Charlemagne China church classical coast coinage coins collapse commerce Dark Ages David Whitehouse decline dirhems Dorestad early medieval early ninth century East eastern Mediterranean economic eighth century Emperor emporium Etruria Europe excavations Farfa Frankish Frisian glaze Gulf Haithabu Hamwih Harun al-Rashid hectares Henri Pirenne historians hoards important Islamic Italy Justinian kilometres kingdoms kings late later Lombard London Luni Mediterranean merchants Merovingian metres minted Mohammed and Charlemagne Molise monasteries mosque ninth century North Africa North Sea northern number of sites Oxford B.A.R. palace pattern period Persian Photo Pirenne's thesis political population pottery raids Rhine Richard Hodges Samarra San Vincenzo Sasanian Saxon Scandinavian settlement seventh century silver Siraf sixth South Etruria towns Umayyad Veientanus Viking Visigoths walls wares wealth West western Ya'qubi

References to this book

About the author (1983)

Richard Hodges, until recently Director of the British School at Rome, is now Director of the World Institute of Archaeology and Professor in the School of World Arts and Museology at the University of East Anglia. David Whitehouse is Executive Director of the Corning Museum of Glass, New York and a leading authority on Roman, Islamic, and medieval glass. He lives in Corning.

Bibliographic information

TitleMohammed, Charlemagne & the Origins of Europe: Archaeology and the Pirenne Thesis
Cornell paperbacks
AuthorsRichard Hodges, David Whitehouse
Editionillustrated, reprint
PublisherCornell University Press, 1983
ISBN0801492629, 9780801492624
Length181 pages
  
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