8 - Restoring the dialectic: settlement patterns and documents in medieval central Italy

Summary

In recent years archaeologists appear to have rediscovered history. For many the Annaliste history of Fernand Braudel has proved especially attractive. In this paper it is argued that an overemphasis on the determinism of long-term structures, and the lack of a dialectical relationship between the longue duree and the history of events fundamentally flaws Braudel's enterprise. Drawing upon the work of sociologists and anthropologists like Anthony Giddens and Pierre Bourdieu, an alternative theoretical perspective is provided and applied to further our understanding of the formation of hilltop towns in central Italy during the early Middle Ages. It is argued that this perspective, with its emphasis on the social contruction of reality and the recursiveness of the relationship between structure and agency, is similar to that of a later generation of Annales scholars like Georges Duby and Jacques Le Goff. Annalisme is not rejected: le monde Braudellien is.

Introduction

In the middle decades of this century a new form of historiography was developing in France. It was a form of history established in explicit reaction to the then dominant school of narrative political history. Founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, Annales history flourished under Fernand Braudel; the banner of the Annales is now carried by such notable French historians as Georges Duby, Jacques Le Goff, and Paul Veyne. The output of these Annales historians has been stupendous, and it is dedicated by and large to the structures of everyday life, a subject of great relevance to archaeologists.