5 - Economies, People, and Nature

Summary

This chapter analyses the structures of society through the changing faces of estate management, agricultural production, and long-distance trade. It reframes Merovingian society as one radically altered by new landholding patterns, resource utilisation, and tastes in consumption, rather than one trapped passively in post-Roman economic decline. The period still had its challenges, including poverty, pandemic, and environmental change. Our interpretation of the fragmentary and inconsistent evidence very much depends on the areas we choose to prioritise.