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  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The New Cambridge Medieval History
  • Cited by 11
  • Volume 1: c.500-c.700
  • Edited by Paul Fouracre, University of Manchester
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2008
Print publication year:
2005
Online ISBN:
9781139053938
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362917
Subjects:
Area Studies, European History 1000-1450, British History: General Interest, European History: General Interest, History, European Studies, European History 450-1000
Collection:
Cambridge Histories - British & European History
Series:
The New Cambridge Medieval History (1)
Information

Book description

The first volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers the transitional period between the later Roman world and the early middle ages, c.500 to c.700. This was an era of developing consciousness and profound change in Europe, Byzantium and the Arab world, an era in which the foundations of medieval society were laid and to which many of our modern myths of national and religious identity can be traced. This book offers a comprehensive regional survey of the sixth and seventh centuries, from Ireland in the west to the rise of Islam in the Middle East, and from Scandinavia in the north to the Mediterranean south. It explores the key themes pinning together the history of this period, from kingship, trade and the church, to art, architecture and education. It represents both an invaluable conspectus of current scholarship and an expert introduction to the period.

Reviews

'The New Cambridge Medieval History is complete. … Paul Fouracre has provided a worthy addition to this prestigious series. … the volume includes excellent surveys of Scandinavian history by Lotte Hedeager, Slavic history by Zbigniew Kobylinski and numerous essays on the British Isles. … coverage of early medieval European history is thorough and balanced. … especial praise must be given to the excellent summary of 'The barbarian invasions' by Guy Halsall - sure to become indispensable to a new generation of undergraduates - to Simon Loseby's stimulating account of 'The Mediterranean economy' and, perhaps most strikingly, to Michael Toch's discussion of 'The Jews in Europe, 500–1050', which takes the reader beyond the chronological confines of the volume as a whole, but with richly rewarding results. … the contributions are all fluidly written, stimulating and a pleasure to read. The comprehensive index and useful thematic bibliographies further ensure that this volume will be an essential reference tool for years to come.'

Source: Journal of Ecclesiastical History

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Contents

Page 1 of 2

Contents
  • 1 - The later Roman Empire
    pp 13-34
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The end of Rome's political control certainly did not mark the end of the Roman era: Roman roots had burrowed too deeply. In almost every other facet of European life, economic, social, intellectual, legal, religious, linguistic and artistic, much of the Roman imprint held firm, sometimes for centuries after the political bonds were loosed. The reign of the emperor Commodus is taken as the signpost towards the end of Rome's Golden Age. There had always been a strong religious element in Roman rule, and it deepened as the Empire aged. The Roman world would deliver to the European Middle Ages not only Christianity's holy book, its Bible, but also a huge body of systematic theology. The advent of the barbarians could actually enhance the status of the Roman aristocracy. Late Roman ideas of law and the ways that it regulates the ownership of property were also passed directly into the early Middle Ages in the West.
  • 2 - The Barbarian invasions
    pp 35-55
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter reviews some of the principal issues which currently engage the attention of historians working on the barbarians and their place in the processes known cumulatively as the 'Fall of Rome'. It shows that, contrary to commonly held views, Britain cannot be viewed separately from the continent, as something of an aberration or special case: the Anglo-Saxons were no more different from the Franks than the Franks were from the Ostrogoths or the Vandals, and maybe less so. By 500 AD all the Roman provinces of the West had become barbarian kingdoms: the Franks and Burundians in Gaul, the Ostrogoths in Italy, the Sueves and the Visigoths in Spain, the Vandals in North Africa, the Anglo-Saxons and the Britons in Britain. Romans paid taxes, so becoming a barbarian could bring with it tax exemption. In the post-Roman legal codes the barbarian element of the population was often given legal privilege, one reason to adopt a barbarian ethnic identity.
  • 3 - The sources and their interpretation
    pp 56-90
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Historical approaches to the written sources have changed in many ways and at several analytical levels. New evidence, new lenses, have become available. This chapter presents a short survey of the ways in which those forms of evidence are approached and the sorts of questions which they can, and cannot, answer. The most common form of historical writing, broadly defined, was related to ecclesiastical history: hagiography. A common source for post-Roman social history is the series of law-codes issued in the period. Another source of information for the period takes the form of letters. Poetic writing in this period took a number of forms. The theological writings are increasingly of interest to historians of the early Middle Ages, certainly far more than was the case a hundred years ago. The chapter discusses developments in archaeological theory, numismatics and epigraphy, and towns and trade. The study of medieval rural settlements provides many ways of examining social structure as well as economy.
  • 4 - The Eastern Empire in the sixth century
    pp 91-117
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Anastasius, the Roman Empire in the beginning of the sixth century, inherited, and promoted, religious divisions that were to cast a long shadow over the Christian Roman or Byzantine Empire. Accounts of the second half of Anastasius' reign indicate increasing popular unrest, ostensibly owing to the religious policy of the emperor. At the beginning of the century, the long peace with Persia, the traditional enemy of the Roman Empire, and indeed of its predecessors, came to an end. Anastasius was succeeded by Justin I, who had risen through the ranks to become Count of the Excubitors. Justinian's reign was a long one, lasting until 565, thirty-eight years in all, or forty-seven if one includes the period as the power behind Justin's throne. The 'grand design' view of Justinian's reign sees all his actions as the deliberate restoration of the ancient Roman Empire, though a Roman Empire raised to new heights of glory as a Christian Empire confessing the Orthodox faith.
  • 5 - The Byzantines in the West in the sixth century
    pp 118-139
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Throughout the political history of western Europe, there have been few periods of such dramatic change as the fifth century. In 400 the borders of the Roman Empire in the West, by then distinct from the Empire in the East which was governed from Constantinople, stood reasonably firm. The Byzantines, as speaking the one language and looking the same, saw them, along with the Gepids, as nations that could be distinguished only by their names. The Mediterranean lands were occupied by powers that threatened Byzantine interests, but it was sometimes within the power of the Empire to act so as to destabilise its enemies. The nomadic Berbers had been pressing increasingly on the Vandal kingdom, and they were to pose a major problem to Byzantine Africa, for their practice of lightly armed and mobile combat made them difficult opponents for the Byzantine cavalry. The Gothic war had lasted far longer than the Vandal war, but its outcome was the same.
  • 6 - Ostrogothic Italy and the Lombard invasions
    pp 140-161
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Italy was now populated, according to the contemporary formula, by Goths and Romans. The areas in which the newcomers lived were the most sensitive regions militarily, and Goths and Romans could be distinguished with reference to the functions which they fulfilled in society, military and civilian respectively: While the army of the Goths makes war, the Roman may live in peace. The Gothic general Tuluin, who had gained large estates after the war in Burgundy, was elevated to the rank of patricius praesentalis. From about the time of the death of Theoderic a Germanic people, the Lombards, had been settling south of the Danube in the old province of Pannonia. They had, in general, been allies of the Byzantines, but had enjoyed less exposure to Roman ways than the Ostrogoths. This chapter discusses the extent of change in Italy during the sixth century.
  • 7 - The formation of the Sueve and Visigothic kingdoms in Spain
    pp 162-192
  • View abstract

    Summary

    At the beginning of the fifth century the Sueves had remained within the western limits of the province of Gallaecia, but after the departure of the Vandals they initiated a process of expansion to increase their territory. In short, ten years after their initiation, the Sueve wars had resulted in the Sueve kingdom being driven back to its original limits and reduced in its autonomy by the interference, not of the Romano-imperial authorities, but of the Visigoths, who after this established new and powerful interests in Hispania. The advent of Euric, the new Visigothic monarch of Toulouse, was to mark a change in Visigoth-Sueve relations. The era of Leovigild marks the apogee of the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo in its Arian phase. In the first years of his reign Leovigild focussed his attention on the south of the peninsula, those regions where Visigothic dominion had been endangered as a consequence of the civil war and the Byzantine occupation.
  • 8 - Merovingian Gaul and the Frankish conquests
    pp 193-231
  • View abstract

    Summary

    From the later third century, Germans whom the literary sources called Franks had joined with other barbarians to challenge Roman rule in Gaul. This chapter acknowledges the importance of the Bishop Gregory's extensive writings in the discussions of the formation of Frankish kingdoms, the working of kingship, the roles of aristocrats and bishops, and the limits of Merovingian rule. The kingdom in north-eastern Gaul was sometimes known simply as 'Francia'. It also came to be known as Austria or Austrasia. Although by the fifth century Orthodox Christianity provided a dominant world-view among the Roman population in Gaul, as the Franks expanded into Gaul they nevertheless retained their pagan cults, and even into the sixth century they continued to worship at pagan shrines, especially in northern Gaul. In the kingdom of Austrasia various combinations of Frankish aristocrats, Roman aristocrats and bishops competed for influence at the royal court.
  • 9 - The Celtic kingdoms
    pp 232-262
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, south-western Britain (Cornwall and Devon) and Brittany were the principal Celtic countries in the sixth and seventh centuries, although some other parts of Western Europe still had a Celtic vernacular language at that time. Brittany, south-western England and Wales had all been part of the Roman Empire, though the level of participation in Roman material culture and civic life varied enormously across them and though some parts had frequently had a military presence. Eastern Brittany and south-east Wales had been more affected, and the coasts of Wales, had had forts built and refurbished in the late fourth century. Despite the geographical differences, the economic base in Celtic areas was one of mixed farming, supplemented by hunting and gathering when appropriate. The structure of Celtic societies in the sixth and seventh centuries is also complicated by the migration factor and its uneven operation, as are societies in so many other parts of Western Europe.
  • 10 - The earliest Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
    pp 263-288
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Central to the re-evaluation of the Germanic migration and its impact on post-Roman Britain is the relationship between Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and settlements. The Romano-British cemetery at Queenford Farm, for instance, lay outside the Roman small town of Dorchester-on-Thames in an area with an early fifth-century Anglo-Saxon presence, yet radiocarbon dates indicate that it continued in use into the sixth century. The cemeteries and settlements of the sixth century indicate that the society within which the Anglo-Saxon identity developed was not rigidly stratified and that high-ranking individuals were integrated within the community, in death as well as in life. The earliest Anglo-Saxon leaders, unable to tax and coerce followers as successfully as the Roman state had done, instead extracted surplus by raiding and collecting food renders. By 600, the establishment of the first Anglo-Saxon emporia was in prospect. Anglo-Saxon society, in short, looked very different in ad 600 than it did a hundred years earlier.
  • 11 - The Byzantine empire in the seventh century
    pp 289-316
  • View abstract

    Summary

    At the beginning of the seventh century, the Byzantine Empire was part of a political configuration focussed on the Mediterranean world, which had been familiar for centuries and was characterised by two factors, one external and the other internal. The administration of the Byzantine Empire, both civil and military, was essentially what had emerged from the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine in the late third and early fourth centuries. The authors describe the life of the Byzantine church in the seventh century emerging from the 102 canons of the Quinisext Synod, called by the emperor Justinian II in 692.The end of the seventh century saw the Byzantine Empire still in a process of transition and redefinition: the Arab threat to Constantinople was to continue well into the eighth century, and Iconoclasm, which is seen as a further stage in the Byzantine Empire's search for its identity and ways of expressing this in the aftermath of crisis of the seventh century.
  • 12 - Muhammad and the rise of Islam
    pp 317-345
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Muslim tradition speaks of the existence of soothsayers or sorcerers (kahins) in the pre-Islamic period. The period immediately preceding the Arab invasions had proved as disastrous for the Sasanian Empire as for Byzantium. The Qur'anic revelations were being used in early Muslim worship and memorised by the faithful. Like Moses before him, Muhammad, the 'seal of the Prophets', was involved in social action as well as preaching. The formation of the Islamic empire, which followed the death of the Prophet in 632, falls conveniently but not rigidly into two phases. The first was an explosive and surprisingly easy series of conquests of the territories closest to Arabia, which soon brought Byzantine Syria, Palestine and Egypt as well as Sasanian Iraq into the orbit of government from Medina. The second involved protracted and more difficult conquests that eventually added Sasanian Iran and parts of Central Asia in the east and the North African littoral in the west.
  • 13 - The Catholic Visigothic kingdom
    pp 346-370
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In the spring of 586 King Leovigild was succeeded by his son Reccared. Reccared, abandoned Arianism and converted to the Catholic faith, and which, was intended to complete the political achievements of his father by ensuring the support of the nobility of Roman origin and the Catholic Church. In the period between the assassination of Witteric in 610 and the dethronement of Svinthila in 631, there were several kings. The most significant accomplishment of their reigns was the destruction of Byzantine power in the Peninsula. The reigns of Chindasuinth and his son Reccesuinth cover a long period during which both carried out extensive legislative work culminating in the promulgation of the Liber Iudiciorum, a great compilation of law initiated by Chindasuinth and completed by Reccesuinth in 654. This chapter discusses Egica and the attempt to establish dynastic succession, and Witiza, Roderic and the end of the Visigoth kingdom.
  • 14 - Francia in the seventh century
    pp 371-396
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The focus of the narrative history of Francia in the seventh century is its ruling dynasty, the Merovingians. This chapter begins at the start of the seventh century with the unification of Francia under a single ruler, which lengthened the distance between ruler and ruled and made necessary the development of political consensus. In the mid to later seventh century much of Francia was run by people schooled in this fashion through the courts of Chlothar II, Dagobert and his son, Clovis II. According to the Chronicle of Fredegar, Chlothar took control of both Burgundy and Austrasia by agreement with the magnates of each kingdom. There was a marked rise in religious activity as Christian culture overflowed from its traditional urban strongholds to penetrate deep into the countryside. It was in fact the overall stability of the Frankish polity which made child kingship possible. The seventh century therefore saw Francia maturing economically as well as politically and culturally.
  • 15 - Religion and society in Ireland
    pp 397-425
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter deals with the primal, pagan religion of Ireland. As for the position of women, Irish society was strongly patriarchal: women were generally under the authority of their father, husband or son, and had limited scope for independent action. Irish society was hierarchical, and the law tracts list several different ranks, each with its own honour price. The basic structure was that of kings, lords, and ordinary freemen, all of whom were free and had their own legal independence. By ad 500, it is likely that Christianity had been preached throughout Ireland, but far from certain that it had yet been embraced by a majority of the population. In Ireland, paganism was so strongly entrenched that Christianity had to struggle for well over a century before winning formal acceptance. In Irish society, the hereditary principle was so ubiquitous that it was natural for it to apply within the church as well.
  • 16 - Christianity amongst the Britons, Dalriadan Irish and Picts
    pp 426-461
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter examines the evidence that prompted the original theory, and reconsiders that for Christianity in sub-Roman and early medieval Britain, giving special attention to northern and western Britain. Continuity of Roman Christianity and its spread west and north is indicated by Patrick's writings. Our knowledge of Britain in the sixth century depends to a considerable extent upon the writings of a single author, Gildas. It is highly likely that monasticism reached Britain from Gaul at the end of the fourth. While in the east Christianity was spreading up from the Britons between the Walls to the Picts north of the Forth, in the west the Irish colony of DálRiada was gaining a major Christian focus with the foundation of the monastery of Iona. The surviving evidence of literary works, manuscripts and stone carving reveals Iona as one of the major literary.
  • 17 - England in the seventh century
    pp 462-495
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The extreme and varying fortunes of the main kingdoms in seventh-century England illustrate the instability and fragility of political authority during this period. The acknowledged overlord of southern England was Æthelberht, ruler of the rich kingdom of Kent, who introduced Christianity to his people. By the late seventh century the most powerful kingdom apart from Northumbria and Mercia was Wessex. It is clear that the ruling elites of the English kingdoms, whatever their early origins, no longer distinguished themselves on the basis of ethnic and political identities determined on the continent. The nearest continental neighbour of the English, Merovingian France, enjoyed especially close relations with the kingdoms of the south-east in the earlier seventh century. Anglo-Saxon kingship in its seventh-century form was probably quite a recent development. Kings played an important role in the administration of justice and in dispute settlement. At the beginning of the seventh century the English elite was mostly pagan.
  • 18 - Scandinavia
    pp 496-523
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The image of the societies of Scandinavia in the late Iron Age has been based predominantly on their economic character, involving aspects such as agriculture and settlement, economy and society, trade and urbanisation. What are known as the Middle Ages in Scandinavia begin around the year 1000, half a millennium later than for the rest of western and central Europe. Only from this date onwards did Scandinavia consist of unified kingdoms and was Christianity established as a serious force in pagan Scandinavia. Much of what was written about Scandinavian history actually comes from Iceland. In Europe, the roman script was adopted at an early date, and only in Scandinavia did the runic script develop further during the Viking period. The settlement structure in late Iron Age Scandinavia clearly developed hierarchically with respect to size and function. Myths played a vital role in the creation of a political mentality amongst the new Germanic warlords and kings in Europe.
  • 19 - The Slavs
    pp 524-544
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The earliest description of the Slavs comes from De Bellis, work of Procopius, which was written just before the middle of the sixth century. The origin of the Slavs has given great weight to linguistic arguments. Linguists seeking the original homeland of the Slavs have attempted to define the chronology of the processes on the basis of philological arguments, and to identify the place of origin of the Proto-Slavic language. Three archaeological cultures, the Penkovka, Prague and Kolochin Cultures, occupied an extensive area from the Dnepr valley in the east to the eastern Carpathians in the west, denoting the area occupied by the Slavic ethnic group in the fifth and the sixth centuries. At the end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century the Carantanian Slavs were dependent on the Avars, but this dependence was weaker than that of the tribes inhabiting the Carpathian basin.
  • 20 - The Jews in Europe 500–1050
    pp 545-570
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In early Middle Ages the Mediterranean-Hellenistic Jewry of antiquity separated and developed into Byzantine-southern Italian, Roman, Catalan-southern French and Arabic-Sicilian branches. By the end of the tenth century the immense wealth of the Cairo Genizah begins to shed light on Jews in the Muslim world including Arab Sicily and, to a much lesser degree, in Muslim Spain and Byzantium. The early settlement history of Jews in Europe should distinguish between two spheres, south and north, and two periods, from late antiquity to c.800, and afterwards until c.1050/1100. The ownership of agricultural land by Jews is definitely demonstrated by Latin charters of the ninth to eleventh centuries in Italy, Christian Spain, and southern and east-central France. Toldot Yeshu and other indications in liturgy and religious poetry point to a polemical imperative in early medieval Jewish culture that is almost the matching image of the Christian approach to Judaism.
  • 21 - Kings and kingship
    pp 571-604
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter covers the kings who governed the one-time dioceses of Italy, Spain, Gaul and Britannia in the post-Roman era. Sixth and seventh century Europeans with only marginal education could have known of the fall of the kings of Rome. The legitimate emperor, Justinian II, was the last of the dynasty of Heraclius, which takes the credit for saving the Eastern Roman Empire from complete extinction. The only king in Frankish Gaul was Childebert III. Child kings reflected the strictly hereditary nature of kingship in this part of the West. The chapter shows that sub-Roman monarchy in the West derives substantially from the Roman imperial model. Early medieval western kings inherited what was, by the standards of the time when Germans first became familiar with Rome, a massive palace mechanism. Among the themes of their rule was its scaling down until it again resembled what had been at Augustus' disposal.
  • 22 - The Mediterranean economy
    pp 605-638
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The biggest player in the sixth- and seventh-century Mediterranean economy was obviously the Byzantine Empire, which alone maintained the means and the motive routinely to encourage the bulk transportation of staple items between regions. Part of the agricultural surplus from the wealthiest of all the lands around the Mediterranean, Egypt, had long been diverted to assure supplies of grain for the imperial capital at Constantinople. The Mediterranean afforded wider opportunities for coastal producers to market their surplus, whether in dealings with the state or independently of it. The annona system may have tied shippers into the regular transport of Egyptian grain to the imperial capital, but not so tightly as to preclude them from the simultaneous pursuit of private profit. At privileged western sites like Rome and Marseilles, or Carthage and Naples, the archaeological evidence suggests that the late antique exchange-network persisted in an etiolated form through to the close of the seventh century.
  • 23 - The Northern Seas (fifth to eighth centuries)
    pp 639-659
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Since the end of the third century, communications in the northern seaways, especially between the British Isles and the European continent, had been interrupted by maritime migrations and concomitant piracy. This was to be rampant for two or three centuries, even though an important part of these movements had been undertaken and controlled by the Roman Empire itself for the purpose of its coastal defence. The beginning of the seventh century saw an increase in port activity that affected not only the old cities, such as Nantes, London or Rouen, but above all the new sites, and which generally promised a great future. The whirlwind activity which reached the Northern Seas from around 600 had such an influence on the whole of the West because, throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, there was a progressive integration of the coastal area with its more distant hinterland.
  • 24 - Money and coinage
    pp 660-674
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Coinage in the Roman world in the early fifth century consisted of a multi denominational system in gold, silver and bronze. The coinages of most of the new states passed through two phases: a pseudoimperial phase in which the coins purported to be issued with the authority of the current or some former emperor, and a national phase in which the inscriptions and designs deliberately reflected the state's independence. In Gaul and Britain the silver coins in circulation were clipped down to reduce their weight and the few new ones struck in Gaul were produced to a much reduced weight standard. Only the gold coinage was produced on a moderate scale, and came to dominate the currency. Of the three denominations in gold are solidus, semissis and tremissis. The coinages of the Visigoths, Sueves, Franks, Burgundians, Anglo-Saxons and Lombards were essentially mono-metallic in gold, with some very limited and local issues of small silver and bronze coins (nummus).
  • 25 - Church structure and organisation
    pp 675-709
  • View abstract

    Summary

    By the later third century, when it began to be widely persecuted, the Christian community of believers had already created within the Roman Empire the basic forms of church organisation. The big councils, which were used as arenas for opinions and as a stage for the development of the church, were all held in the Greek East and only superficially concerned themselves with the modest Christianity of the West. The liturgy had its first flowering in the period 500-700 and it grew out of the variety of prayer and church services which had evolved under Byzantine influence. The Acacian and Henotikon schisms were a legacy of the fifth century, in which the papacy was embroiled up to the end of the century. The synod in Rome had a special position because it brought together all the bishops in suburbicarian Italy. The churches in the West were self-assured in their Christian belief and respected Rome as the city of the apostle.

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