The Rise of Western Christendom

The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000by Peter Brown tries to convey “something of the complexity of the process by which Christianity rose to dominance in Western Europe.” With the emergence of Christianity, new and different forms of the religion cropped up across Europe. Brown exposes these differences and delineates between them. He aims to remove the visual images of early Christianity that are deeply embedded in the minds of Europeans and to substitute a more truthful and complex image of European history.Brown’s work includes more than a nod to Western Christianity; it also encompasses the rise of Islam, Roman and barbarian relationships, and biographies and case studies of influential Christian and non-Christian members of society from the beginning of Christianity. The Rise of Western Christendom is the result of Brown’s years of research, and sheds great light on the rise of Christianity in Europe. 

Brown advocates that the most striking feature of conventional narratives concerning the end of the Roman empire and the early Middle Ages has been the contention that the history of western Europe has always been characterized by a natural unity. The illusion of the Empire, before the fifth century, was a safe conglomeration of cities while outside the empire, on the frontiers, “roared the wild chaos of barbarism.” The barbarian invasions effectively destroyed the first unity of Europe.Brown is not satisfied by this recollection of European history. He claims that the Catholic Church had created insubstantial but tenacious bonds to recreate a spiritual unity of Europe. Although this spiritual unity would be dominated by the medieval papacy, Brown asserts that there would not be a single, civilized, political community. 

To Brown, ancient Christianity constitutes a profound change in the imagination of early Christians. With no difference in doctrine, there was a new view of sin, of atonement, and of the other world. This difference laid the basis for a distinctive notion of the individual person and of his or her fate after death. Ancient Christianity also saw the rise of a distinctive form of monasticism. Monasteries were small, usually self-supporting, and poverty-ridden. Monks and nuns were known for their piety and ascetic way of life. As tonsure developed in the sixth century, monks were separated from normal laity. The growth of oblation ensured that children grew up in monasteries and were immersed in the monastic culture. 

Of particular interest is Brown’s depiction of convents and nuns. Together with monasteries, Brown refers to convents as “Powerhouses of Prayer.” They possessed a collective power of prayer, stronger than any one holy person. In addition, monasteries and convents followed the shifts of Christian piety in the world around them. “A woman’s piety could act as a bridge between the new barbarian, military elites of northern Gaul and what had previously been a largely Roman form of religion.”

Began by an erosion of Latin culture in the leisured upper class of the sixth century, ancient Christianity started its downfall. Monasteries became places were Christians could “purge” their sins. Each particular sin had a punishment, or penance, and could be found listed together in handbooks called Penitentials. “The message of the Penitentials was that the Christian life was a high art, a matter of conscious craftsmanship, undertaken by a people brought close to God.” 

Simultaneously, Muhammed of Mecca began experiencing visions that would lead to a new world religion known as Islam. Beginning when Muhammed was aged forty years in 610, he claimed his visions were from the same God who had spoken to Moses and Jesus. His visions would go on the form what we know today as the Koran. The distinct message from the Koran is that Christians had erred. Arabians were warned to change their pagan ways.Pagan idols were purged. Almost unexpectedly to Christians, Islam began its sweeping conquest and emerged as a permanent Islamic Empire.

Christians had a lukewarm opinion of Islam. It was viewed as an in-between religion, not pagan, but similar to Christianity and Judaism. Although there was some  similarity, Islam was seen as something entirely new. In the North, Christianity was developed in pagan Saxons. They had practiced a confident but experimental paganism. Christianity was viewed as a foreign religion, comparable to actual foreign goods. Christianity was a different sort of exotic commodity. These Saxons were not opposed to Christianity, but had a respect and curiosity of any man’s religion. When faced with the spread of Christianity throughout the ranks of slaves, Frankish kings converted to Christianity. Had they not converted, the kings stood the chance of allowing a foreign religion to penetrate society, thus making one group stronger than themselves. Essentially, the kings pre-empted the competition by adopting Christianity. When the pagan king Ethelbert converted to Christianity, Brown demonstrated how Christianity replaced paganism in every respect. The worship of idols was suppressed. Pagan shrines were not destroyed, but merely converted to become a Christian church.

Brown’s understanding of “Frontiers” begins with the “truly important frontier” that lay between the pagan lands of north and eastern central Europe and a “Frankish” style of society, long identified with Christianity, which stretched from modern northern France into modern Germany. Even into the eighth century, these frontiers were pagan-holdouts to Christianity. Region by region, these frontiers began to close through the establishment of a new, more tightly organized social system along the edges of the Frankish kingdom. Brown credits this closing to the missionary work of monks, including Wynfrith, better known today as Saint Boniface.

I tend to agree with Brown that the pagans were Christianized. He regards the seventh through ninth centuries as a triumph of Christianity and the last great age of myth-making in Europe. Europe, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, had a pagan past, but looked toward a Christian present and future. Pagans may not have converted quickly and without reservation. According to the Nestorian bishop, Mar Shubhhal-Isho`, “barbarian nations need to see a little worldly pomp and show to attract them to make them draw nigh willingly to Christianity.” The barbarian world was penetrated on every level by Roman goods, by Roman styles of living, and Roman ideas. It is no stretch of the imagination to believe that in time, barbarians adopted a Roman religion. Brown says that the barbarian world slowly changed shape under the distant gravitational pull of the huge adjacent mass of the Roman empire and Christianity. The Christianization of the barbarians was no more than the coming together of Romand and non-Romans on the porous middle-ground between two empires. Soon, the phenomenon of “Christianizing” places, buildings, rites, holidays, language, piety, and institutions began to take place all across Western Europe. Brown calls this “a process of enforced adaptation.”

Conclusion

The Rise of Western Christendomultimately narrates the history of the collision of two worlds, pagan and Christian. Brown is able to translate the transformation of Christianity from the third century to the eleventh. The Rise of Western Christendom tells more than the story of Christianity in the west, but goes into great detail on the Christianity of the northern Europe. China and India are also included, not to mention an informative section on the origins and spread of Islam. Overall, Brown meets his target and provides readers with a comprehensive history of Christianity in the early Middle Ages. 

The Inheritance of Rome

Chris Wickham offers a straightforward thesis in The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000. His aim is to side-step grand narratives by looking at the years 400-1000 and all sub-periods inside, without considering too much their relationship with what came before or after. His tome is helpfully divided into four sections, beginning with the Roman empire and its “fall” in the West, the immediate post-Roman polities in Gaul, Spain, Italy, Britain, and Ireland, the history of Byzantium after the seventh century crisis of the Eastern Roman empire, Arab caliphate, and Muslim Spain, and finally, the Carolingian empire, its successor states and principal imitator, England, and at the array of Northern polities. Wickham is able to encompass the theses of two notable books on the topic of European History, including, The Making of Europe, and The Rise of Western Christendom. The Inheritance of Rome transforms previously held notions about the rebuilding of Europe. 

In The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000, by Peter Brown, the author advocates that the most striking feature of conventional narratives concerning the end of the Roman empire and the early Middle Ages has been the contention that the history of western Europe has always been characterized by a natural unity. The illusion of the Empire, before the fifth century, was a safe conglomeration of cities while outside the empire, on the frontiers, “roared the wild chaos of barbarism.” The barbarian invasions effectively destroyed the first unity of Europe. Brown is not satisfied by this recollection of European history. He claims that the Catholic Church had created insubstantial but tenacious bonds to recreate a spiritual unity of Europe. Although this spiritual unity would be dominated by the medieval papacy, Brown asserts that there would not be a single, civilized, political community. 

Wickham’s ‘problem’ is similar, but different from Brown’s. Wickham gives us two grand narratives to avoid: nationalism and modernity. On nationalism, Wickham agrees with Brown that we will not find one history uniting all of Europe. There is “no common identity linking Spain to Russia, Ireland to the Byzantine empire, except a very weak sense of community that linked Christian polities together.” According to Wickham, there is no common European culture and no European-wide economy. Even national identities were not widely prominent.Wickham argues that a common language had very little to do with any form of cultural or political solidarity. Using the early Middle Ages as the ‘birth of Europe’ is close to fantasy for Wickham. Medieval history has previously been viewed as in the middle between the political and the legal solidity of the Roman empire, and the rediscovery of the latter Renaissance. Both Brown and Wickham agree that there was no total European unity in the early Middle Ages.

In The Making of Europe, Christopher Dawson places great emphasis on the East’s contributions to the birth of Europe. From the East, Dawson points out, came the Greek achievements that proved to be so important to the founding of Western civilization: Christianity, monasticism, military technologies, and the influence of Islam. “Western culture grew up under the shadow of the more advanced civilization of Islam, and it was from the latter rather than from the Byzantine world that Medieval Christendom recovered its share in the inheritance of Greek science and philosophy.” 

For Wickham, the West played the part of the lineal heir to the eastern ‘Byzantine empire,’ as he calls it, although the two empires would have different histories after 400. The reason for this break, according to Wickham, would be the downsizing and reorganization of the empire.  

In The Rise of Western Christendom, Peter Brown is able to denote that Western Christianity developed in the East by a confrontation with Persia and East Rome. The East is usually associated with Islam, but Brown delves deep into the Christian past of the East. Stretching even into China, “The Church of the East” could still be found in the thirteenth century. Brown contends that to the Muslims, the empire of Rome was always central to their strategy. However, the West was a distant place.

Henri Pirenne depicts the papacy as closely related to the Western empire and thus, having a major role in events during the early Middle Ages. Pirenne notes that kings relied upon the support of the Church in exchange for protection kings could provide the Church. 

Reverting back to Brown’s The Rise of Western Christendom, with regards to the papacy, he places major emphasis on the papacy and its connection to the West. He outlines how monasticism spread throughout western Europe to leave monasteries with the moniker “powerhouses of prayer.” Brown dedicates an entire chapter to a monastic “culture of wisdom” and sapientes. “As Christianity progressed in the British Isles, these “men of wisdom” were called upon to regulate large Christian communities.”

As the twentieth century’s leading historian of the Catholic Church, Christopher Dawson placed much emphasis on the papacy’s role in the formation of Europe. According to Dawson, the Roman empire, the Church, and classical tradition would combine to form the glue that would hold the people, cultures, and nations of Europe together. He pushed the idea of the role of monasteries in maintaining classical studies, and had much respect and admiration for the Western Church’s organization and resilience. 

Compared to Dawson’s The Making of Europe, Chris Wickham in The Inheritance of Rome places marginal emphasis on the patriarch of Rome, or the pope. Wickham’s popes are generally seen as the rulers of Rome, supreme judges in the West, and not much more, especially concerning the East. “The popes began to see themselves as a part of a Lombard and Frankish world, not a Byzantine one, from the mid-eighth century onwards.”

The title, The Inheritance of Rome, brings to mind the left-over remnants of the crumbling Roman empire. I like Wickham’s use of ‘inheritance’ in this instance, and I believe he has adeptly demonstrated how much of Western civilization in the years 400-1000encapsulated certain aspects of the fallen Roman empire. Also, his subtitle “Break-up” proficiently encompasses what the period from about 400-600 was for the Roman empire: a break-up. Western Europe and its inhabitants went through an incredible amount of social and religious change during this time period. In the East, a new world religion was developed. Romans in the fourth century would hardly recognize the empire as they had known it in the sixth century. As for the subtitle “Post-Roman,” I also agree that it is appropriate. As changes took place, Western Europe, especially, developed into its own empire, separate and clearly distinct from the past Roman empire. 

Wickham begins each chapter with a vignette, and this simple step greatly adds to reader interest and context. Wickham’s comparison between Latin and Greek Rome (ex.: curialis in Latin, bouleutes in Greek, both meaning court) enhances understanding of the two empires by showing their differences but also similarities. His hopes of prompting debate and establishing a common ground between nationalism and modernity are reached in this detailed analysis.Wickham offers a spectacularly researched and interesting account of the early Middle Ages in The Inheritance of Rome. 

Charlemagne

Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity

More than a simple biography of a Frankish king, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identitytargets centuries-old assumptions and accumulated arguments about the great king and sheds new light on the formation of a single, more cohesive Europe as a result of his rule. Rosamond McKitterick charts the formation of Frankish political identity during the reign of Charlemagne, studying the development of the Carolingian empire from its beginnings.McKitterick advances the research of Charlemagne to leave readers with a fresh perspective on a man whose legacy lives on today. 

Any scholar of the Carolingian era is faced with the many assumptions-turned-facts concerning Charlemagne and his reign. Charlemagne is remembered in history books as a great warrior, a mighty conqueror, a patron of learning, champion of Christianity, and maybe more broadly, “The Father of Europe.” McKitterick does not deny these accolades but starts from the beginning to separate fact from popular myth. She takes a fresh look at Charlemagne because the stereotype of the “veritable demi-god” is so dominant and his role in relation to the sense of European identity is so pervasive, that from our standpoint in history, our beliefs are skewed. 

To correct misconceptions and combat conjecture, McKitterick reexamines the primary evidence anew by taking a look at three samples of written narrative accounts of the life and times of Charlemagne. The first, the Vita Karoli, was written by Einhard between the years 814 and 823. He was a courtier who personally knew Charlemagne. TheVita was written just a few years after the death of the emperor, and McKitterick places great emphasis on this narrative account. Einhard’s purpose in writing the Vita was to celebrate Charlemagne’s life, his way of life, his accomplishments, good deeds, and habits. Einhard also wrote to express his gratitude to Charlemagne. In addition, the Vitawas written with several political purposes, including underscoring Louis the Pious’s legitimacy, and explaining Charlemagne’s imperial rule and the regularity of succession. Of the three texts McKitterick examines, Einhard’s Vita held a special significance to its immediate audience: the text addressed a subject that they knew well. As a result of this ‘audience familiarity’ and context, McKitterick points out that Einhard could have left details out of his narrative that may have seemed inconsequential at the time. She cautions that although the Vita Karoliis an extraordinarily influential representation of Charlemagne, it should be approached with careful attention to this bias. 

The next contemporary example cited by McKitterick is The Astronomer’s Life of Louis the Pious from the 840s. Interestingly, Charlemagne is not the central figure of the work; instead his son Louis the Pious is the focus with Charlemagne being referred to only incidentally. Its overall purpose is to remember the good and bad deeds of the ancients, especially princes, and to benefit, edify, and to warn future generations. The Astronomer’s perspective is not without stereotype and Charlemagne is again portrayed as a wise king and father. As a source, the Astronomer’s narrative provides insightful details into the educational arrangements Charlemagne made for his son Louis. 

Finally, McKitterick evaluates the poetry of the Poeta Saxo. McKitterick believes that the Poeta Saxo was probably a Corvey monk writing between the years 888 and 891. In this version of Charlemagne’s life, he is portrayed as an apostle bringing the Christian faith to the gentiles.

McKitterick contends that each of the three authors all probably relied on information provided in the Annales regni francorum, with each author also supplying “local and individual memories or a personal selection of documentary material to his narrative.” In this section ofCharlemagne, McKittierick tries to establish which texts were written when, by whom, and for what purposes. Through a seemingly line-by-line investigation the author is able to condense these three versions of Charlemagne’s history into a cohesive chronicle. Biases are exposed and compensated for. Conclusions are reached and explained. Charlemagneprovides the best composite of the founding of the Carolingian period and the celebrated king. 

It is important to mention thatCharlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity is not a chronological account of Charlemagne or the Carolingian period. Instead, McKitterick organizes her masterwork thematically. This type of organization can be off-putting to some readers, but taken as a whole, most should be able to recognize the need for this type of structure of such a complex subject.For instance, it would be difficult for many authors to concisely explain the ways in which political power was exercised and expressed during the Carolingian era in any way other than thematically. It is in this section ofCharlemagne that McKitterick reaches her apex.

McKitterick beings her explanation of political power not with the Carolingians, but with the Merovingians as they were losing power. According to McKitterick Pippinid mayors, not Merovingian kings set the social order to rights. These mayors won the support and acquiescence of Frankish nobles for their inspired leadership, and gained what McKitterick terms the “consensus and support of the Franks.” Through this leadership, the Pippinids earned respect during their office that belied an external perception of power that they exercised, while maintaining the traditions of late Merovingian government. McKitterick also argues that there was a steady build-up of wealth and connections on the part of the Pippinid mayors and other members of the family. The production of coinage reflects the real power held by the Pippinids. On the whole, the “evidence supports an understanding of the power of the mayors as equivalent to that enjoyed by the kings.” The Pippinids ruled as Merovingian kings, modeled after the kings they served. For a time, the mayors were in charge of the royal households, all aspects of royal administration, justice, the treasury, and the army. Just as Merovingian kings did, Pippinid mayors ruled with bishops and secular magnates.

Another indication of the power exerted in the developing Carolingian period is the joint rule of Charlemagne and Carloman mentioned by McKitterick. This joint rule poses an interesting dynamic between two kings. As well, Charlemagne and Carloman were known to intervene in Italian political matters as indicated by the presence of Frankish soldiers in Lombardy.

During the Carolingian era, there is evidence that indicates a female royal presence and power, namely that of Charlemagne’s sister Gisela. As eventual abbess of the convent of Chelles, Gisela presided during a time of prolific writing of court practices during the Carolingian period.

Without question, McKitterick sheds fresh light on Charlemagne’s communication network as his empire expanded under his reign. She points to regional centers of power, a plurality of political and administrative centers, and a necessary maintenance of communication between these centers and the surrounding regions. McKitterick gives a detailed discussion of Charlemagne’s itinerary, and makes the argument that he was not an itinerant ruler. Instead she charges, Charlemagne used royal charters, capitularies, and missi to administrate throughout his kingdom. Thus, order, royal control, peace, and stability were ensured. According to McKitterick the extensive network of communications underlay Charlemagne’s military success. 

As compared to Gregory of Tours’ work, the notion of society in the Carolingian period was quite different. McKitterick argues for a gradual transition between Merovingian and Carolingian rule, with a steady assumption of royal power by the Pippinid mayors that allowed the replacement of the Merovingian kings.With gradual change comes continuities, and the same is indicated between the Merovingian king and Carolingian royalty. McKitterick points to the burial of Pippin III next to St. Denis as a link between Merovingian kings and the Pippinids. In addition, she asserts that Charlemagne’s will resembles Merovingian wills from the seventh century.

The most insightful and meaningful indication of a gradual transition of power is the Frankish relationship with Bavaria. Relations between the Franks and Bavarians during the Merovingian period are difficult to understand according to McKitterick, but Bavarian politics sustained direct political interference from the Franks and Pippinids. The disagreement between Charlemagne and his Bavarian cousin, Tassilo, is indicative of great political interference. Eventually, due to papal intervention, Tassilo and Bavaria would be conquered by Charlemagne, but it was not without a “prolonged effort.”

Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity goes to great lengths to implicate the Carolingian period and Charlemagne as the core of European identity formation. Charlemagne was able to harness an incredibly large area of land filled with peoples of relatively different cultures. In The Making of Europe, author Christopher Dawson advocates for a modern European consciousness and a sense of historic and organic unity. Under the rule of Charlemagne, Medieval Europeans were united together under one kingdom and the formation of a European identity was set into motion.

Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages

 

​According to the introduction of Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, Patrick J. Geary sets out to examine the similarities between how the people of the Middle Ages dealt with the dying and death and how our modern-day society manages the same. Geary somehow mostly misses this mark, and instead through a collection of essays, provides an in-depth appraisal of the reverence of the lives of saints, their burials, and the subsequent respect given to the relics of saints.

​Geary’s essays are divided into the following sections: Reading, Representing, Negotiating, and Living. These chapters highlight the challenges that have been faced by early medieval specialists in terms of the sources available to them. Reading the sources is perhaps the most challenging task as seen by Geary. Geary advocates for a triple process of evaluation: a traditional interpretation of written sources; an examination of how objects and actions are read in texts; and a consultation with the growing literature on these issues.

​Geary is quick to point out that we must not forget that hagiography is consciously propaganda. It is not to be taken as a transparent window into everyday Medieval life or that of the saints. According to Geary, historically researchers have forgotten what a hagiographic text really is, what an author is, and what the society was. Geary observes four recent trends in the interpretation of hagiographic texts: a tendency to move from the study of saints to that of the society as a whole; shifting the focus of hagiography from one saint to several saints and their respective dossiers; a movement beyond sacred biographies to include evaluation of other texts; and a recognition that these texts are not transparent windows into the saints’ lives, their society, or even the spirituality of the age. Geary goes on to list several problems with the collaboration methods by previous researchers, including separating the texts from the contexts that they were written in, and a broad examination of the texts during the periods they are not normally associated with. One of the most significant problems Geary has uncovered is the copying, excerpting, and rearranging of old texts by contemporary Medieval authors and biographers. Geary asserts that these methods of authorship are the same as composing a completely new hagiography.

​More than just pointing out the problems associated with hagiography, Geary provides solutions for extending our research. He advocates for an analysis of hagiographic texts extending beyond the internal life of religious communities and an examination of the relationships among communities and lay society. “By concentrating on a specific locale, by examining the codicological tradition, by going beyond classic hagiographic texts to look at liturgy, miracle collections, devotional literature, and even the evidence of archives, they avoid artificial constructs of author and ideal.” Geary asserts that we need dozens of micro studies of the lives of individual saints, that we need to be informed of the relationships between ordinary laity and their local saints, and that we need models of comportment and ideals of human existence that saints seemed to offer. In short, researchers should further cultivate the study of texts, objects, and gestures to examine the underlying structures uniting them, to bring us an understanding of their place in early Medieval society.

​In the essays grouped as “Representing,” Geary explains what good the dead saints were to the living. The dead saints during the Middle Ages formed an important category in the representation of reality in the construction of a world in which the living and the dead were still a community. Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages pays particular attention to the relationships between this world and the next, especially between the living and relics in the eighth and ninth centuries.

​Swords enjoyed a unique place in Medieval society. In the early Middle Ages, swords occasioned a symbolic importance as a symbol of legitimacy. The swords of relics and other dead were coveted, and it was common for swords to be stolen from tombs.  

​Geary goes on to explain the relationship of gift-giving between relics and the living. The most fundamental object of exchange was wealth. When land was gifted, three generations were united: the living, the dead, and the future. Another element of gift-giving was the preservation of personal identity through names. By using certain name elements or entire names from generation to generation, families or individuals were consciously preserving their own names and those of their ancestors. A name is a form of immaterial inheritance, and might possibly indicate the possibility of or likelihood of aninheritance. The act of giving continued into death and articulated bonds created during life, reaffirmed relationships beyond death, and made those relationships more explicit.

​Moving on to the chapters associated with“Negotiating,” Geary answers the question as to why the living would have ever wanted to humiliate, punish, and coerce the dead, especially saints. Geary shows how the clamor and humiliation of saints were an important aspect of the spiritual arsenal that people and communities commanded. In Medieval society, it was the saints jobs to protect citizens and society. Humiliation and the clamor were used as a means of dispute settlement within the community. The clamor was usually a cry to the Lord for help. As a public act, humiliation represented an injustice done to the community. Unlike damnation, which had no degrees of severity, clamor and humiliation were not final.Geary lists several reasons why humiliation was successful: it restored the proper hierarchic relationship between humans and the divine, it helped shape public opinion, it was helpful in gaining support or sympathy, and it would elicit concern from third parties who could pressure an offender to negotiate. Humiliation also served as excellent propaganda for the ecclesiastics’ cause because it created a work stoppage for monks or canons.

​At times, humiliation continued beyond the liturgy. Geary describes how this form of humiliation became an act of coercion and of punishment directed against the saint himself for allowing the offense to happen. Humiliation could be seen as a justifiable representation of the saint joining the monks or canons in the cry to the Lord for help. Most interestingly, Geary states that humiliation was a form of self-help to the monks and canons: they could go straight to the supernatural powers to beg or bully for help in their communities.

​Relics constituted coveted property in Medieval society. Living with the Dead in the Middles Ages explains why relics were such hot commodities in the earlyMedieval period. Despite having no obvious value apart from a very specific set of shared beliefs, relics had no practical use when removed from their elaborate reliquaries or containers. Relics were not able to be used as decorative pieces. Relics were understood to be important sources of personal supernatural power and formed the primary focus of religious devotion. Relics were bought, stolen, and divided like other commodities.

​The most eagerly sought after relics were the bodies or parts of bodies of the most revered saints. Superficially, relics were similar to other corpses and skeletons readily available anywhere in Medieval society. Relics, however, held a distinct meaning from average corpses. In order to establish the esteem of relics, Geary asserts that there was a requirement of communal acceptance of three beliefs: the saint should have been during their life and especially in death, a special friend of God; the remains of the saint were to be prized and treated in a special way (so much so that it was not unheard of for an aging holy man to be murdered for someone to acquire his relics); and most importantly that the corpse or portion thereof were of the actual saint being honored.

​For many centuries relics were prized for their thaumaturgic power and ability to substitute for public authority. Relics protected and secured the community, determined the relative status of individuals and churches, and provided for the community’s economic prosperity.However, over time the comparable significance of relics’services lessened. As reasons behind this change, Geary points to political, social, religious, and economic changes.Astutely, Geary elaborates on the alternative solutions to Medieval peoples’ dependance upon relics. With changes in politics, churches attacked by laymen could appeal to the king for protection. Religious and social changes allowed monasteries to be able to rationalize budgets and exploit agricultural holdings. This exploitation allowed monasteries to be less dependent on pilgrims’ income. Far from being forgotten, relics continued to be a valuable source of supernatural power. Simply put, relics were supplanted by new and more effective forms of power and authority.

​One would be unable to examine death, burial practices, and the reverence for relics in the Middle Ages without giving a nod to the Church. Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages answers important questions about the Church’s role during this time period. Did the Church bully its way into the picture, or did the Church have a more benign disposition?

​Geary depicts the Church as playing a strong role in the affairs of early medieval death and burial practices. With respect to gift-giving, Geary shows how the Church was able to play the part of middle-man. The act of giving continued and articulated bonds created during life, reaffirmed relationships beyond death, and made them more explicit afterwards. With most gifts, the Church oversaw the affairs of the community, not as a disinterested third party, but as an element of the giving that had a serious stake in each gift. Geary describes several situations in which citizens bequeathed gifts straight to the Church itself in order to have a higher acclaim and more prayers after death.

​Overall, the title, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, does not accurately depict the book’s contents. Geary does depict the relationships between the living and dead, but the relationships are specifically between the living and saints. This collection of essays is mostly a veneration of saints, their related burial practices, and the relationships of the people with relics.

Plague and the End of Antiquity

Plague and the End of Antiquity

Using twelve essays to form a volume, Plague and the End of Antiquity attempts to address the Justinianic Plague that ravaged the entire globe from 540 to 750. History, archaeology, epidemiology, and molecular biology are combined to “produce a comprehensive account of the pandemic’s origins, spread, and mortality, as well as its economic, social, political, and religious effects.” Because of the sheer magnitude and scope of the Justinianic Plauge, the editor of Plague and the End of Antiquity, Lester K. Little, claims that the time has not yet come for a single author to undertake such a colossal narrative of the pandemic that spanned centuries. Instead, The Plague and the End of Antiquity gives readers twelve different essays on the subject. After one reads Plague and the End of Antiquity, it will be abundantly clear that a single, comprehensive, and cohesive narrative of the Justinianic Plague is desperately needed. 

Following a brief introduction, the initial essays contained in Plague and the End of Antiquity are grouped according to region: The Near East, The Byzantine Empire, and The Latin West. With a combined eight authors covering the same subject (albeit in different regions of the world) much information is covered at least twice, and sometimes three times. The symptoms of bubonic plague are described again and again. The effects of bubonic plague are examined over and over. Indeed, almost each and every topic that has a connection with the bubonic plague is explored, researched, and written about repeatedly. A single narrative would be able to succinctly and less-repetitively provide an account of the life-extinguishing Justinianic Plague. Too much time, space, and research effort is expended in the organizational approach of The Plague and the End of Antiquity. 

The one bright spot among the regional organizational method is the commonalities revealed during the Justinianic Plague pandemic, especially given the enormous geographical regions touched by bubonic plague. Every region experienced a morbid surplus of dead bodies. Economic stagnation was reported from Ireland to China. Urban flight was observed on every continent. The essays also point to similar trends of spread and infection across the globe. 

Written sources remain historians primary source when researching the Justinianic Plague. We are left with sources from four languages to discern the history of the earliest pandemic of bubonic plague: Syriac, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. The longest account in any language is found in the Ecclesiastical History by John, Bishop of Ephesus, written in Syriac. Another Syriac source is theChronicle of Zuqnin. Arabic sources were not left to us directly, but incorporated later “into larger, more systematic works.” The main Greek source of the Justinianic Plague was that of the historian Procopius of Caesarea. His Persian War and Secret History reveal the spread and intensity of the plague in Byzantium, and he also does a surprisingly remarkable job of describing the symptoms of bubonic plague and the progression of the disease given his lack of medical training or experience. Other Greek sources that are relied on in the twelve essays of Plague and the End of Antiquity are lawyers Agathias and Evagrius. With regards to Spain, one literary source is noted, the Chronicle of Zaragoza. The Justinianic Plague devastated Ireland as well. Written sources are even more limited there, as Ann Dooley relies on annalistic sources to document the death of important families. There are other Irish legal and paralegal sources that offer vague clues to the scope of the Plague, but the majority of these need to be used with conjecture. Finally, Gregory of Tours left a fascinating and notable record of the Justinianic Plague and its effects on the port city of Marseilles. His observations of the transmission of the disease off of ships are insightful and on target. 

To say that the lights dimmed in the literary record after the sixth century is an understatement. John Maddicott refers to the seventh century as “notoriously unchronicled.” In addition, throughout the Justinianic Plague pandemic, there were no chroniclers with a medical background. So how can literary sources be relied upon for information about the Justinianic Plague? The twelve authors of Plague and the End of Antiquity validate the literary sources by referencing them to the microbiological and archaeological records. Some chroniclers, such as John of Ephesus, tended to use hyperbole when reporting on the Justinianic Plague, so each written testament of the plague needs to be corroborated as much as possible with the extant physical record and the emerging research in molecular biology and epidemiology. 

There is little argument that sixth century people had not faced any type of pandemic disease equal to the range of bubonic plague. There was no precedent on how to live with or cope with the deadly outbreak. The reactions of the people who lived during the Justinianic Plague are revealing. Again and again the authors in Plague and the End of Antiquity describe the people’s flight from bubonic plague. This flight had “the attendant likelihood of the onward transmission of the disease.”Escape from death would have been the people’s first reaction from such an unbiased killer. Also, in England the plague resulted in “the abandonment of the most binding obligations.” Fields went unharvested. Parents ceased parenting. The dead were left unburied. Entire villages were depopulated. 

People desperately looked for reasons behind the bubonic plague. Many people equated the plague with God’s punishment for their sins. John of Ephesus and the Zuqnin chronicler explained plague epidemics as a call for repentance and “the rod of God’s gentle mercy.” In one city on the border between Palestine and Egypt, people there “reverted to paganism and worshipped a brass statue to avert the plague” and its consequences. Alain J. Stoclet points to one physician in the 588 outbreak of plague in the vicinity of Constantinope who was passed back and forth between Gregory of Tours and Chilperic. Scott argues that Gregory was acting not to protect his assemblage against the plague, but “against charlatans whose supposed remedies were far less harmful in his view than the false doctrines that they were wont to spread.” In Syria, excavations have revealed church building that continued despite epidemics of plague. Hugh N. Kennedy maintains that church building during these times should not be mistaken for a vitality or prosperity of the village, just that there were people still living who had the means to construct such a building. Clearly, people were living in a confused time period and searched for explanations and reasons behind the plague in many different ways. 

Despite the trials of the Justinianic Plague pandemics and its deadly effects, Maddicott maintains “that fertility outstripped mortality as the main determinant of demographic change.” Maddicott also points to a monastic boom as a sign of the growth of population in the decade following the plague’s disappearance.Outside the monastic aspect of society, Maddicott admits that there is little evidence of what happened to the people of the English countryside. The archaeological record is virtually all that remains of the eighth and ninth centuries. Of those, Maddicott points out that the few sites from that time period were not reoccupied by rural peoples after the plague vanished. Not only that, but there was a near-cessation of building activity in the years that followed. Of the building activity that is evident, there was a significant change of housebuilding styles. Most importantly, missing from existing archaeological sites is the sceatta, a common Anglo-Saxon coin. The Justinianic Plague caused people to begin anew. 

All of these changes in society that occurred after the Justinianic Plague pandemic, are suggestive of an end to antiquity and the dawning of the Middle Ages. Rural flight of the survivors, as noted elsewhere, reshaped the demography of every region. Monasticism, one of the great tenants of the Middle Ages, rose to prominence in the years after the plague disappeared. Robert Sallares claims that the effects of the plague on early medieval history “undoubtedly played a major role in undermining the old order of the sub-Roman world and paved the way for the immigration of less Romanized newcomers.”

In the preface of Plague and the End of Antiquity, Little explains that the appearances of bubonic plagues from 541 to 750 coincided with a “distinctive shaping of the Byzantine Empire, a new prominence of monasticism and of the Roman papacy, the gradual Christianizing of the Celtic and Germanic peoples, the beginnings of Islam, the rapid accumulation of the Arabic Empire, the ascent of the Carolingian dynasty in Frankish Gaul, and, not coincidentally, the beginnings of a positive work ethic in the Latin West.”The twelve essays that follow the preface attempt to address each of these effects, some with greater energy than others. For instance, at no other place in the book is work ethic mentioned than in Little’s quote from the preface. 

As for future research hopes of the Justinianic Plague pandemic, the path is bright. Taken in tandem with the literary sources, archaeology will continue to yield findings and important information. But, however helpful archaeology may be, it cannot tell us other vital facts such as the progress of epidemic disease in any period. The effects on the countryside remain certain, but unquantifiable. The archaeological evidence is too imprecise to be interpreted alone.

Molecular biology and epidemiology have both emerged as fields that will illuminate the cause, virulence, spread, and effects of the Justinianic Plague. Michael McCormick avows that molecular biology “offers the first real prospect of resolution” on the much-debated cause of the bubonic plague. Epidemiology will benefit researchers by examining the suspected pathogen of bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis. In addition, knowing the vectors of transmission and infection can help us learn to prevent diseases such as bubonic plague. By studying the plague epidemics of the Middle Ages, when cycles of plague and other diseases occur today, research can be used to better identify those diseases, working toward the ultimate goal of amelioration, prevention, and extermination.

Medieval Technology and Social Change

Medieval Technological Innovation

More than fifty years after its first publication, Lynn White, Jr.’s Medieval Technology & Social Changecontinues to call forth a debate among historians with respect to Medieval technology. As articles by Bernard S. Bachrach, D. A. Bullough, and Alex Roland attest, White’s important work at the very least forms the cornerstone of the fascinating topic of technological innovation and the rise of social groups during the Middle Ages. White expounds upon the importance of the stirrup and how this seemingly insignificant implement spurred feudalism, how new technologies in agriculture led to a surge in population, and how the advances of machine power in the lives of Medieval peoples led to urbanization. 

The thesis of Medieval Technologypoints to the significance of technology during a time period that is usually considered as technically moribund. White begins his work centering around a seemingly inconsequential implement: the stirrup. White argues that the stirrup enabled Charles Martel to engage in mounted shock combat, which “inevitably” led to feudalism. Prior to the stirrup mounted warriors had little stability. Riders used saddles that would prevent them from falling over the horse’s tail, but saddles did not add lateral stability, something which was much needed during combat.White also argues that mounted combatants who used two-handed lances would have been compelled to lay the reins on the “horse’s neck and to guide him solely by voice and pressure of the knees at the most critical moments of battle.”Essentially, mounted warriors would not have had much of an advantage over regular foot soldiers because of the lack of stability and the occasional loss of control of the mount. 

The foot-stirrup began as a way for riders to control their mounts without losing stability and the use loss of control of the mount. Developed in China during the fifth century, the foot-stirrup added to the effectiveness of the mounted fighter.The the stirrup evolved and spread west, White declares that under the direction of Charles Martel, the stirrup helped spur European feudalism. Now that riders could engage in mounted shock combat, held in place on their mounts by stirrups, Martel began to seize ecclesiastical properties to endow the growing use of cavalry. According to White, “mounted warriors could only be maintained in large numbers by landed endowment,” and so in effect, history has the stirrup to thank for European feudalism. 

Moving on, Medieval Technology and Social Change goes on to explain the importance of the plow in Medieval society and how it spurred a shift of power, wealth, and resources within Europe. White puts great emphasis on the plow and argues that it was the first application of non-human power to agriculture For the first time, with the harness the plow substituted animal power for human power. As the first, the plow helped to usher in the manorial system in Europe. The plow had many advantages. It could handle clods better than previous rudimentary implements, saved peasant labor, and increased the area of arable land. Significantly, White gives credit to the heavy plow for changing the shape of fields from squarish to long and narrow. This shift in field shape particularly galvanized the communal aspect of villages. Villagers situated their arable fields next to each other and, with this arrangement, all fields were productive for the benefit of the whole community. Through the cooperative labor of many peasants, these communities were a primitive form of the manorial economy that Northern Europe would later see.

White contends that the plow and the new farming technologies it inspired spurred a population upsurge because more food was made available. However, he is cautious in that although the new productivity that made the heavy plow possible quickly increased the population, it was only adopted in areas already enjoying a certain density of settlement. In conjunction with a balanced approach between herding and agriculture, the heavy plow produced an unprecedented prosperity and vigor in the Frankish heartland. Man became nature’s exploiter. 

The plow and new farming technologies combined to expand production, made possible the accumulation of surplus foods that would spearhead the population growth, made practical the growth of leisure time that would lead to the development of skilled artisans and merchants, and were responsible for urbanization. European peasant society was reshaped with a bursting vigor. 

White begins his analysis of an agricultural revolution on the plow, saying, “the heavy plow is only the first major element in the agricultural revolution.” After the plow, the harness, in conjunction with nailed horseshoe, made the horse an economic and military asset. There were advantages for the peasant population to utilize equine power over oxen. Farm horses were stronger than oxen and had more endurance.Use of the horse-drawn plow soon became standard in European agriculture.

White contends that Medieval peasants soon developed another method of farming that would revolutionize agriculture. Known as the “greatest agricultural novelty of the Middle Ages in Western Europe,” the triennial system of crop rotation allowed peasants to produce more crops and enriched the soil. The horse-drawn plow and triennial field planting “increased the returns from the labor of the Northern peasant,” raised the standard of living, and consequently the ability to buy manufactured goods. Again, White emphasizes the surplus of food that would have been made available, that would ultimately propel urbanization.

The stirrup, the heavy plow, new farming technologies, the switch to horse from oxen, and the horse all gave way to power technology. Water was the first source of power to be tamed. Water wheels and mills were implemented to mill crops and even to treat cloth and hemp. In the thirteenth century, “windmills became one of the most typical features of the landscape of the great plains of northern Europe.” Windmills assisted Medieval people in the manufacture of textiles and grinding grain just to cite a few examples. Vapor and steam were harnessed to aid fire combustion as a bellows. Jets of steam would also turn turbines and eventually the steam-turbine was developed. Hot air and air under pressure were also utilized by Europeans. In the late fifteenth century, for example, engineers were “setting in the flues small  turbines geared to turn a spit.” Eventually, rockets, cannons, and other primitive forms of guns and explosives would be exploited as a result of using air as a source of power.  

White presents a charming case for the Medieval control of gravity. Torsion, by way of the twisting of fibers, was developed in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. However, this method of gravitational control proved unsatisfactory because elasticity issues in certain climates. In the thirteenth century, technicians used gravity to harness one of their most significant problems: the need for an accurate and reliable clock. Not only did Medieval people explore sources of power like gravity, but they also invented ways to control and guide this power. As the middle of the fourteenth century passed, clocks became a status symbol in communities. Clocks were intricate, elaborate, and coveted. In spite of the enthusiasm and eagerness that Medieval people chased the accurate measurement of time, the design for a working clock did not come from clockmakers, but instead White argues that “the interdependence of all aspects of technology” borrowed from military engineers initiated the standard clock.

While modernist thinking in Europe and the United States has touted western civilization as the greatest ever, or “The West is Best” mantra, White’s Medieval Technological Innovation paints a noteworthy difference. In nearly every significant development, from the rudimentary forms of stirrups, the water wheel, artillery and cannon fire, and farming, White denotes that most original ideas developed in the Orient. Far from diminishing western influence, White explains the origins of objects or ideas, and then goes on to document the way in which these things were influenced by Europeans. For instance, White’s foremost implement, the foot-stirrup, probably originated in China.

Bernard Bachrach gives White due credit in his critique of Medieval Change and Social Technology.Looking to the future, Bachrach advocates for the more frequent use of archaeology to back up White’s contentions regarding the stirrup. Bachrach also interprets the data differently than White, by claiming that the Carolingian world was not as impressed with the stirrup as White leads readers to believe. Bachrach makes another important fact that White omits: the armies of Charles Martel and those of his sons excelled in siege warfare in which horsemen play at most a limited role. His statements infer that the stirrup, although it may have been used, would not have been a necessity in early Medieval battles, especially those of Charles Martel. Finally, Bachrach argues that Charles Martel did not make use of heavily armed horsemen in his military force that would have required the use of securing armed support and lands that White avows led to the European Feudal system.

Alex Roland provides an informative critique of Lynn White, Jr.’s Medieval Technology and Social Change.Roland begins with a succinct summarization of Medieval Technology, but moreover goes on to address several attacks against White’s work. Foremost is White’s argument that the stirrup is innately tied to feudalism. Roland’s main point is that White did not mean to intimate that the stirrup inevitably lead to feudalism, but that the stirrup made the succeeding social changes possible. Roland also defends White from the harsh criticism, notably from P. H. Sawyer and R. H. Hilton. Roland argues that Sawyer and Hilton misinterpreted what White was trying to convey. Namely, they “refuted arguments that White did not make, inferred motives that White did not manifest, and accused him of views he did not hold.” Roland does concede that the nature of White’s writing leaves room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation. “He (White) favored evidence that supported his argument, apparently overlooking some.” Above all, Roland decides that Medieval History is better for having White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change. Roland sees the work as a challenge to the scholarly community to revise and accept or revise and edit White’s conclusions, something that cannot help but further our understanding of all history. 

Topics in the History of Pre-Modern Europe

Writing Assignments

1. Pirenne Thesis - Book Review

2. The Making of Europe - Book Review

3. Medieval Technology and Social Change - Book Review

4. Plague and the End of Antiquity - Book Review

5. Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages - Book Review

6. Charlemagne - Book Review

7. The Inheritance of Rome - Book Review

8. The Rise of Western Christendom - Book Review

The Making of Europe

The Making of Europe

In The Making of Europe, Christopher Dawson sets out to rewrite European History from a European point-of-view, with the goal of understanding the unity of the common civilization instead of a national identity. He advocates for Europe to develop a common European consciousness and a sense of its historic and organic unity. Dawson argues that there should not be a separate history for each country, but a common history intertwined with all. The Making of Europe adeptly corroborates Dawson’s thesis, while also addressing the reasons behind the fall of The Roman Empire as a result of turmoil in the Empire, classical tradition and Christianity, the Barbarian invasions, and the spread of Islam. Dawson’s book is about the people and cultures of Europe, not just those of the  Roman Empire and Mediterranean. 

Dawson and Henri Pirenne seem to be somewhat on the same page with regards to their notions of civilization. Pirenne gives more responsibility to the fall of the Roman Empire to that of the spread of Islam than does Dawson. But, Dawson seems to be able to see the ‘big picture’ better than Pirenne. Although there were crushing Barbarian invasions, Dawson asserts that the breach with the old tradition of culture was far less sudden and less complete than that which occurred at the beginning of the Iron Age. He goes into much more detail on the Barbarians way of life than does Pirenne. Dawson understands the tribal nature of Barbarian culture, one that was a tribal society with personal freedom, loyalty, self-respect, heroic traditions, devotion towards community, and moral and spiritual development that were far in advance of the material culture known in the Roman Empire.In many ways these tribal society factors are of greater significance than the sheer opulence of the Roman culture. In short, kinship was more important in Barbarian society than citizenship.

In general, Dawson depicts the Barbarians as a group of people with mixed descent and heritage, all with a more or less combined culture. The tribes integrated with and overlapped each other. When one group was dominant for many years, another would be sure to dominate later. Readers are left with a fluid image of the Barbarian culture.

Dawson gives credit to the Ostrogothic kingdom as the direct source of the movement which destroyed the unity of the Roman Empire and created new Barbarian kingdoms in the West. The defeat of the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople by Barbarians forced the Roman capital and government to be moved to Italy. This movement prepared the way for the disintegration of the Western Empire.Dawson shows how the scene was set for the Roman Empire to crumble. The spread of Islam and the awakening of the East were just the icing on the cake to bring the Empire down.

Another important aspect of European culture that Dawson expounds upon is the religious way of life. Unlike other oriental religions, Christianity thrived because “it possessed a system of ecclesiastical organization and a principle of social authority that distinguished it from all the other religious bodies of the age”.Civic institutions, the basis of ancient society, were replaced by the Church.Dawson also points to a reversal of societal roles, where the Bishop would ascend to become the most important figure in the community, instead of the municipal magistracy.Dawson states that Europe owes its political existence to Rome, spiritual unity to the Catholic Church, and intellectual culture to the Classical Tradition.

The literal making of Europe would not be complete without the East. By the third century, Dawson claims that a new culture had arisen due to influences from the East. The beginning of the Persian kingdom belonging to the Sassanids in A.D. 226, was most epoch-making event of the third century. It gave rise to a new oriental world-power, saw a reassertion of native Iranian power, and started the tradition of culture against the hegemony of Hellenistic civilization that would dominate Europe for five hundred years. “The coming of Islam is the great fact which dominates the history of the seventh and eighth centuries, and it affects the subsequent development of Medieval civilization.” The spread of Islam was also “the last act of the thousand years of interaction between East and West, the complete victory of the oriental spirit which had been gradually encroaching on the Hellenistic world since the downfall of the Seleucid monarchy. Mohammed was the answer of the East to the challenge of Alexander.” 

Similarly to Pirenne, Dawson sets the seventh century as the end of the last phase of ancient Mediterranean civilization and the beginning of the Middle Ages. In addition to the spread of Islam the Muslim culture began expanding. Despite the loss of political unity within the Islamic empire, Muslim culture thrived. The tenth century was the beginning of a Persian Renaissance and the golden age of literature and science. Western Europe was not immune to the spread of Islam. Dawson maintains that Western culture “grew up under the shadow of the more advanced civilization of Islam, and it was from the latter rather than from the Byzantine world that medieval Christendom recovered its share in the inheritance of Greek science and philosophy.”

Dawson gives immense attention to Charlemagne and the Carolingian Age. In point of fact, Dawson argues that it was the personal influence of Charlemagne that inspired the greatest achievement of the Carolingian Age: the gathering together of the scattered elements of the classical and Patristic traditions and their reorganization as the basis of a new culture. The Carolingian Age saw a return to scholarship that changed the face of the written word. The revision of scripts and calligraphy are hallmarks of this important era of the Middle Ages. Art and architecture also saw advancements during this time period. Dawson again points to the imperial influence of Charlemagne as the founder of “Holy Roman” architecture. On art, Dawson says, “it is in miniature-painting and illumination that the mixed art of the Carolingian period is seen to best advantage.”

The Carolingian abbey was perhaps the most important aspect in the history of early medieval civilization. The institution was based on a purely agrarian economy, but still embodied the highest spiritual and intellectual culture of the age. Monasteries were also great centers of trade. They fulfilled a primitive idea of banks and insurance societies. “It was owing to the work of the monsters that the Carolingian culture was able to survive the fall of the Carolingian Empire.”

When one considers Dawson’s historical output, consideration of his understanding of totalitarianism’s nature and his opposition to it must be given. This view of totalitarianism has been linked by some researchers as developing in preparatory school when Dawson was a boy. In addition, “one of Dawson’s chief catalytic intellectual and spiritual guides in young adulthood was John Henry Newman,” who Dawson would later credit as foreseeing totalitarianism’s precursors.

Christopher Dawson was likely greatly influenced by his upbringing in England. The grandson of several generations of clergymen, coming of age in a medieval castle-like dwelling, and the actual town in which he was raised, all gave him a “dual perception of reality as both time- and culture-linked.” He was the century’s leading historian of the Catholic Church, so rumination must also be given to his close association of Catholicism. Dawson “saw totalitarianism as part of modernity’s growing secularization of culture,” and concluded that it needed a response. Schwartz points out that “Dawson’s views on totalitarianism molded his attitudes toward topics as diverse as fascism and communism, World War II, the welfare state, decolonization, America’s role in Western civilization, education, European unity, and religious ecumenism.” 

Pirenne Thesis

As a Belgian historian, Henri Pirenne challenged the long-held belief that the decline of civilization occurred because of the Germanic invasions in the Roman Empire. Renaissance and Reformation thinkers, Enlightenment philosophers, and Modernist historians all pointed to the Germanic invasions that begin in the fifth century as giving rise to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Instead, Pirenne points to the swift and surprising spread of Islam as the reason behind the break with traditional antiquity. Islam cut off trade in the Mediterranean, thus making the Mediterranean Sea and Musulman lake. For the first time in history, the center of life shifted northward from the Mediterranean. 

Pierenne states that although there was a flood of Germanic immigration to the Roman Empire, the invaders were simply absorbed into the Empire. The German language died away. The Gothic conception of royalty was lost. All Germanic law was crushed and the organization of the judiciary was entirely Roman. In Spain and Gaul, the Germanic character was modified by Roman manners and Roman institutions. In the Empire, royal insignia went from Germanic to Roman. The agricultural system of the Roman Empire continued without addition after the invasions. Spanish agriculture bore no resemblance to Germanic agriculture. Social classes remained the same. The organization of great estates remained unchanged.With regards to navigation, Pirenne argues that it was just as active under the Empire as after the invasions, an important distinction that will be noted later. Trade was not greatly affected. Pirenne states that the diffusion of spices from the Orient was uninterrupted after the invasions.Instead of declining, the author posits that the Germanic invasions may have revived the prosperity of the slave trade. The Germanic peoples would have been familiar with the slave trade, brought slaves with them, and their wars must have added to their numbers. 

Leaving no room for error, Pirenne emphasizes that imports and exports were extensive in the sixth century.Had there been a fall of civilization, then surely trade would have been the first to noticeably deteriorate. Most importantly to Pirenne, the invasions did not supplant the Empire with a Germanic coin. “Nothing attests more clearly the persistence of the economic unity of the Empire. It was impossible to deprive it of the benefit of monetary unit”. 

In consideration of art, Pirenne states that there was no artistic interruption in the Mediterranean. The Germanic vein of Visigothic art was extinguished by the sixth century. Poets continued to write poetry. Coyly, Pirenne points out that someone had to be reading the poetry that was created. Overall, Piernne deftly reconstructs the economic, social, and cultural practices “Romania” after the invasions, and demonstrates that although the invaders were considerably different, the Germans almost seamlessly assimilated into their new environment and empire. Not a fall or decline of the Empire, but business and life carried on as usual. 

According to Pirenne, the Middle Ages began after the eighth century. “Before the 8^th century what existed was the continuation of the ancient Mediterranean economy. After the 8^thcentury there was a complete break with this economy. The sea was closed. Commerce had disappeared”.Pirenne differs in this respect to previous historians in that prior to Pirenne, the Middle Ages started much sooner. Specifically, Pirenne points to the reign of Charlemagne as the beginning of the Middle Ages. “The Carolingian Empire, or rather, the Empire of Charlemagne, was the scaffolding of the Middle Ages”. As Pirenne pointed to the circulation of money as an indicator that civilization was not dead in the sixth century, he does the opposite in the eighth. “As for the currency, this was in a terrible state of confusion. There was practically no gold in circulation.” Prices were frequently paid in grain or cattle. Navigation degenerated. Pirates infested the waters of the Mediterranean. The class of wealthy merchants had vanished. Aside from a very few, the only group of people to manage trade were the Jews.Pirenne concludes that the degeneration of commerce “resulted in making the soil more than ever the essential basis of economic life”. 

For the most part, McCormick agrees with Pirenne, his thesis, and surrounding details. Agreeably, McCormick also denotes the Middle Ages as beginning around the eighth century after the spread of Islam, not the invasions of the Barbarians in the fifth century. McCormick points out how Pirenne easily denotes papyrus missing from the scribes in Gaul during the seventh century. Even more impressed, McCormick gives Pirenne credit with grasping the next obvious conclusion: the disruption of trade with the Orient because the Islamic world had taken control of the Mediterranean. 

McCormick offers several important additions involving communication to think about regarding Pirenne’s thesis. First, McCormick speculates the reason merchants, and specifically merchants mentioned by name, disappear from record books during the seventh century is not because there simply were no merchants, but because the chroniclers would not have deigned to waste their time recording such information.  However, McCormick points out that just because merchants are quiet in the record books does not mean they did not exist. He counters that what we are left with is communications. Using the movements of people, coinage, goods, and slaves, McCormick deftly adds another element to Pirenne’s thesis. 

Without a bibliography, deciphering Pirenne’s sources is a bit daunting. One of Pirenne’s favorite sources was Gregory of Tours, who was a contemporary Bishop who recorded a history of the Franks, and recorded observations during his time period. Gregory of Tours seems to be an invaluable source to Pirenne. According to the Preface, Henri Pirenne’s son, Jacques Pirenne, completed Mohammed and Charlemagne after the death of Henri. Basing the completed version ofMohammed and Charlemagne on a “rough draft” completed by Henri Pirenne, Jacques Pirenne and a valued pupil of Henri Pirenne’s, M. F. Vercauteren, cited sources. This double-dip of note-taking and referencing no doubt left several assertions incomplete. Nonetheless, Jacques Pirenne is correct when he asserts that Mohammed and Charlemagne contain the “most vital, boldest, and most recent ideas” of the conditions leading up to the fall of the Roman Empire and the spread of Islam in the early Middle Ages.