Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 [Hardcover]

Chris Wickham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 2005 | ISBN-10: 019926449X | ISBN-13: 978-0199264490

The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country.

In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham aims at integrating documentary and archaeological evidence together, and also, above all, at creating a comparative history of the period 400-800, by means of systematic comparative analyses of each of the regions of the latest Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt (only the Slav areas are left out). The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These are only a partial picture of the period, but they are intended as a framing for other developments, without which those other developments cannot be properly understood.

Wickham argues that only a complex comparative analysis can act as the basis for a wider synthesis. Whilst earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions, this book takes all different developments as typical, and aims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it. This is the most ambitious and original survey of the period ever written.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a book and a subject with a pedigree that demands the closest attention.... a tour de force.... Wickham'snds Framing the Early Middle Ages may be the last great historical work of the last century."--The New Republic

"History doesn't get any better.... More than almost any history I've read, Wickham's manages to be at once grand and rigorous. In its adroit and confident treatment of an array of subjects and disciplines, and in its exhaustive bibliography, this book, like Brown's [Rise of Western Christendom], has encapsulated and synthesized a burgeoning field of scholarship at the point of perhaps its greatest creativity."--Benjamin Schwarz, he Atlantic Monthly

"For all its great range, its methodological self-awareness, its deployment of precise and often closely analysed data from many disciplines and kinds of source, there is hardly a page of Framing the Early Middle Ages which a newcomer to the period would not find accessible, indeed warmly welcoming, in the informality of its tone, the scrupulous articulation of its reasoning and its care not to presume on the prior knowledge of the reader.... It raises the bar for all future discussion of large-scale historical change, and not just for this period, but it also shows us how we may occasionally scramble over it."--Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Chris Wickham received his DPhil from Oxford in 1975. He has taught at the University of Birmingham since then and is currently Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford. He has been editor of Past and Present since 1995.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1018 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 019926449X
• ISBN-13: 978-0199264490
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,150,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Survey!, September 3, 2006

By 

T. O'Byrne "perpetual student" (Notre Dame, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 (Hardcover)

Chris Wickham explores the world of the early Middle Ages in a systematic way. Using literary and archaeological evidence, Wickham describes the changes which took place in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa after the fall of Rome. He maintains that despite the great political upheavals of the time, local continuity was a hallmark of this period. Economic decline and regrowth were connected with changes in the power and wealth of the aristocracy, who also exercised lesser or greater control over the land and the people.

While this massive piece of scholarship does not address cultural or intellectual history, it provides a very clear picture of the political and economic changes that transformed the former Roman Empire during the years 400-800 A.D. The writing is lively and easy to read, and the work is well organized. The full index and large bibliography as well as the broad range of topics covered make this book an indispensible reference tool for anyone studying Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sure to set the standard on the Subject, August 30, 2008

By 

John E. Mack (New London, Minnesota United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 (Paperback)

This is a monumental review of the economic and social histories of the former provinces of the Roman Empire between the penetration of the empire by the barbarians and the imperial coronation of Charlemagne. Along with the Origins of the European Economy, this book is likely to be the standard social and economic survey of the dark ages for years to come. The author surveys each of the major territorial regions of the fomer Roman Empire region-by-region, and slowly develops his theses. These include: (1) a "soft-fall" view of the disintegration of the Western Empire, concluding that many of its structures were in place well into the seventh century and gradually were melded into the less sophisticated successor states of Western Europe; (2) a taxation-driven notion of the state, concluding that the major factor distinguishing Rome and Roman power from that of successor states is that Rome had an elaborate and relatively efficient tax system, and that the successor states did not; (3) a regionalist approach to conclusions, finding that things changed in different degrees in different ways throughout the territories of the Roman Empire -- slowly and relatively little in the East, massively in Britain, in odd ways in Spain and Gaul; (4) a picture of transformation from peasant-based society to feudal society, occurring rather later than many historians would allow; (5) a strong de-emphasis on barbarian wars and conquests as an explanation for these transformations; and (5) a peasant's eye view of the transformation from Roman Empire to the Middle Ages.

It is in the latter that the only real problem with the book arises. The author is so pro-peasant in his view that he takes what could be called a "Xena" view of medieval class struggles. In Xena (and Conan, and Red Sonya, and 10,000 B.C., to name but a few sword-and-sorcery potboilers) there is a familiar scene where the peaceful peasants are going about their village business, talking to each other and carrying out their daily tasks, while a band of heavily-armed thugs is approaching the village on horseback, ready to destroy it with fire and sword. In this author's world, heavily-financed aristocrats are about to encroach on an idylic and egalitarian peasant world, forcing the formerly free peasantry to pay rent, work harder, and have more children. In what is perhaps his most radical claim, the author suggests that the serious decline in population from the late empire to about 700 A.D. was due, not to war, pestilence, famine and occupation but -- family planning! He admits that he cannot prove this, but it is clearly an idea which attracts him. I am dubious -- it is difficult to think of any other society between the birth of agriculture and the industrial revolution where the bulk of the population did not breed to its Malthusian limit, and the claim that early medieval Europe was an exception would require a good deal of proof.

That said, this is a wonderful book. Even its bias supplies a point of view which has been the subject of all-too-little factual analysis in the past. And by focusing on social relations above all, the author presents a very different view of the dark ages than that usually presented in our histories. Far from being a time of barbarism and decay, the early Middle Ages (the author balks at the term "dark ages") were a period of relative prosperity, equality, and good relations compared to what was to come.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In depth analysis, but heavy going, January 27, 2009

By 

Norman Siebrasse - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800 (Paperback)

I completely agree with the reviewers who call this "a tremendous piece of scholarship" and "a monumental review." But beware - it is very heavy going. This is not because it is poorly written. On the contrary, given the density of information and depth of analysis, it is very well written. But Wickham deals extremely carefully with a great mass of material, and the result, while insightful and thorough, is very difficult to digest. As a couple of examples for comparison, I found Marc Bloch's "Feudal Society" and Pirenne's "Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe" both much easier to read.

It's difficult to rate this book. If you are looking for scholarship, it is 5 stars. If you are looking for a readable overview, it's more like 2 stars. I notice that one reviewer listed Peter Heather's "Fall of the Roman Empire" along with this as one of three must have books on the period. To me, the books were completely different. Heather's book was extremely readable, but the analysis was not not at the forefront. I wasn't particularly convinced by Heather's thesis, but more to the point, you can pretty much ignore the analysis if you just want a narrative history. With Wickham's book, each page carefully marshalls evidence and inference - you may agree or disagree, but you can't take this book lightly. That may be for better or for worse, depending on what you are looking for.