Mohammed, Charlemagne, and the Origins of Europe: The Pirenne Thesis in the Light of Archaeology

by Richard Hodges and David Whitehouse

Book Overview

The archaeology of the period A.D. 500-1000 has taken off in the Mediterranean (where prehistoric and classical studies formerly enjoyed a virtual monopoly in most areas) and in the Islamic world. Here, as in northern Europe, field survey, careful excavation and improved methods of dating are beginning to supply information which now is not only more abundant but also of much higher quality than ever before. The 'New Archaeology', pioneered in...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801492629
• ISBN13: 9780801492624
• Release Date: October 1983
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Pirenne's main thesis remains up

I read this good book, here in Brazil.This book is short, concise, mainly correct and has many photos and some maps.All the photos and maps are black & white. The main problem of this book is its will to refute, the so called Pirenne's thesis.Using archeological evidence, not available to Henri Pirenne(1862-1935), while he was alive. This book is mainly good, but its peaks in on the pages 156 and 157, where we can read: "Five conclusions This chapter and the one before leads us to five conclusions: 1. Bagdad (founded in 762), thanks to its position and the presence of the abassid court, rapidly became the centre of a great commercial network, which at the end of the eighth century and in the early ninth century expanded to include the Arabian Sea and places as far removed as southern Chine.The reign of Harun al-Rachid(775-809) saw the wealth of Baghdad and the volume of trade reach unprecedented heights. 2.The abassid caliphs failed to create internal stability, and the ninth century was a period of frequent revolts and infighting between members of the ruling family, factions at the court and the army.The legitimate sucessor of al-Rashid climbed to the throne over the body of a usurper;of the eight succeeding caliphs, two were assassinated and two died in exile. 3.With few exceptions, the caliphs were reckless spenders.The foundation of a new capital, Samarra, in 836, demanded expenditure on a colossal scale.Al-Mutasim built a palacelarger than Versailles in 836-842;al-Mutawakkil replaced it with another, almost as large, in about 849-59;al-Mutamid build a third in 878-82.The city itself extended along the Tigris for 35 kilometers. 4.The product of intermittent warfare and gross extravagance was an economic disaster.At the death of Harun al-Rashid,the Abassid treasury was overflowing;on the accession of al-Mutadid(892) it was empty. 5.The high point in the exportation of silver to Scandinavia, therefore, coincided with an economic boom in western Asia in the reign of Harun.The drying-up of the supply coincided with the gradual exhaustion of the Abassid economy." ************************************ Even so,the Pirenne's thesis remains up. Decades, in fact some centuries, before the foundation of Islam, Asia and Europe were in terrible decadency.Islam doomed a corrupt,decadent and weak structure.Persian and Byzantium were both corrupt and weak totalitarian empires.Both exausted by warfare between them, they were easily defeated by Arabs.In fact, Islam grew by a chain reaction.Wars bought lands, money and persons to made new wars and, new wars bought even more lands, money and persons than before, again.A chain reaction. The barbarians didn't wanted to wipe out catholicism or any kind of a strong christian faith.Islam in other side, remains the strongest and oldest catholic church's foe.Islam wiped out a weak, corrupt and divided christianism in Asia and North of Africa.Charlemagne had to melt islamic silver coins, because he had to have a s

Decent

Got here in time, and the quality was as stated it would be. You can't ask for much better.

An archaeological refutation of Pirenne's thesis

This book discusses the archaeological evidence for Pirenne's thesis. Henri Pirenne (1862-1935) was a Belgian historian whose career was devoted to promoting the thesis since named after him. His claim (in Mohammed and Charlemagne, 1939) was that the classical world survived the Germanic invasions of the fourth and fifth centuries, that the Islamic conquests destroyed the classical world by putting an end to Mediterranean trade upon which the classical world relied, and that the Carolingian Renaissance was due entirely to domestic resources. This thesis has been disputed ever since but mainly on the terms of literary evidence. This book uses data from archaeology to show that none of these claims is true. While the particular claims detailed above are falsified by the data, Pirenne was nevertheless right to claim that "without Mohammed, Charlemagne would indeed have been inconceivable" (p. 19). The book details how pottery from Asia Minor was to be found all over the Mediterranean and even in Britain throughout the Roman era. Starting in the fourth century, however, a dramatic drop off is seen. By the time of the Islamic conquests, there is almost none of it to be found in Carthage or Byzantine Italy. But the Germanic conquests did not destroy the classical world at once. Long distance trade in these commodities continued on a diminished scale into the seventh century. The Arabs merely snuffed out what had already been dwindling to nothing. In fact, it becomes evident that without this tremendous decline in wealth and security in the formerly Roman dominions, the Arab conquests would have been impossible. The Carolingian Renaissance was made possible by Abbasid silver obtained via trade routes through Scandinavia and the Volga River with the Vikings as intermediaries. This is inferred from the absence of much silver mining in the Carolingian empire at the time and the influx of new silver coins in the Carolinian Empire during the eighth century, a time when Viking coin hordes contained many Abbasid silver coins and the Abbasid empire itself was at its peak. The Abbasids became rich through Indian Ocean trade with India and China. The Carolinians presumably melted down the foreign coins and re-minted them because they didn't want Muslim coins circulating in their Christian empire. The authors attempt to show that when the Abbasid empire collapsed, this North Sea trade also collapsed, and the Carolingian Renaissance ended because there was no more hard currency to finance it with.

satisified

The seller shipped in a very timely manner and the book was in excellent condition