In week 4 we're going to be considering some heavy hitting economic theories about how medieval Europe worked. In particular, we're going to be comparing the theories of these two historians:
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| R.H.C. Davis |
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| Henri Pirenne |
Remember, the first assessment task is also coming up next week. There will be an in-class test in the second lecture hour on Monday 19th March (unless you have already agreed an alternate arrangement with Clare and myself).
And just because I can't leave a whole blog post with no pretty pictures except photos of eminent old men, here's a completely gratuitous picture of Merton College, Oxford, where Davis worked for a time. It has, in my opinion, the most beautiful sounding bells in the world (or maybe they just make me nostalgic). You can hear them here.
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| Merton College, Oxford (Image by J. Gollner) |
16 comments:
Hi everyone,
In the Davis article the Byzantine and Islamic Empires sound very colourful and far more enticing that the Latin West,as they both called it. No commerce, no outlets, no money, sounds like a mighty recession, and oddly enough still paper and texiles and luxury goods were still in circulation as evidence from archaeology suggests. Perhaps the Mediterranean's trade ending wasn't as quick as Pirenne thought. looking forward to reading other ideas
cheers Ross
I agree with Rosslyn, I thought it was really interesting how Pirenne made it seem very "doom and gloom", sort of like there was total commercial shut down. Whereas Davis really picked apart his argument and using the archaeological evidence, I think, he really showed that there was infact a decline in commerce, but not a complete stoppage altogether.
Personally, I thought the article was a little long-winded when it was talking about land and the divisions of it amongst the workers, but other then that it was really interesting.
I agree was Lauren. I am not sure what was the significance of the second part of the article but found the first part very interesting. What i found most interesting was how Pirenne blamed the breakdown in Mediterranean trade on Islamic piracy and then how Davis discounts this. It certainly would't be the first time a group has been blamed for something they may have had very little to do with.
Hey,
I agree I found the second part of the article somewhat boring. It seemed to go on and on about how the land was divided.
However I did find it very interesting how paper come about. Also how even though when trade came to an end paper and textiles were still being sold. I also found it interesting how the coins changed over the years from small to large in size.
(Stephanie Dumble)
Just adding on from the comment above about coins, I thought it was interesting how Davis talks about the coins change over from gold to silver. Pirenne talks about how he thought it was a reflection of an economic disaster but the argument that Davis puts forth, especially about how silver was a more suitable value for the more basic commodities makes a lot of sense. And at a time when the west wasn't thriving as much as the east and the Islamic empires, silver logically seems like the more convenient choice as Davis points out
I too found the second half a little long winded but found it interesting to hear about the economic declines of times passed in considering and drawing parallels with what we think of as more modern and recent economic declines. I found the ammendments to the currency particular interesting (like Roman)
-Tom crowe
Hello all,
I found the second article's descriptions of everyday life for peasants quite interesting - it seems some of them had a pretty rough lot, considering. Also, I was wondering what the difference between a serf and a colona/colonus is, as in the article it seems to say a serf is married to a colona. Was this some kind of rule-breaking anti-hierarchical romance or is serf just a synonym for colona?
Sian
Yeah - this is a real puzzler, Sian. I think what Davis was trying to point out is that these terms are really hard to translate and probably didn't always mean exactly the same thing. Overall, in late antique times, a colonus/a was a type of free tenant and a servi was a slave, but the difference between them by the 9th century perhaps wasn't clear, and perhaps both were a bit like 'serfs': kind of in-between free and enslaved.
Hi Stephanie,
Davis definitely shifted into 'detail' mode when he talked about land, but there are reasons for looking at this. One is that the way land is divided up has been one of the things that historians have used to 'define' medieval Europe, so he's actually arguing something of significance by saying it was a bit of a jumble... I think he's warning us not to use overly simple models to interpret past societies.
We'll hopefully get time to talk about how the two parts of the chapter fit together in class. Can you think of any other reasons?
I have to agree with the comments above. I found Pirenne's ideas and concepts about an 'economy with no outlets' to be very interesting. In particular when he mentioned that Christians could no longer "float a plank" on the Mediterranean attributing the economic disruption to the Muslim influences.
It is interesting to see that great progression of the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Empire with extensive trading, fine crafts and the development of bankimg while western Europe had receded into localised rural systems.
I thought it was really interesting and kind of nice to read in Davis' article how the Jewish, Christian and Muslim peoples worked together in a lot of different things (such as the development of banking in the 9th century etc)
My parents recently got back from the middle east and they told us about how they were being driven around by a jewish taxi driver, who got lost, was offered (and accepted) help from a muslim man, to help find a hotel, and was taken (to the wrong place) to a christian sanctuary. After getting help from the muslim man, the jewish driver observed that that never (or very rarely) happens there.
so having heard that story from them, and having read that in the article i thought it was particularly interesting.
:)
It seemed to me that Pirenne was looking for an easy answer: trying to make events fit nicely with his own theory, whilst ignoring other evidence. I found Davis quite balanced and I enjoyed his examination of alternate trade routes through the Baltic and down the Volga river, through Russia, to Constantinople.It's interesting to note that with the Islamic invasions of Northern Africa the comercial centre of Europe seemed to shift North, as Davis highlights the decline of the Mediterranean cities.
I found it interesting to read up on why the Byzantine and Islamic Empires were far more successful that the Latin West. Is it just our modern day bias which makes us look back at this time as only consisting of Western Europe and concluding that it was a time of economic ruin, uncertainty and a lack of infrastructure when clearly these other empires had all of this?
I totally agree! It's spoken about as though trade and commerce entirely ceased in Pirenne's opinion, but Davis seems to have a more substantiated and positive spin on his outlook.
I found it interesting the way that the land was split up amongst all of the people within the villages/towns, how hierachial the system was. Especially how much land was given to the religious houses adn how it was sectioned off into the 'land of the lord' (Demesne land) and the land which provided labour for the cultivation of the demesne (Tributary lands).
Another interesting point I found was that during the ninth century the coloni and the servi started to become one. The lines seperatiing the two classes began to blur and the servi ended up with more rights and the coloni ended up with less.
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