The Inheritance of Rome Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000

by Wickham, Chris

• ISBN13: 9780143117421
• ISBN10: 0143117424
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-03
• Publisher: Penguin Books

Summary

Were the Dark Ages truly the lost centuries they are so often portrayed as? How could a world so profoundly shaped by Rome and encompassing such remarkable societies as the Byzantine, Carolingian, and Ottonian empires be anything other than central to the development of Europe? In the Inheritance of Rome, award-winning historian Chris Wickham defies the conventional view of the centuries between AD 400 and 1000 with a work of remarkable scope and rigorous yet accessible scholarship.

Author Biography

Chris Wickham is Chichele Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford and a fellow of All Souls College. His book Framing the Middle Ages won the Wolfson Prize, the Deutscher Memorial Prize, and the James Henry Breasted Prize of the American Historical Association. He lives in Oxford, England.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	p. ix
List of Illustrations	p. x
Acknowledgements	p. xii
Introduction	p. 3
The Roman Empire and its Break-up, 400-550
The Weight of Empire	p. 21
Culture and Belief in the Christian Roman World	p. 50
Crisis and Continuity, 400-550	p. 76
The Post-Roman West, 550-750
Merovingian Gaul and Germany, 500-751	p. 111
The West Mediterranean Kingdoms: Spain and Italy, 550-750	p. 130
Kings without States: Britain and Ireland, 400-800	p. 150
Post-Roman Attitudes: Culture, Belief and Political Etiquette, 550-750	p. 170
Wealth, Exchange and Peasant Society	p. 203
The Power of the Visual: Material Culture and Display from Imperial Rome to the Carolingians	p. 232
The Empires of the East, 550-1000
Byzantine Survival, 550-850	p. 255
The Crystallization of Arab Political Power, 630-750	p. 279
Byzantine Revival, 850-1000	p. 298
From 'Abbasid Baghdad to Umayyad Córdoba, 750-1000	p. 318
The State and the Economy: Eastern Mediterranean Exchange Networks, 600-1000	p. 348
The Carolingian and Post-Carolingian West, 750-1000
The Carolingian Century, 751-887	p. 375
Intellectuals and Politics	p. 405
The Tenth-century Successor States	p. 427
'Carolingian' England, 800-1000	p. 453
Outer Europe	p. 472
Aristocrats between the Carolingian and the 'Feudal' Worlds	p. 508
The Caging of the Peasantry, 8oo-1000	p. 529
Conclusion: Trends in European History, 400-1000	p. 552
Notes and Bibliographic Guides	p. 565
Index of Names and Places	p. 623
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