Richard Hodges

The year 1066 has been regarded traditionally as a great divide in English history, an apparent break with the past which has gained even greater status recently as historians have pushed back the origins of English society to earlier and earlier medieval generations. Further than 1066 it is difficult to go, for this marks the point beyond which the English peasantry cannot be identified from written sources. Archaeology, however, concerned as it is mainly with small farms and simple town dwellings, has yielded a wealth of data on life in pre-Conquest England, opening a vista on the Anglo-Saxon peasantry, the Anglo-Saxon state and the Anglo-Saxon social and economic structure as a whole which alters radically our perspective of England's past. In this book Dr Hodges draws on the growing archaeological record to trace the genesis of English Culture right back to King Alfred, and even to the Anglo-Saxon migrations that followed the end of Roman occupation. In a profound analysis of what gave the English their individuality he offers a new assessment of the achievements of the first millennium, showing that a more of less continuous line connects the age of Bede with the Industrial Revolution.

It was in the second half of the first millennium A. D. that northern Europe took on the basic configuration that it now presents. Recently a wealth of new archaeological evidence has emerged to enable historians to assess the growth of international trade and the evolution of towns in this crucial period. This book analyses models of economic evelopment in the light of this new evidence to evaluate not only the changing character of the first post-Roman urban centers but also the organization of the countryside which supported them. Boat remains, coins and trade artifacts are all examined. Finally, a general account is offered of the role of towns and trade in the creation of Western Europe. This is the first synthesis of its kind for the medieval period, and confirms the importance of archaeology as a major source of evidence for an understanding of the economic history of the Dark Ages.

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 the United States in the 1960s, has taught the archaeologist the value of anthropological models in the study of the past. The new data and models positively compel us to take a new look at the written sources and reconsider the 'making of the Middle Ages'. Mohammed, Charlemagne, and the Origins of Europe attempts to prove the point. Henri Pirenne's classic history of Europe between the fifth and ninth centuries, Mohammed and Charlemagne, although published on the eve of the Second World War, remains an important work. Many parts of its bold framework have been attacked, but seldom decisively, for until now the evidence has been insufficient. In their concise book, Richard Hodges and David Whitehouse review the 'Pirenne thesis' in the light of archaeological information from northern Europe, the Mediterranean and western Asia. In doing so, they have two objectives: to tackle the major issue of the origins of the Carolingian Empire and to indicate the almost staggering potential of the archaeological data. This book, then, is an attempt to rekindle interest in an important set of questions and to draw attention to new sets of data—and to persuade readers to look across traditional boundaries between classical and medieval, east and west, history and archaeology.