Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited: The History of a Controversy (12 page)

Italy, then, and particularly central Italy, was far from being typical of the provinces and territories that made up the Western Empire. To attempt to use the fate of the wealthy settlements in the environs of Rome as a microcosm for what happened in Gaul, Spain, and North Africa in the fourth to sixth centuries, as Hodges and Whitehouse did, can only strike one as disingenuous.

The situation in Italy was untypical also in the damage done from the middle of the sixth century onwards by Justinian’s disastrous war against the Ostrogoths, and by the subsequent conquest of the Peninsula by the Langobards. Both these events caused enormous disruption, a disruption we would naturally expect to be reflected in the archaeological record. The Langobard invasion marked the last barbarian conquest of a western European territory, and it can only have resulted in conditions very similar to those that obtained in Italy during the earlier invasions of the Visigoths under Alaric.

Thus Italy was the exception rather than the rule in late sixth century Europe. And the idea that western Europe as a whole was a depopulated wasteland in the late sixth century is flatly contradicted by the archaeology, which we shall examine in due course, and by the copious written sources, which tell of thriving economies and trade in the Frankish regions of Gaul and Germany and in the Visigothic territories of Spain.

Fig. 3. Campanile of Sant’ Apollinare, Ravenna. Reckoned to be early seventh century.

Furthermore, we cannot be sure of the true scale of the population collapse (outside of Rome) even in Italy. It is true that the number of wealthy villas, which could afford African Red Slip Ware, declined dramatically. This would indicate a reduction in the number of villas, probably as a result of a few landowners buying more and more land; but such a situation does not necessarily indicate a reduction of the overall population. We must presume the big landowners would have wished to profit from their holdings. Empty and uncultivated land does not produce wealth. Agriculture at the time was extremely labor-intensive, so there must have been substantial populations of tenant farmers upon the estates. These peasants would have left little in the way of archaeology to mark their existence. Just a hundred and fifty years ago Ireland supported an enormous population of tenant farmers, who labored for a small number of big landowners. Of this population scarcely a trace now remains, for they had few metal tools and their shacks were frequently built of little more than turf. Yet they produced vast wealth for the landed gentry of the country.

It is by no means impossible that the same situation pertained in Italy during the sixth and early seventh centuries.

There is one other factor to be considered. During the Empire, large numbers of people, both in the cities and in the countryside, were supported, one way or another, by the state. As we noted earlier, the legions, together with their ancillary staff, injected huge amounts of cash into the provinces, though with the abolition of the Western Empire and dissolution of the state’s apparatus, this cash-flow came to an abrupt end. Yet it was this currency which enabled local tradesmen and other middle-ranking classes to purchase a few of life’s luxuries, such as high-quality pottery from Africa. The end of the Roman state would thus naturally have signaled a decline in the occurrence of luxury imports in the provinces; but this would certainly not prove a relapse into barbarism or a population apocalypse. Indeed, the new political situation may actually have stimulated local manufacturers and artisans, whose business had hitherto been depressed by cheap high-quality imports. That such an economic upturn did in fact occur towards the end of the sixth century is seen in the proliferation of new church-building which marked the decades immediately before and after the year 600. This was true of territories ruled both by the Langobards and the Byzantines. Thus Rome alone counts six surviving seventh century churches. These are: Sant’ Agnese fuori le Mura; San Giorgio in Velabro; San Lorenzo in Miranda; Santi Luca e Martina; Santa Maria in Domnica; and Santa Maria ad Martyres. Outside of Rome the picture is similar, with new churches and civic structures continuing to appear until the middle of the seventh century. The Langobard queen Theodelinda (c. 570-628) was a particularly active builder, who is known to have commissioned numerous churches in Lombardy and Tuscany. Amongst these we may note the celebrated Cathedral of Monza (603), as well as the first Baptistry of Florence. The famous Treasure of Monza, housed in the Cathedral, contains the Iron Crown of Lombardy and the theca persica, enclosing a text of the Gospel of John.

Fig. 4. Interior of Sant’ Agnese fuori le Mura. The ceiling is Renaissance, but the main structure is early seventh century.

On the whole, the early years of the seventh century seem to have been an extremely active and innovative epoch of Italian architecture. It was then, for example, that there appeared the campanile, (“bell tower”), a remarkable and striking feature of church design.
[7]
Some of these, such as those at Sant’ Apollinare in Ravenna, are extremely large and elaborate, complete with arched windows at various levels. Such bell-towers spread quickly throughout Europe and were the inspiration for similar structures in Gaul and the famous Round Towers in Ireland, two regions that also seemed to experience a remarkable revival of art and architecture in the late sixth and early seventh centuries.

Fig. 5. Mosaic from apse of Sant’ Agnese fuori le Mura, Rome, built by Pope Honorius I, 625-638. The illustration shows Honorius holding a model of the church, with Saint Agnes.

None of this is mentioned by Hodges and Whitehouse.

Perusal of the archaeology of this epoch does not then leave one with the impression of a declining and exhausted civilization. It is true, however, that after the middle of the seventh century all building and indeed archaeology of any kind becomes extremely scarce in Italy, as it does throughout Europe.

Outside of Italy, we find a similar pattern. In Gaul, Spain, and elsewhere, there is strong archaeological evidence to show that trade and industry survived, and even flourished, in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. That the peoples of the Levant still valued the products of northern and western Europe, which they had been importing since remote antiquity, is proved beyond question by the discoveries made north of the Alps and in Britain. It is to this evidence that we now turn.

[1]
Henry Hurst, “Excavations at Carthage 1977-8. Fourth interim report,”
Antiquaries Journal
59 (1979), 44-6

[2]
Hodges and Whitehouse, op cit, p. 30

[3]
Ibid. p. 28

[4]
See for example Cyril Mango,
Byzantium: the Empire of New Rome
(London, 1980), pp. 72-3

[5]
More recently, Ward-Perkins, one of Hodges’ and Whitehouse’s most important sources, has admitted that a vibrant classical civilization existed in North Africa well into the seventh century. See
The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization
(2008), pp. 124 and 130-2

[6]
C. J. Wickham, “Historical and topographical notes on early medieval South Etruria: part II,”
Papers of the British School at Rome
47 (1979), 66-95

[7]
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the appearance of the campanile is “variously dated from the 7th to the 10th century.” Here again is that curious three-century hiatus or gap whose beginning and end seem to echo each other. Encyclopaedia Britannica; Micropaedia, Vol. 2 (15th ed.) “Campanile.”

W
e have already seen that, following the appearance of Dopsch’s and Pirenne’s work, scholars gradually came to accept that the Germanic invaders of Gaul, Spain and Italy did not, after all, immediately destroy classical civilization. It was conceded that the Barbarians tried to preserve that very civilization and adopted it wholesale, often enthusiastically. But rather than going with Pirenne, who saw a sudden disappearance of the Graeco-Roman society in the seventh century, the scholarly community as a whole went with Dopsch, who saw a gradual decline of classicism throughout the fifth and sixth centuries, leading to its complete disappearance in the seventh. Crucially, they held that it had already vanished before the advent of the Arab armies.

By the 1940s and ‘50s archaeology began to cast its own light on the problem; and it did not seem to show a “gradual decline” of classical society at all: Rather it seemed to point to a decline in the third, fourth and fifth centuries, followed by a partial revival in the sixth and early seventh centuries, followed by a dramatic termination sometime between 630 and 650. Such being the case, it is perhaps not surprising that Hodges and Whitehouse generally ignored the archaeology of western Europe outside of Italy. But they could scarcely censor it completely from their study, and Gaul (though not Spain) is mentioned in passing. What little they do say about the former region is most instructive:

“Joachim Werner first drew attention to the north Italian and Coptic objects in cemeteries north of the Alps. Byzantine gold solidi which occur in the Coptic ladles, bowls and ‘tea-pots’ firmly date this transalpine commerce to between the very end of the fifth century and about 560 – the reigns of Theodoric and Justinian. Clusters of the finds have been mapped by Werner in north Switzerland, the central Rhineland and eastern and central Sweden. During this last phase of Late Antiquity transalpine trading relations seem to have been established between the Ostrogoths and the new Frankish and Scandinavian elites. …

“Furthermore, at the same time ports in the Mediterranean were sending a few ships laden with eastern Mediterranean, Gaza and North African oils, wines and tableware to the Late Celtic Christian communities in Brittany and western Britain. Sherds of African Red Slip dishes similar to those described in the South Etruria Survey have been found in Tintagel, South Cadbury and other western British sites; at Garranes and at Clogher – two royal sites in Ireland; and at Dinas Powys in Wales. The Mediterranean amphorae have been found on many more sites besides and testify to a modest directional trade intended – we suppose – for royal and ecclesiastical strongholds anxious for imported commodities that afforded their owners prestige. What was traded in return remains obscure, but the ubiquity of these Late Roman Mediterranean imports is striking.”
[1]

Though Hodges and Whitehouse talk of “a few ships” laden with eastern Mediterranean goods, and a “modest” trade with the British Isles, even they would have to admit that there are few signs of a dying society here. Note too the actual expansion of classical culture into regions the Roman legions had never reached, such as Ireland and Scandinavia. All this, again, is confirmed by the literary sources, where we find familiarity with Homer and Virgil among the rocky crags of western Ireland and the Hebrides of Scotland during the sixth and early seventh centuries.

After 560, however, Hodges and Whitehouse insist that the situation changed in Gaul and Britain. From then on, they say, the west’s demographic and economic decline kicked in: “The sharp decline in the Mediterranean economy monitored in and around Carthage and Rome also resulted in the closing of trade-routes to the north. From the mid to late sixth century imports from the Mediterranean are rare in northern contexts; those that occur, as in early seventh-century Kent, can be assumed to be heirlooms or gifts passed from one generation to the next and ultimately interred.”
[2]

What evidence do the authors bring forward to support this? The answer appears to be: precious little. They devote barely a page or two to Britain and Gaul, and the evidence they quote actually seems to prove the precise opposite of what they claim. Thus we hear how:

“Briefly at the turn of the sixth century the territory of Provence appears to have acted as the intermediary between north and south. … Certainly some thirty to forty years after about 580 gold solidi minted in Provence are prominent finds in the gold hoards found at Saint Martin’s, Canterbury, Escharen in Holland and Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. But the prominence of Provence evidently began to wane after about 630 when king Dagobert rose to power, and it may be no coincidence that the Provencal coins after this time were rapidly devalued, and that they tend subsequently not to occur in central or northern French hoards in any significant number. … All the evidence points to Provence as a short-lived acquirer of gold which was circulated for a decade or two in the form of currency, giving European prominence to the kingdom.”
[3]

The authors add, in parenthesis, “(This may coincide with the very end of Early Byzantine trade in the eastern Mediterranean …)”
[4]

So, according to Hodges and Whitehouse, the end of Provence’s epoch of economic prominence – around 630 – coincides with the “very end of Early Byzantine trade.” But this is thirty years after the date they previously argued that virtually all trade between East and West had terminated!

In fact, the evidence from Gaul and from northern and central Europe, as well as from the British Isles and Spain, which Hodges and Whitehouse more or less pass over, stands in striking and stark contrast to the picture of a decrepit and terminally ill society which they seek to paint of Europe in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a narrative more diametrically opposed to the one they present. Contrary to what they suggest, we find throughout Europe at this time an expanding population engaged in vigorous trade within Europe and a more modest, though increasing, trade with the Eastern Mediterranean. We find evidence of new territories being brought into cultivation and the growth of cities, both old and new. And we find clear proof of dramatic technical and scientific innovation, as well as advanced learning and scholarship of all kinds. The reality could not in fact be further from what Hodges and Whitehouse claimed.

Let’s look first of all at Gaul.

* * *

We must remember that even at the height of the Roman Empire Gaul was never an urbanized society comparable to Italy. Cities and towns were built by the Romans, but they were comparatively small. In the words of Patrick J. Geary, “During the more than five centuries of Roman presence in the West, the regions of Britain, Gaul, and Germany were marginal to Roman interests. … The West boasted only one true city … Rome.”
[5]
The largest urban settlements were in the south, in Provence and the Rhône valley. All these had grown steadily in the first two centuries of Roman rule; and it is estimated that by the year 200 the largest Gaulish cities may have housed 50,000 people. However, everything changed in the third century, when they hastily fortified themselves against the threat of barbarian invasion. The area enclosed was small, much smaller than the total urban area of the previous centuries: 30 hectares at Bordeaux and Marseilles, 20 to 30 hectares at Rheims, 11 at Dijon, and about 8 or 9 at Paris. Thus we find in Gaul, as in virtually all other areas, dramatic evidence of the population decline noted throughout the Empire in the third and fourth centuries. The one exception was Trier, whose 265 hectares is explained by the fact that from early in the fourth century it became the capital of the Prefecture of Gaul.
[6]
We are told that, “The actual population of these cities is extremely difficult to determine.”
[7]
One estimate has it that Marseilles, one of the largest cities of Gaul, was home at this time – the third and fourth centuries – to a mere 10,000 people. Other “cities” were much smaller. Rheims is reckoned to have had a population of around 6,000, and Châlons 900.
[8]
“What a contrast,” says Robert Folz, “with the several hundred thousand living in Constantinople or Alexandria.”
[9]

The fifth century, as might be expected, saw a further decline. Urban settlements continued to exist, as the Goths and then the Franks took control of the country; but from the middle of the fifth century there are major changes in the countryside, where the high-quality imported products that were one of the hallmarks of Roman civilization, become extremely scarce. Above all, there is the virtual disappearance of the fine African Red Slip Ware, which had hitherto been almost ubiquitous throughout Gaul. Small denomination coinage too, especially copper currency, either disappears or becomes extremely scarce. Until that time even peasant farmers, it seems, could afford some of the luxuries of life. High culture was thus in some ways generally spread throughout the population, a phenomenon that Ward-Perkins names “cultural complexity.” Yet by the end of the fifth century, luxuries such as African Red Slip Ware were enjoyed only by the upper echelons of society; infallible proof, thought Ward-Perkins, of a return to an altogether more primitive form of existence.

But such a judgment, as I indicated in Chapters 3 and 5, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation in Gaul and northern Europe in general during the Imperial epoch. Graeco-Roman civilization was only ever a veneer in those territories; all of which, even at the height of the Empire, remained overwhelmingly rural. It was the presence of the legions and the administrative apparatus of the Empire, and this alone, which provided these territories with the little cultural sophistication they enjoyed. It was the soldiers and ancillary staff, on salaried incomes, who injected cash into the northern regions – cash spread amongst the local populations in exchange for food, raw materials, and services of various kinds. With this hard currency, it is true, food-producing Gaulish peasants could afford some luxuries, such as imported pottery. Yet there was a downside: it was the very ease with which a good living could be made from supplying foodstuffs to the Roman garrisons that hindered economic diversification and tended to keep these regions agricultural. There were always local potters, of course, as well as metal-workers and artisans of various kinds, but their products tended to be utilitarian and for local consumption. Local manufacturers made no real effort to compete with the highly-polished products of the Mediterranean regions. Thus it was the very presence of the legions, with their ready cash, which impeded the economic development of Gaul and the other northern provinces – a fact admitted even by Ward-Perkins himself.
[10]
Yet these craftsmen could provide the basic skills upon which to construct native manufacturing industries, should circumstances ever be favorable.

The withdrawal of the legions in the fifth century, together with the imperial administration, meant, among other things, that circumstances were now favorable for the development of such industries; and that is precisely what we find. Archaeology indicates that from the sixth century onwards, the population decline of the third, fourth and fifth centuries is reversed; new towns and new rural settlements begin to appear; and with them come new and home-grown crafts and skills.

Fig. 6. Baptistry of Saint Jean, Poitiers, sixth century. Very large churches and cathedrals were erected by the Merovingians during the sixth and seventh centuries, but these have disappeared, either through accidents or through “renovation” and rebuilding by church authorities. Only small and relatively unimportant structures, such as the baptistery of Saint Jean, have survived.

The majority of the “lower class” rural settlements were constructed of wood, which was by far the most readily available raw material throughout Gaul and central Europe; so it is not always easy to identify such settlements for archaeological investigation. When such have been identified, they invariably reveal vibrant and increasingly prosperous communities. Such was the case, for example, at Brebières, in northern France, where, in the early 1970s, a team of archaeologists uncovered a typical settlement of the late sixth century.
[11]
The village consisted of thirty small rectangular structures, their walls supported by vertical posts. There was no trace of any larger architecture, such as a public assembly hall or a church. So, the village was relatively poor and of little consequence for the time. Yet, in addition to good quality pottery, iron implements, and stone tools, all of which could be made locally, there was evidence of trade and some wealth: Fragmentary bronze ornaments such as brooches were found in some of the houses, as were fragments of glass vessels. Both these would need to have been imported, probably from fairly remote locations. In the words of Peter Wells, “…material culture [at Brebières] is abundant and of good quality. Much of the pottery is decorated. Iron was readily available and was used to make a wide range of implements, including nails, belt buckles, and knives. Bronze was not common, but a number of personal ornaments of this valuable metal show that bronze was available and people in this community had something they could trade for it. The copper and tin that constitute bronze had to be mined elsewhere in Europe, then smelted and brought together to make the bronze alloy: