Table of Contents

List of Maps ix

List of Illustrations x

Acknowledgements xii

1 Introduction 3

Part I The Roman Empire and its Break-up, 400-550

2 The Weight of Empire 21

3 Culture and Belief in the Christian Roman World 50

4 Crisis and Continuity, 400-550 76

Part II The Post-Roman West, 550-750

5 Merovingian Gaul and Germany, 500-751 111

6 The West Mediterranean Kingdoms: Spain and Italy, 550-750 130

7 Kings without States: Britain and Ireland, 400-800 150

8 Post-Roman Attitudes: Culture, Belief and Political Etiquette, 550-750 170

9 Wealth, Exchange and Peasant Society 203

10 The Power of the Visual: Material Culture and Display from Imperial Rome to the Carolingians 232

Part III The Empires of the East, 550-1000

11 Byzantine Survival, 550-850 255

12 The Crystallization of Arab Political Power, 630-750 279

13 Byzantine Revival, 850-1000 298

14 From 'Abbasid Baghdad to Umayyad Córdoba, 750-1000 318

15 The State and the Economy: Eastern Mediterranean Exchange Networks, 600-1000 348

Part IV The Carolingian and Post-Carolingian West, 750-1000

16 The Carolingian Century, 751-887 375

17 Intellectuals and Politics 405

18 The Tenth-century Successor States 427

19 'Carolingian' England, 800-1000 453

20 Outer Europe 472

21 Aristocrats between the Carolingian and the 'Feudal' Worlds 508

22 The Caging of the Peasantry, 8oo-1000 529

23 Conclusion: Trends in European History, 400-1000 552

Notes and Bibliographic Guides 565

Index of Names and Places 623