THE ORIGINS OF THE MIDDLE AGES, 400-1340

This course is designed to train students in the critical appraisal of current typologies of 'pre-modern' European economic and social change, in the light of empirical investigations into the evolution of the mediæval (ca. 440-1340 AD) economy and society. It will examine the period following the collapse of Roman Imperial power in the West, when the populations of Europe existed in what was little more than a western appendage to the civilised world, inhabiting lands on the periphery of a world system whose epicentre lay in Central Asia (ca. 440-1040 AD). Then it will examine that phase of real economic growth from which emerged the "Middle" Ages in Western Europe (ca. 1040-1340)

.

COURSE ORGANIZATION

LECTURES-SEMINARS

INTRODUCTION.

1-2 The Middle Ages. An Economic Historian's Perspective. Silver production, monetary and market systems and economic growth, 350-1340 A.D. Europe in the world economy: some theoretical considerations.

Hatcher, John and Bailey, Mark, Modelling the Middle Ages. The History and Theory of England's Economic Development (Oxford, 2001)

Blanchard, Ian, The Middle Ages: A Concept too Many: Inaugural Lecture (Edinburgh, 1996), chapter 1

Grantham, George "Time's arrow and time's cycle in the medieval economy: the significance of recent developments in economic theory for the history of medieval economic growth", unpublished paper presented at the Fifth Anglo-American Seminar on the Medieval Economy and Society held at Cardiff 14-17 July 1995

DARK AGES, 350-1040 A.D.

3. Mawara'an-nahr: Central Asia triumphant.

V V Bartold, Turkestan v epokhu Mongolskago nashestviya (St. Petersburg, 1900) which consists of two volumes, of which volume I comprises a selection of illustrative texts in Oriental languages and volume II the Russian text. The English edition of this latter work Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion (London: E J W Gibb Memorial Series, New Series, V. 1928) gives only a translation of vol. II.

S Bolin, "Mohammed, Charlmagne and Ruric", Scandanavian Economic History Review, I (1953)

M Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (London, 1973)

M. Watson, "Back to Gold- and Silver", Economic History Review, Second Series, XX, 1 (1967)

4. Dark Age Europe: a Regressive Economy.

G R J Jones, "Multiple estates and early settlement" in Sawyer, P. H., English Medieval Settlement (London, 1979)

C Taylor, Village and Farmstead: A History of Rural Settlement in England (1983)

H. Jahnkuhn, "Trade and Settlement in Central and Northern Europe up to and during the Viking Period", Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, CXII (1982), pp. 18-50

THE ORIGINS OF THE MIDDLE AGES, 1040-1340

5-6. Western Europe. Silver Production, market-urban systems and agricultural change

Ian Blanchard, "Lothian and Beyond: the Economy of the 'English Empire' of David I" in John Hatcher and Richard Britnell (eds.), Progress and Problems in Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Edward Miller (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 23-45.

Bruce M S Campbell, English Seignorial Agriculture, 1250-1450 (Cambrudge, 2000)

R Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society, 1000-1500 (Cambridge, 1993).

READING IN DEPTH

TOPIC 3.

Bartold, V. V.,Ocherk' istorii Semirech'ya (Verniy: Pamyatnaya knizhka Semirechenskago oblastnovo statisticheskago komiteta na 1898, t. 2. 1898), reprinted with corrections and an introduction by A. N. Bernstam, Frunze 1944. An English translation by V. and T. Minorsky entitled History of the Semirechyé was published in V. V. Bartold, Four Studies on the History of Central Asia (Leiden: Russian Translation Project Series of the American Council of Learned Societies, XVIII, 1956)

Bartold, V. V., Turkestan v epokhu Mongolskago nashestviya (St. Petersburg, 1900), which consists of two volumes, of which volume I comprises a selection of illustrative texts in Oriental languages and volume II the Russian text. The English edition of this latter work relates only to vol. II, Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion (London: E J W Gibb Memorial Series, New Series, V. 1928)

Hudud al-'Alam. "The Regions of the World". A Persian Geography 372 AH-982 AD. Translated and explained by V. Minorsky with a preface by V. V. Bartold (Oxford: E J W Gibb Memorial. New Series, XI. 1937).

Blanchard, I., Mining, Metallurgy and Minting in the Middle Ages, vol. 1, Central Asia Supreme, 450-1040 AD (Stuttgart, 2001)

Le Strange, G., The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1905)

Hourani,G., Arab Seafaring (Beirut: Khayats Oriental Reprints, vol. IV.1964)

Wheatley, P., The Golden Khersonese: studies in the historical geography of the Malay Peninsula before AD 1500 (Kuala Lumpa 1961, reprint Westport, Conn. 1973)

TOPIC 4

G R J Jones, "Multiple estates and early settlement" in Sawyer, P. H., English Medieval Settlement (London, 1979)

C Taylor, Village and Farmstead: A History of Rural Settlement in England (1983)

Della Hook, The Anglo-Saxon Landscape: The Kingdom of the Hwicce (Manchester, 1985)

Hodges, R., Dark Age Economics. The Origins of Towns and Trade, 600-1000 (London, 1982)

Pirenne, H., Mahomet and Charlemagne (1937)

Hodges R and Whitehouse, D., Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe (London, 1983)

H. Jahnkuhn, "Trade and Settlement in Central and Northern Europe up to and during the Viking Period", Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, CXII (1982), pp. 18-50

S Bolin, "Mohammed, Charlmagne and Ruric", Scandanavian Economic History Review, I (1953)

Blanchard, I., Mining, Metallurgy and Minting in the Middle Ages, vol. 1, Central Asia Supreme, 450-1040 AD (Stuttgart, 2001)

Sawyer, P. H., The Age of the Vikings (London, second edition, 1971)

TOPIC 5-6

Those students doing the one-term course who chose either topics 5-6 and undertake to prepare an examinable PROJECT PAPER on ONE of these topics based on their reading should consult the reading lists relating to Medieval British Landed Estates and Medieval British Towns.

Go to

Medieval British Landed Estates and Medieval British Towns.

Home