The Carolingian Economy

Abstract

This book is about the economy of the Carolingian empire (753–877), which extended from the Pyrenees and the northern shores of the Mediterranean to the North Sea, and from the Atlantic coast to the Elbe and Saale rivers. It is the first comprehensive evaluation of the topic in English in over twenty years. The study of the Carolingian empire as an economic rather than a political entity can be justified both because of the major interference of political authority in the economy, and because of the distinctive economic characteristic of growth; and while some regions within the empire had a much more developed economy than others, the whole period is basically one of economic expansion, in parallel with the cultural upheaval of the 'Carolingian Renaissance'.

Coining it? Carolingian rulers and the Frankish coinage, ca. 750–900

“…Much of the specialist work in this field is widely dispersed. This survey thus synthesises central recent findings on Carolingian numismatics since Verhulst's (, pp. 117‐125) brief survey and concludes with an appendix introducing key resources and methodologies.…”

Framing the Carolingian Economy

“…What were the dominant systems of redistribution and exchange within the Carolingian world? Addressing the question involves acknowledging that historiographical divisions have resulted in a strangely disarticulated situation, with rich insights into political and social relations negotiated through ritual exchange dominant in much recent work, but oddly divorced from most research on the economy (the latter magnificently summarized by Verhulst 2002). As a result historians of the Carolingian economy work with apparently dry and neutral data, whether maps of the archaeological distribution of particular classes of pottery or finds of jewellery and metalwork from trading centres, royal documents relieving favoured churches of tolls and allowing them to establish mints and markets or lists of dues required from peasants on royal and ecclesiastical land.…”

The Small World of the Vikings: Networks in Early Medieval Communication and Exchange

“…Näsman 2000, McCormick 2001, Verhulst 2002, Pestell & Ulmschneider 2003, Gustin 2004, Barrett et al 2004, Hodges 2006. The geographical scale of contacts sometimes leads researchers to ask whether globalisation is a property restricted to the modern world.…”