PROBLEMS IN EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION! THE PIRENNE THESIS Analysis, Criticism, and Revision ).4 Hj8p 62-19101 Havighiorst The Pirenne thesis * H38P 62-19101 Havighurst $1.50 The Pirenne thesis M MAI l-i Kansas city public library kansas city, missouri Books will be issued only on presentation of library card. Please report lost cards and change of residence promptly. Card holders are responsible for all books, records, films, pictures or -other library materials checked out on their cards. KANSAS CITY, MO PUBLIC LIBRARY D DDD1 0323^70 3 PROBLEMS IN EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION THE PIRENNE THESIS Analysis, Criticism., and Revision EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Alfred F. Havighurst, AMHERST COLLEGE D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY BOSTON Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-12572 COPYRIGHT 1958 BY D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY No part of the material covered lay this copyright may "he reproduced in any form -without -written permission of the publisher. (6 B 2) PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Table of Contents C. DEL1SLE BURNS The First Europe i M . RO STOVTS EFF The Terms "Decay" and "Decline and Fall" 9 HENRI PIRENNE from Medieval Cities 1 1 from Mohammed and Charlemagne 28 J. LESTOCQUOY Origins of Medieval Civilization and the Problem of Continuity 43 H . ST. L. B. MOSS Economic Consequences of the Barbarian Invasions 48 NOR MAN H. BAYN ES M. Pirenne and the Unity of the Mediterranean World 54 ROBERT S. LOPEZ Mohammed and Charlemagne: A Revision 58 East and West in the Early Middle Ages 74 PUBLIC UBRAKt""** <^<3L(MQ.)4 O M ~-f\ T s^JLJ J. U X viii Table of Contents LYNN WHITE, JR. Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages 79 DANIEL C, DENNETT, JR. Pirenne and Muhammad 84 ANNE RIISING The Fate of Henri Pirenne's Theses on the Consequence of the Islamic Expansion 1 02 Suggestions for Additional Reading 1 07 Introduction the a sub- materials of the to past generation past returned life, yield- stantial literature has accumu- DURING ing greater knowledge and leading to new lated of the central of round one problems understanding. European history the transition from the To force re-examination of established ancient to medieval civilization." of world ways historical thinking requires power- These the sentence of ful words, introductory and original minds, and for the study of one of the selections in this problem, were the Middle Ages there have been many but the re-exam- written twenty years ago, such in the twentieth century: Ch, Diehl of the ination early Middle Ages, which (French), Norman H. Baynes (British), continued. they suggest, has A. A. Vasiliev (Russian and American), The older view gave isolated and per- among Byzantine scholars; Philip Hitti functory treatment to Byzantium and to (Lebanese and American) and E. Levy- Islam and then turned wholeheartedly to Provengal (French) on the Arabs and the West: the Merovingians and Clovis, Islam; Alfons Dopsch, brilliant medievalist Charlemagne and the Carolingians, then of Austria whose views made him a center the the stem duchies in Germany and of controversy; Marc Bloch, a hero of the the Capetians in France, and rest. The French Resistance in World War II, who in rural Cambridge Medieval History (8 v., 1911- was a pioneer French history; and 1936), which brought together the scholar- so on. But if there was any one individual of medievalists in f L the of whg ^i' f ship distinguished many i |>%^^^^'upset tranquility lands, did recognize the importance of* the'fflSttSiSs? wcod" and with whose name still treated the is associated it Eastern Europe but Byzan- special prestige, was Henri tine and Arab worlds quite apart from the Pirenne (1862-1935), celebrated national West, and the emphasis throughout re- historian of Belgium and long associated the of encoun- mained political and religious. Moreover, with university Ghent. One its character was encyclopedic with no ters him wherever one turns in the histori- as cal of the on the interpretation integrating the enterprise writing past thirty years / a whole. The abridged version (1952) was early Middle Ages. out of date at publication and it was then Put in the most general terms the ques- observed that the appearance of this tion which Pirenne faced, and which as a of Shorter Cambridge Medieval History prob- consequenceVof his writing the whole has ably marked the end of medieval history medieval scholarship confronted since, written as is that of the relation of past politics organized around Roman Antiquity the First dynastic periods. For, under quite different to the medieval vwrld of Europe. historians at least had been aware of controlling assumptions, the story of the Some in were when divided early Middle Ages had long since been what they doing they of of western civilization into fee ^ihe process of revision and by many the the story very historians who had contributed to the Ancient World, "the Middle Ages> and conventional framework of the Cambridge Modern Times. They realized of were that history. As new questions asked the such artificial periodi^trat IX Introduction d'Islam et le essential continuity of human experience. read a paper on "L'expansion And it was well known that the very idea commencement du moyen ge." A pro- of the Middle Ages was the historical crea- longed and animated discussion ensued tion of another "period," that of the Renais- French, German, Polish, Italian, Dutch, and sance, when humanist writers, at pains to Hungarian scholars participating. Pirenne's and documented in identify their era with Antiquity, attributed views were amplified a uniqueness to the centuries between. Yet Mahomet et Charlemagne, finished in man- a few months before his repetition tends to influence thought. It uscript form only never came to be taken for granted that the "An- death in 1935 and, unfortunately, cient World" and the "Middle Ages" were subject to a final revision by him. This work, the in 1937 and translated into easily distinguished the one from other, published Eng- and that a distinct break came in the fifth lish in all of Pirenne's 1939, brings'together century with the disappearance of the "Ro- research on this theme^But Medieval Cities in the the since e circulation to man" emperors West, appearance had long given wklx of Germanic "barbarian" kingdoms, and the "Pirenne Thesis/' "No volume dLsimi- in the triumph of Christianity. These devel- lar size," wrote Professor Gray C. Boyce historical opments, with a slight accommodation, 1941, "has so affected medieval 1 could be treated as simultaneous and dram- scholarship in marry generations." X atized in a comparatively brief span of For economic historians of western Eu- years, and were considered sufficient to set rope, Pirenne's views have had perhaps off another. one "period" of the past from special significance. But the impact has Such became the textbook point of view been almost as great on Byzantine studies a and, with some qualifications, controlling (for Pirenne lengthened the essential unity assumption of scholars as well. of the Roman Mediterranean world), upon A quite radically different concept came historians of Germany (for Pirenne rather out of the investigations of Pirenne. He minimized the Germanic contribution to concluded that the Roman world eco- European -development), upon historians nomically, culturally, and even, in essence, of Islam whose story now assumed greater in all politically continued important par- significance, and upon philosophers of his- ticulars the centuries of the through Ger- tory, such as Toynbee, especially concerned man invasions. It was rather the impact of with theories of change. Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries The issues raised by Pirenne may be which, by destroying the unity of the Medi- summarized as follows: terranean, ended the Roman world and led to a different civilization in the 1. strikingly What developments distinguish Antiq- era. "Without Islam the Carolingian Prank- uity from the Middle Ages? When do ish would Empire probably never have we properly cease to speak of the Roman existed and Charlemagne, without Moham- world and begin to think in terms of the would be met, inconceivable," he wrote in First Europe? a famous sentence. 2. What was the impact of Islam and the His tell us that this idea countrymen Arabs upon the West, and what that of in his appeared lectures at Ghent as early the Germans? as 1910. It was first form given published 3. What is the relation between the Mero- in articles in the Revue de beige Philologie era 5th to 8th centu- et vingian (roughly d'Histoire, in 1922. Pirenne popularized ries) and the Carolingian era (the 8th his concept the same year in a series of and 9th centuries)? Do lectures delivered in American universities they present essential or are in and as Medieval in 1925. continuity they sharp published Cities, contrast? At the Sixth International Congress of His- i torical Sciences at Oslo in 1928, Pirenne Byzantion, XV, 460, n. 25. Introduction 4. What can Jiistorians say about trade and Byzantine studies, and from one of his asso- industry-m the West, 400-1000? ciates, H. St. L. B. Moss, we have forth- right criticism. An American scholar now It is to Pirenne's conclusions on these at Yale, Professor Robert S. Lopez, who has the matters, to controversy which his views undertaken research in one of the most to precipitated and the new vitality of early difficult of fields medieval economic his- medieval studies to so which they power- tory makes a thorough analysis of the evi- fully contributed that the attention of the dence. One of these extracts is from a paper student is directed in this problem. read at the Tenth International Congress Our selections begin with brief introduc- of Historical Sciences convening in Rome tory statements, in fresh and vigorous form, in 1955.