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