Medieval cities : their origins and the revival of trade

207 Pages·2014·12.31 MB·English

by  Pirenne, Henri

Medieval Cities

Medieval
Cities
Their Origins and the Revival of Trade
Henri Pirenne
Translated from the French by Frank D. Halsey
With a new introduction by Michael McCormick
Princeton University Press
Princeton and Oxford
Copyright © 1925, 1952 by Princeton University Press
Copyright © renewed 1980 by Princeton University Press
Introduction copyright © 2014 by Michael McCormick
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Cover art: Top: Detail of Barcelona medieval walls. Bottom: Detail
of Marco Polo’s departure. Both images courtesy of Thinkstock.
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First Princeton Paperback printing, 1969
First Princeton Classics edition, with an introduction by
Michael McCormick, 2014
Library of Congress Control Number 2014934196
ISBN 978- 0- 691- 16239- 3
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Contents
introduction by Michael McCormick
ix
translator’s Foreword
xxxiii
Preface
xxxv
Chapter I. The Mediterranean 1
Chapter II. The Ninth Century 16
Chapter III. City Origins 35
Chapter IV. The Revival of Commerce 49
Chapter V. The Merchant Class 68
Chapter VI. The Middle Class 84
Chapter VII. Municipal Institutions 109
Chapter VIII. Cities and European Civilization 138
Bibliography
153
index
157

introdUCtion
Globalization has a deep history. The Belgian historian Henri Pirenne
(1862– 1935), educated in Belgium, Germany, and France, cast in the
twentieth century a long shadow over medieval studies and the his-
tory of the European economy. Medieval Cities, originally published
in 1925, resulted from lectures that the celebrated medievalist and
German war detainee gave in leading American universities on both
coasts and in between (Keymeulen and Tollebeek 2011, 76–8 4). These
lectures were an early synthesis of Pirenne’s broad vision of the end
of the ancient world, the rise of medieval Europe, and the origins and
enduring impact of medieval cities in creating Europe’s economy and
its distinctive civilization. Against the prevailing wisdom of his time,
Pirenne argued that the Roman economy and the civilization built
on it survived the Germanic invasions. Even if, politically, the former
Roman provinces came under the leadership of barbarian kings, they
remained on the Roman gold standard and integrated into the long-
distance Mediterranean trade that Pirenne viewed as the dynamic
driver of economic development. Pirenne argued that the ancient
world really ended only when Islam violently shattered that Mediter-
ranean’s unified economic structures in the seventh and eighth centu-
ries. With Charlemagne, Europe set out around 800 on a new path
oriented toward the North Atlantic. Real cities as centers of economic