Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800

The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, & there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country. 

In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham aims at integrating documentary & archaeological evidence together, & also, above all, at creating a comparative history of the period 400-800, by means of systematic comparative analyses of each of the regions of the latest Roman & immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt (only the Slav areas are left out). The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth & identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, & exchange. 

These are only a partial picture of the period, but they are intended as a framing for other developments, without which those other developments cannot be properly understood. Wickham argues that only a complex comparative analysis can act as the basis for a wider synthesis. Whilst earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions, this book takes all different developments as typical, & aims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference & the reasons for it. This is the most ambitious & original survey of the period ever written.