Astronuc said:
The change perhaps coincided with the defeat of the Lombards, who controlled the northern part of the Italian peninsula, by Charlemagne.
The collapse of the Gaul maritime trade is generally set in the seventh century, beginning in the sixth when the huge state-sponsored grain export to Rome was discontinued (the devastation of Italy through the Ostrogothic/Byzantine wars is probably a major factor here, I presume. At any rate, even if the grain export was reduced already in the fifth, those wars would only have aggravated opportunities for trade). With the Islamic invasions in the mid-seventh century, the Gaulish Mediterrenean trade got its death blow. No wine from Syria any longer, and even though McCormick doesn't discuss it, I find it probable that the demise of the previously very important timber export from Gaul through the Loire valley is directly related to the Islamic take-over (you don't sell ship-building material to the enemy!).
Thirdly, and McCormick mentions this, we DO know that the garum (fish-sauce) factories in Gibraltar was crippled as a result of the late seventh/early eighth century Islamic invasions of North Africa and Iberia. Marseilles would have been an ideal half-way station between Gibraltar and the Northern Mediterrenean coasts, so we may imagine a negative effect on the Gaulish trade here as well.
Although somewhat dated, but still important, is Henry Pirenne's book "Mohammad and Charlemagne". Generally, he takes a too rosy view of the Merovingian economy in the pre-Islamic era (regarding it as essentially unchanged), and too bleak a view on the "economy" of the Carolingian empire (regarding it as basically non-existent, having reverted to an agrarian, manorial economy).
As for Charlemagne's defeat of the Lombards, that may well have increased the volume of trade within the empire, yet the landward shift of communication routes between Italy and France happened prior to that (the maritime trade was essentially dead at the time of Charles Martel).
Yes, you do!
I just finished Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, which covers the Roman Empire from about 2nd cent BCE to 476 CE. Heather finishes his book with an exposition on "Exogenous Shock", which is the process by which the 'barbarians' accelerated the inevitable collapse of the Roman Empire. In 481, Clovis began a series of campaigns which unified the Franks and some of their neighbors and which extended Frankish control over Roman Gaul. Wickham's and Heather's books seem nicely complementary.
You may then continue with Guy Halsall's account of the barbarian invasions, up to the Lombard invasion in 568. I haven't read Heather's work yet.
Ferdinand Lot's The End of the Ancient World and the Beginning of the Middle Ages, 1961
Stephen Mitchell's A History of the Later Roman Empire AD 284-641, 2007
Michael Kulikowski's Rome's Gothic Wars, 2007
I haven't read these yet..
Walter Goffart's Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire, 2006
From what I understand, Goffart's prior work, something like "Techniques of accomodation" is de rigeur. That work questions in what sense were the invasions "invasions", rather than ill-starred continuations of traditional settlement policies towards the barbarians.
Guy Halsall's work is up the same lane, mainly.
Thomas Noble's From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms, 2006, which is an historical anthology with chapters from noted comtemporary historians including Goffart and Heather, and I'm particularly interested to compare perspectives of Goffart and Heather.
in order to get back to
Joseph Dahmus's A History of the Middle Ages, 1968, which I am halfway through, but digressed back to the fall of the Roman Empire, since that set the stage for the Middle Ages with respect to military, political, social, religious and economic structures and history.
I recently purchased Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Ancient World (From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome), 2007.
More books for me to buy!
