Reply #20: Beyond their personal lives,

[mgc1961]

I find the circumstances of their existence interesting too. In this case for example, is the similarity of some of Eckhart's writing to Hinduism and Buddhism. Or his teaching position in a country other than his birth. In political terms, those factual tidbits take some of the shine off xenophobic cries about an impending New World Order fueled by the immigration of impure cultures into western lands, as if white Christian culture was pure at some distant point in the past and we're losing it to foreigners and poor people.

Here's a bit about the economics of the Medieval period. I underlined sections that illustrate what I'm talking about in regard to understanding the pernicious nature of racist political slogans, or ideas as they like to call them, being spread by some conservative economic think tanks and right-wing radioheads:



TRADE, WESTERN EUROPE

The trade of Western Europe in the Middle Ages was, on the large scale, divided into two great "trading spheres," each centered on an inland sea, and each with its own special characteristics. The trade of northern Europe centered on the Baltic and North seas and the river systems that empty into them. Southern European trade looked to the Mediterranean as its great highway. In general terms the northern trade was characterized by bulk goods, such as foodstuffs and other basics, with few luxury goods of any importance. The trade of the south, while it included a large and active trade in bulk goods, took its characteristic "flavor" and much of its vigor from the carriage of Eastern luxury wares. These trading spheres overlapped in Flanders and Champagne, where merchants from all over Europe met at the great international fairs of the High Middle Ages, and later at the markets of Bruges and Antwerp.

There is also a fundamental chronological division of medieval trade that is as important as its geographical division. From the late Roman period until the end of the first millennium, trade was minimal and, as a general trend, in decline. Then, around the end of the tenth century, Western Europe began a period of sustained economic growth that was to last for 300 years.

The decline of the Roman Empire in the West was economic as well as political. The well-developed trading networks that existed within the empire began to crumble even before any significant barbarian incursions. The hold of Rome on the Western imagination has been such over the centuries that it is easy to forget that the magnificent life in marble halls was lived by only a very few. The typical denizen of the Roman Empire was not a toga-draped senator but a peasant living on the verge of starvation. Even in Rome itself the vast majority of the population was underemployed and living on the dole.

The largest-scale movement of goods within the empire was the regular shipment of grain from Egypt to Rome, but it is doubtful whether we should consider this to be trade at all, since it was organized by the government, paid for by tribute from all over the empire, and distributed to the emperor's clients, the Roman mob. The remaining movement of goods seems to have gone largely to support the army (again this was essentially a government activity) and to provide luxuries for the elite.

The civil wars of the third century A.D. had a disastrous effect on the fragile Roman economy. Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices, issued in 301, is dramatic evidence of the inflation and increasing government rigidity that the previous century's disturbances had brought about. This decline was accelerated in the West as the empire broke up into many kingdoms. It was increasingly impossible for the declining economy to support the refined and expensive tastes of the elite. In general, the standard of living of the upper classes continued to fall until after 900, despite occasional periods of amelioration. The standard of living of the majority of the population, the peasants, could not have fallen as much, since most of them were living only at a subsistence level even while the empire prospered. Still, their lot could not have been a happy one as the upper classes struggled to maintain their standard of living. This overall decline in the economy brought with it a reduction in the already small exchange of goods, both in the total amount of goods moved and in the distances over which they were transported.

EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Henri Pirenne's description of Western Europe in the ninth century as "a civilization which had retrogressed to the purely agricultural stage; which no longer needed commerce, credit, and regular exchange for the maintenance of the social fabric" became the central issue in a debate that has dominated discussions of the early medieval economy throughout most of the twentieth century. The "Pirenne thesis," simply stated, argued that commerce between East and West continued, though the center shifted eastward, until the rise of Islam broke the essential connections in the seventh century. Then, after the middle of the tenth century, commercial contacts were renewed through the Mediterranean and Baltic seas. In this view the Western European economy was dependent on the East, and through a kind of "contagion" theory of economic development it was assumed that once economic connections were opened, they spread and grew. The cause of the economic revival of Western Europe was seen as the obverse of the cause of its decline: the reestablishment of contact with areas where commerce had continued unbroken.

Two fundamental criticisms of this picture of the early medieval economy can be made. First, there was a good deal of decline before 700 that Pirenne minimized. Second, many of the details of the cutting of trade by Muslim expansion have been modified. It now seems clear that, just as the trade of the Roman Empire was not as extensive nor as rich as is often popularly imagined, so also there never was a time when trade disappeared entirely or when the economy of Western Europe "reverted completely to barter."

Studies of the early medieval economies that were prompted by Pirenne's seminal work have shown that trade, even long-distance trade between East and West, never entirely disappeared, though it did become exceedingly tenuous. Though undoubtedly the volume of commerce declined precipitously from an already small Roman base, there was, even in the eighth and ninth centuries, always some exchange. Even the costly fabrics and spices of the East continued to find their way west. In the tenth century Gerbert of Aurillac found Eastern silks and spices readily available in the markets of Italy. Still, there is no doubt that trade in the Carolingian period was pitifully small when compared to that of the Roman Empire, which Charlemagne wished to emulate.

As the standard of living declined in the West it remained relatively higher in the East, so that the goods and commodities that the West was able to provide were not particularly attractive in Byzantine and Islamic markets. Slaves, certain raw materials, such as timber, leather, grain, and salt, and a few cheap goods were sufficient to bring only a trickle of the coveted Eastern luxuries to the Germanic kingdoms. Trade within Western Europe itself also declined as local economies approached a degree of uniformity that made any substantial exchange of goods pointless. The growth of trade in Western Europe from the late tenth century on should be seen as the development of an underdeveloped area, rather than as the revival of a lost Roman economy.

Still, several forces were at work to maintain at least a minimal level of trade, even in the worst of times in the ninth century. First, necessity dictated that some goods be moved. Salt, the only effective preservative known and a highly prized condiment, was available in only a few places and was thus the object of a considerable commerce. Both archaeology and documentary sources attest to a trade in quernstones, which were necessary to grind grain into flour and for which really suitable stone was available in only a few geological formations. In the Merovingian period there was an important center of quernstone production in the Eifel Mountains that sent stones as far away as northern England. There is also evidence of trade in grain and other foodstuffs.

A second motivation, and one that produced a commerce whose historical visibility is out of all proportion to its size, was the demand of the elite political and religious leaders (a very small proportion of the population) for prestigious luxuries either for themselves, to underscore their rank in society, or to give to one another as suitably impressive gifts. The variety of these luxuries was much greater, even if the quantity in circulation was much smaller, than that of the more utilitarian goods. In the luxury category were precious metals, both as coin and plate; fine textiles (silks and fine woolens); fierce hunting dogs and spirited horses; falcons; strong, sharp swords; earthenware pots of striking design and elaborate decoration; glassware and window panes; wines; and spices. There were also stunning individual items, such as the elephant given to Charlemagne by Harun al-Rashid or the small seventh-century statue of Buddha from northern India which was found at Helgo in Sweden.

The considerable traffic in human beings was also important. Slaves were the only product of Western Europe in great demand in the sophisticated markets of the East.

In the West, the establishment of the Frankish kingdom in the fifth century brought a shift toward the north in the demand for luxury goods. The heart of Frankish government was in the northern part of what had been Gaul, and the courts established there inevitably drew a large proportion of the luxury trade.

Most prominent among the merchants of the Frankish era were the inhabitants of Frisia, which lay along the North Sea coast of Europe. The Frisians engaged in a trade that linked the Frankish lands, Scandinavia, and Britain from the seventh to the ninth centuries. These coastal inhabitants were primarily farmers and fisherman whose familiarity with the seas and whose central location fitted them admirably for the role of part-time merchants. The scant and loosely organized commerce of the period could not support many full-time traders.

In the ninth century the Scandinavians burst on the European scene, opening the last period of barbarian invasions. The destruction wrought by Viking raids is well fixed in the popular imagination; their role as traders is less well known. The Vikings displaced the Frisians in the trade of the North Sea and the Rhine Valley and established a trading sphere of their own in the Baltic area that reached down the Russian rivers as far as Byzantium and Persia. They offered furs from Finland and Russia and slaves captured in their many raids. Indeed, slaves may well have been the staple item in Viking trade. Their greed for slaves undoubtedly contributed to the fear that their raids inspired. The Viking center at Hedeby in southeastern Jutland was well situated for access to both the Baltic and the North Sea. In many ways the trade of the Vikings foreshadowed that of the later medieval Hansa.

In an age when the scale of trade was very small and the merchant's occupation was only part-time, buyers and sellers commonly gathered in convenient locations at prearranged times to exchange goods. These fairs soon became regular features of the medieval economic landscape. Regional fairs existed all over Europe, but a few became centers for the wholesale exchange of goods from distant lands. By the end of the eleventh century fairs located close to one another were being organized into 'cycles' that spread the trading activities of the region in an orderly way through the year. One of the earliest of such cycles of fairs was organized in Flanders in the twelfth century. As the Flemish cities developed into permanent centers of exchange this fair cycle was abandoned. The best-known and most important of the medieval fair cycles was held in Champagne, a cycle of six fairs held in various towns on a rotating basis throughout the year. Carefully cultivated by the enlightened policies and good government of the counts of Champagne, these fairs were a crucial international market from the twelfth until the fourteenth century, when changing trade patterns and chronic warfare brought about their end.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

To extensive to list here


John E. Dotson

Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 12, pgs. 108-110. (1989)