TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > History > Urban Survival and the role of the middleman
- What links survival? Administrative or Christian centre, or official supply systems had effect did not guarantee continuity. Prosperous countryside not enough –what about Africa – N Italy and Oriens seem plausible for continuity – common factor stood at frontier distinct cultural, geographical, political zones need for contact and exchange. Trade and Culture of Byzantium – Lombardy and trans Alpine. 8th century Venetia all pointed node trading network.
- Links to Hodge and Whitehouse development of gateway communities (Dorestad, Hamwih, Quentovic)- lacked independent aristocratic life – inheritance classical life. Exchange one factor – but not only one
- Political disintegration meant slow fragmenting of Roman networks of change + ending state requirement, loss of costly cosmopolitan lifestyle of great landowners; declining need for surplus and exchange.
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