Framing transformation, transforming the framework
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Abstract
This review article is a critical appreciation of the recently-published book by Chris Wickham, Framing the middle ages. It underlines the substantial achievement and major advances made by the book in understanding the process of transformation from the late Roman to the early medieval world in Europe and the Middle East, and points in particular to the ways in which the analysis brings out the strong regional variations and divergences that mark the process of social and economic change while at the same time drawing out the common denominators which underlay these developments. While Wickham lays especial stress on the economic infrastructures of the late Roman world, and in particular on the causal role of the state and its fiscal system, the review points to some difficulties with the heavily fiscal model as it is presented in the book. Yet while modifying one of the book’s prime theses in this respect, the review seeks at the same time to rescue the fundamental points made in respect of the causal and determining role of fiscal structures in the processes of social, economic and political transformation which took place between the fifth and eighth centuries CE. Framing transformation, transforming the framework 351