Western Perspectives on the Mediterranean: Cultural Transfer in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, 400-800 AD

Review By shifting attention from the western post-Roman kingdoms to the broader regions of the Mediterranean, the six engaging papers collected in this volume stoutly challenge received perceptions regarding the interaction and exchange of ideas between the East-Mediterranean world of Byzantium and the Barbarian West. This volume is both a welcome contribution to the burgeoning literature on the transformation of the Roman world, and a fresh thought-provoking re-evaluation of the Pirenne thesis. (Yitzhak Hen, Ana and Sam Lopin Professor of History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)Collectively, these six essays reveal vividly that the communication routes of the early medieval Mediterranean carried not only commodities, objects of devotion, and travelers themselves, but intangible cultural products as well. (Gregory Halfond, Framingham State University, USA Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2014-11-03)... The overall quality of the volume is high, it is thematically coherent and the paper make original contributions to their specific topics. (JRS 2016-05-01) Product Description Based on close analyses of contemporary texts, and backed by an examination of the origins of the elements transferred and of the process of transmission, the contributors to this volume focus on the perception and adaptation of knowledge and cultural elements in the West. Taking a variety of approaches, they shed light on the changing lines of communication between the Byzantine empire and other parts of the Mediterranean, on the one hand, and the Burgundian, Frankish and Anglo-Saxon realms and the Papacy on the other. Book Description Examines culture from a Mediterranean world politically fragmented by the fall of the western Roman empire and Islamic expansion into Europe. About the Author IAN S. WOOD is a Lecturer in History at Napier University, Edinburgh, U, and a tutor with the Open University, UK.