Comparing Mohammed And Charlemagne

The decline of the Roman Empire and the muddled events of subsequent centuries have recently become a focus for historians attempting to understand the origins of Modern Europe. In Richard Hodges’ Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne and Henri Pirenne’s Mohammed and Charlemagne, both men make an attempt to uncover and explain the environment of Western Europe during the Dark Ages, the 5th-9th century AD, in order to provide the background for the growth of Medieval Europe. Although the question for both men is the same, they approach the topic in different ways. Hodges focuses on the urban developments of the period and how these new developments project themselves forward into the urbanization of the early Middle Ages; Pirenne instead

The first distinction between their arguments is the timetable of Roman decline; Hodges argues that you can without a doubt see Roman decline beginning in the 4th century and Pirenne argues that this collapse doesn’t occur until the 7th century. Richard Hodges is trained as an archaeologist and as such, uses archaeological discoveries to support all of his claims. Archaeological evidence shows that Roman cities and trading centers were losing much of their economic sustenance in the 5th century and many cities were being reduced to fortresses. This decline can be attributed to a lack of protection by Roman garrisons as the Germanic invasions of the north were reducing the manpower and safety of the Roman Empire. There is also evidence that there was a decline in the upkeep of Roman public monuments in Western Mediterranean cities by the 7th century. Hodges continues to use archaeological findings to support his emphasis on Dark Age emporia and their focus on production instead of consumption. In municipal digs around the Baltic Sea, particularly Ribe in Denmark and Hamwic (Southampton) in southern England, there is evidence of large-scale workshops built around a town center which participated in local trade. Most importantly, Hodges

Hodges is an archaeologist with access to information from the North Sea that supports his arguments, but the large amount of evidence he attempts to synthesize takes away from the overall impression he leaves you with. Hodges presents so many archaeological digs, many with opposing conclusions, that it is difficult for the reader to follow along with some of his arguments. For instance, he gives evidence for the growth of Butrint, a city in the Mediterranean, in the same chapter in which he is proposing an overall decline in Roman function in the Mediterranean. While it is never bad to provide potential counter-points in an essay, Hodges needs to clarify the points that he wants to make and potentially provide lesser detail in order to obtain a clearer thesis. In contrast to this, Pirenne is a historian who makes his argument and timeline very clear in his writings but lacks strong supporting evidence for many of his arguments. While reading through Mohammed and Charlemagne, he makes many assumptions and seems to rarely explain his evidence. While many items have footnotes referring to other works, for anyone other than the Dark Age historian it is difficult to interpret where his information is coming from. In this sense, Pirenne directly contrasts Hodges in that he needs to find and explain more detail to his