The book is an attempt to synthesize the results of several studies in archaeology, numismatics, history, and sigillography that have recently advanced our knowledge of early medieval Greece. Instead of a polar opposition between the Byzantine Empire and “barbarians” (Slavs or Bulgars), the history of early medieval Greece must be understood within a larger Balkan context shaped fundamentally by complex economic and social phenomena. An older tradition has seen the changes taking place in Greece between ca. 500 and ca. 1050 as the result of exclusively political factors, mainly related to the ... More

The book is an attempt to synthesize the results of several studies in archaeology, numismatics, history, and sigillography that have recently advanced our knowledge of early medieval Greece. Instead of a polar opposition between the Byzantine Empire and “barbarians” (Slavs or Bulgars), the history of early medieval Greece must be understood within a larger Balkan context shaped fundamentally by complex economic and social phenomena. An older tradition has seen the changes taking place in Greece between ca. 500 and ca. 1050 as the result of exclusively political factors, mainly related to the revival of Byzantine military power under the Macedonian dynasty and the desire to convert the Slavs to Christianity. Nevertheless, recent studies in the economic history of early medieval Europe suggest a different view. Moreover, archaeologists interested in long-term changes have long recognized that the explosion of settlement assemblages is not unique to Greece and that similar developments are archaeologically documented for other areas of the Balkans that were not under Byzantine rule at that time. More economically minded accounts of the so-called Middle Byzantine period have revealed the complex relation between trade and agriculture in the economic take-off of the Macedonian period. The book offers for the first time a synthetic view of the economic and social processes at work in early medieval Greece, but pays attention also to political and religious phenomena.