Thanks for your comment, nels. Sorry I did not see them earlier. The chart on p. 315 is chronological. so while the cities of Roman Europe (including the Iberian peninsula) were lively politically, they were in decay by the fifth century- but there has to be some sort of ‘plus’ representative government in Roman areas before then (e.g. search ‘Pompeii politics’). So after the Roman collapse the main urban areas are the Arab cities and it is only slowly that urban life in Europe revives. (The shortlived (770-843 AD) Carolingian empire was not urban- rather the centres of power were the court and monasteries.) Chris Wickham sees the first representative governments in northern Italy as c.1100. It is hard to know how Schulz choose his cities (I am longing to get to a university library to check his sources!) but he seems to assume that once a city is marked as having a town council it remains in the chart as a representative government from then on (so a steady line UPWARDS as new cities come in). Yet we know that many of the most prosperous Italian cities fell under one family rule after c.1300 so his chart should then start going DOWNWARDS as representative governments are lost for this prosperous region.
After the banning of pagan cults in the 390s by the Roman emperor Theodosius, the Catholic church was the only institutional religion in town and it is still with us so ANY development in European society correlates with its existence (as do cold winters). Henrich’ error is to suggest that the Church caused these developments when there are perfectly good historical reasons (mostly economic) for the revival of European cities in the Middle Ages.At the very least he should have challenged conventional historical explanations to sustain his thesis but I wonder if he is even aware of them.
One day he will be challenged for his view that the church broke up kinship groups as, being unaware of the Roman ban on cousin marriages and their individual landholdings, he does not realise that intensive kinship had been broken up centuries before his start date of 400 AD. I am amazed that it has not been already done.
Thanks for your comment, nels. Sorry I did not see them earlier. The chart on p. 315 is chronological. so while the cities of Roman Europe (including the Iberian peninsula) were lively politically, they were in decay by the fifth century- but there has to be some sort of ‘plus’ representative government in Roman areas before then (e.g. search ‘Pompeii politics’). So after the Roman collapse the main urban areas are the Arab cities and it is only slowly that urban life in Europe revives. (The shortlived (770-843 AD) Carolingian empire was not urban- rather the centres of power were the court and monasteries.) Chris Wickham sees the first representative governments in northern Italy as c.1100. It is hard to know how Schulz choose his cities (I am longing to get to a university library to check his sources!) but he seems to assume that once a city is marked as having a town council it remains in the chart as a representative government from then on (so a steady line UPWARDS as new cities come in). Yet we know that many of the most prosperous Italian cities fell under one family rule after c.1300 so his chart should then start going DOWNWARDS as representative governments are lost for this prosperous region.
After the banning of pagan cults in the 390s by the Roman emperor Theodosius, the Catholic church was the only institutional religion in town and it is still with us so ANY development in European society correlates with its existence (as do cold winters). Henrich’ error is to suggest that the Church caused these developments when there are perfectly good historical reasons (mostly economic) for the revival of European cities in the Middle Ages.At the very least he should have challenged conventional historical explanations to sustain his thesis but I wonder if he is even aware of them.
One day he will be challenged for his view that the church broke up kinship groups as, being unaware of the Roman ban on cousin marriages and their individual landholdings, he does not realise that intensive kinship had been broken up centuries before his start date of 400 AD. I am amazed that it has not been already done.