A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium (88 page)

39
G Dölger, ‘Byzantine Literature’, p209.

40
A Grabor, ‘Byzantine Architecture and Art’, p306.

41
K Vogel, ‘Byzantine Science’, in
Cambridge Medieval History
, vol IV, part II, p287.

42
K Vogel, ‘Byzantine Science’, p305.

43
See chapter 8, ‘The Physical Universe’, in C Mango,
Byzantium
(London, 1994), pp166-176. For a slightly more charitable account, see K Vogel, ‘Byzantine Science’, p269.

44
R J H Jenkins, ‘Social Life in the Byzantine Empire’, in
Cambridge Medieval History
, vol IV, part II, p93.

45
H St L B Moss, ‘Formation of the Eastern Roman Empire’, in
Cambridge Medieval History
, vol IV, part I, p38.

46
P Brown,
The World of Late Antiquity
(London, 1971), p157.

47
P Brown,
The World
, p104.

48
R J H Jenkins, ‘Social Life’, p97.

49
R J H Jenkins, ‘Social Life’, p98.

50
R J H Jenkins, ‘Social Life’, p84.

51
R J H Jenkins, ‘Social Life’, p89.

52
Some historians have suggested that the different factions represented different political, class or religious interests. But Alan Cameron has provided a mass of evidence to back up his case that they cut across class and religious divisions, and deflected attention from issues which might have threatened the empire. The partial exception was the Nike riot, when the Blue and Green factions, upset by Justinian’s decision to execute a rioter from either side, issued a united declaration against him. But even in this case, as we have seen, the riot was not of the poor against the rich. See A Cameron,
Blues and Greens: Circus Factions at Rome and Byzantium
(London, 1976).

53
See A Cameron,
Blues and Greens
, and R J H Jenkins, ‘Social Life’, p86.

54
J B Bury, ‘Introduction’ to
Cambridge Medieval History
, vol IV, pxix.

55
R J H Jenkins, ‘Social Life’, p88.

56
Known to the Romans as Arabia Felix (Happy Arabia) and today called Yemen.

57
For a full account of the expansion and neglect of the Mesopotamian irrigation systems, which points out that the blame lay not just with war but also with ‘oppressive taxation’ and ‘the devolution of authority into the hands of the landed nobility’, see R M Adams,
Land Behind Baghdad
(Chicago, 1965), pp69, 80-82.

58
The analogy is Bernard Lewis’s, in B Lewis,
The Arabs in History
(London, 1966), p55.

59
The analogy is Peter Brown’s, in P Brown,
The World
, pp192-193.

60
Both quoted in B Lewis,
The Arabs
, p58.

61
See, for instance, P Brown,
The World
, p200.

62
B Lewis,
The Arabs
, p72. For a detailed account of the disputes among the Arab armies, see the chapter, ‘The Islamic Opposition’, in M G S Hodgson,
The Venture of Islam, vol 1, Classical Age of Islam
(Chicago, 1974).

63
B Lewis,
The Arabs
, p80.

64
B Lewis,
The Arabs
, p80.

64a
According to B Lewis, ‘Government, Society and Economic Life Under the Abbasids and Fatamids’, in
Cambridge Medieval History
, vol IV, part 1, p643. See also S D Gotein,
Studies in Islamic History and Institutions
(London, 1966), pp221-240.

65
B Lewis,
The Arabs
, p81.

66
B Lewis,
The Arabs
, p86.

67
B Lewis,
The Arabs
, p91.

68
See his argument in M Rodinson,
Islam and Capitalism
(London, 1974).

69
B Lewis,
The Arabs
, p91.

70
G E von Grunebaum, ‘Muslim Civilisation in the Abbasid Period’, in
Cambridge Medieval History
, vol IV, part I, p679.

71
M G S Hodgson,
The Venture of Islam
, vol II (Chicago, 1972), p65.

72
R M Adams,
Land Behind Baghdad
, p?.

73
R M Adams,
Land Behind Baghdad
, p87.

74
Yaqut, quoted in R M Adams,
Land Behind Baghdad
, p87. See also Adams’s account of what happened throughout the irrigated area, pp99-106.

75
Quoted by G E von Grunebaum, ‘Muslim Civilisation’, p693.

76
He did so precisely by analysing the dynamic of rise, revolution and decline in the previous 700 years of Islamic civilisation. See Ibn Khaldun,
The Muqaddimah
(London, 1987).

77
See, for example, G E von Grunebaum, ‘Muslim Civilisation’, p682.

78
Quoted in B Davidson,
Africa in History
(London, 1992), p61.

79
Quoted in G Connah,
African Civilisations
(Cambridge, 1987), p183.

80
H Trevor-Roper (Lord Dacre), quoted in A Callinicos,
Theories and Narratives
(Cambridge, 1995), p167.

81
See, for example, K W Butzer,
Early Hydraulic Civilisation in Egypt
(Chicago, 1976), pp9-12; M Stone,
Egypt’s Making
(London, 1991), pp27-29; and for a report on ‘megalith’ monuments in southern Egypt around 4,500 BC, see ‘Tribe In Sahara Were The First To Aim For The Stars’, in the
Guardian
, 2 April 1998.

82
Quoted in G Connah,
African
, p150.

83
Leo Africanus,
History and Development of Africa
, vol 1 (London, 1896). For an excellent fictional recreation of his journeys, see A Maalouf,
Leo the African
(London, 1994).

84
See D W Phillipson,
African Archaeology
(Cambridge, 1985), p170; Jared Diamond goes so far as to argue, ‘African smiths discovered how to produce high temperatures in their village furnaces and manufacture steel 2,000 years before the Bessemer furnaces of 19 th century Europe and America.’ (J Diamond,
Guns, Germs and Steel
, p394). M J van der Merwe and T A Wertime believe knowledge of iron making originally diffused across the Sahara from the Mediterranean coastal regions, but recognise that African smiths developed techniques which led to the direct making of steel rather than wrought iron. See their essays in T A Wertime and J D Munly (eds),
The Coming of the Age of Iron
(New Haven, 1980).

85
G Connah,
African Civilisations
, p213.

86
J Diamond,
Guns
, pp177-191.

87
See the details given from research among documents from Cairo’s synagogue in S D Coitein,
Studies in Islamic History and Institutions
(Leiden, 1966), p297.

88
G Duby,
Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West
(London, 1968), p5.

89
This, for instance, is part of the explanation of David Landes in his often acclaimed book,
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
.

90
The so called ‘political Marxists’, Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood. See, for instance, Robert Brenner’s own essay in T Ashton (ed),
The Brenner Debate
(Cambridge, 1993).

91
L White, ‘The Expansion of Technology 500-1500’, in C Cipolla (ed),
Fontana Economic History of Europe, vol 1, The Middle Ages
(London, 1972), p147. See also G Duby,
Rural Economy
, pp18-19.

92
L White, ‘The Expansion’, p149.

93
L White, ‘The Expansion’, p146.

94
G Duby, ‘Medieval Agriculture’, in C Cipolla (ed),
Fontana
, pp196-197. In fact the advances in productivity in Ch’en and T’ang China may have been as great as these in Europe, but this does not detract from the importance of what happened.

95
S Thrupp, ‘Medieval Industry’, in C Cipolla (ed),
Fontana
, p225.

96
P Kriedte (ed),
Industrialisation Before Industrialisation
(Cambridge, 1981), p19.

97
J Le Goff,
Medieval Civilisation
(Oxford, 1988), p59.

98
M Bloch,
Feudal Society
(London, 1965), p346.

99
J Le Goff,
Medieval Civilisation
, p198.

100
See G Bois,
The Transformation of the Year 1000
(Manchester, 1992). For a critical discussion of his views, see my review of the work, ‘Change at the First Millennium’,
International Socialism
62 (Spring 1994).

101
J Le Goff, ‘The Town as an Agent of Civilisation’, in C M Cipolla (ed),
Fontana
, p79. For the role of such small towns newly established on lords’ estates in England, see R Hilton, ‘Lords, Burgesses and Hucksters’, in
Past and Present
, November 1982.

102
See, for instance, the list of translations of scientific texts into Latin from the Arabic, in J Gimpel,
The Medieval Machine
(London, 1992), pp176-177.

103
Quoted in J Gimpel,
Medieval
, p174.

104
Quoted in J Gimpel,
Medieval
, p174.

105
See J Gimpel,
Medieval
, pp192-193.

106
L White, ‘The Expansion’, p156.

107
Southern Belgium and the northernmost strip of France.

108
For a full account, see S Runciman,
The Sicilian Vespers
.

109
R Roehl, ‘Pattern and Structure of Demand 1000-1500’, in C Cipolla (ed),
Fontana
, p133.

110
The standard history of the Crusades is Stephen Runciman’s three volume work,
A History of the Crusades
(Harmondsworth, 1990). The BBC paperback by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira,
The Crusades
(London, 1996) provides an easy overview. The fact that the Crusaders were able to conquer the lands of a civilisation that was far more advanced than Europe was a result of the new techniques employed in European agriculture—a sign of material advance. But this did not alter the destructive and wasteful character of the Crusades for all involved.

111
G Bois,
The Crisis of Feudalism
(Cambridge, 1984), p1. There were, in fact, probably historic precedents just as serious—in, for instance, the crises which hit the early ancient civilisations or Medieval Mesopotamia.

112
G Duby, ‘Medieval Agriculture’, p192.

113
R Hilton,
Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism
(London, 1990), p171. See also G Bois,
The Crisis
, pp1-5.

114
The phrase used by both Bois and Hilton.

115
Quoted in J-P Poly and E Bournazel,
The Feudal Transformation
(New York, 1991), p119.

116
R Hilton,
Class Conflict
, p65.

117
For a summary account of events, see S A Epstein,
Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe
(North Carolina, 1991), pp252-253.

118
N Cohn,
The Pursuit of the Millennium
(London, 1970), p102.

119
N Cohn,
Pursuit
, p103.

120
N Cohn,
Pursuit
, p104.

121
N Cohn,
Pursuit
, pp139-141.

122
Now the north western part of the Czech Republic.

123
The quotes are given in N Cohn,
Pursuit
, p215. For a much more sympathetic account of the Taborite movement, which does not see it as simply a question of irrational longings, see K Kautsky,
Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation
, translated by J L and E G Mulliken (London, 1897, reprinted New York, 1966).

124
See, for example, C Hibbert,
The Rise and Fall of the Medicis
(London, 1979).

125
See G Duby, ‘Medieval Agriculture’, p182.

126
Fernand Braudel gives a full account of the various international networks in chapter 2, ‘Markets and the Economy’, of F Braudel,
The Wheels of Commerce, Civilisation and Capitalism in the 15 th-18 th Century
, vol 2 (London, 1979),