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352 Four Years of Corruption
‘only’ a depression, as ‘a slight dip’, even though (CS 154) we
explicitly characterize the period as one that makes audible
the ‘background noise’ of Mediterranean connectivity when the
‘strident commercial networks’ are silenced. If we use ‘depression’
and ‘abatement’ in portraying the period, this should not
be taken to mean that we treat such phenomena as mere blips. It
means simply that—to change metaphor—our ‘degree zero’ of
Mediterranean exchange is a little higher than that of most
other students of the period (even though it is not so high as
McCormick’s). 8 This is an instance of a problem of presentation
for which we bear full responsibility: our pursuit of generalization
across three thousand years led us throughout to give
the impression of damping down the intensity of change. There
is nothing, however, in our model to deny remarkable peaks
of intense connectivity or equally deep troughs, though we
persist in enjoining caution on those who wish to predicate
such extremes of the whole basin.
By contrast, the reaction of the third of the large constituencies
among the readership we hoped for—the ‘high’ or ‘central’
medieval constituency—has, disappointingly, been briefer, less
detailed, far less willing to engage. There has been no real
exploration of the possible implications, for the study of the
medieval Mediterranean, of our discussions of connectivity,
technology, and the control of microecologies. 9 Nor have our
comparisons of ancient and medieval economies been tested
from the medieval end. We expected, indeed would have welcomed,
more resistance here. David Abulafia, from whose
works on medieval commerce we have learned so much, virtually
ignores these topics in his review, apart from chiding us
(p. 10) for disdaining the westward movement of the banana
8 We do not understand Peters’ comment in his n. 3: ‘Horden and Purcell
accept the later [¼ c.1000] beginning of the European economy, but for
indifferent [sic] reasons’. We are not aware of thinking in that way at all. We
simply contrast the Pirenne period with the high Middle Ages.
9 See now also D. Abulafia (ed.), The Mediterranean in History (London,
2003), which emphasizes conflicts and connections across the sea without,
after an opening chapter on the physical setting, paying much attention to
the circum-Mediterranean environment, and without offering any fresh explanation
of high medieval economic expansion in Mediterranean Europe.