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350 13. specialized production and exchange
modern times), there were administrative factors at work which were not
primarily economic. 5
Similarly, although archaeology has now shed much light on urban settlement
and prosperity, this evidence too is often very difficult to integrate
into a broad picture of the economy. The prosperity of towns in the
Roman and post-Roman periods was not simply dependent on economic
activity, but was also highly influenced by social and administrative change.
For example, the disappearance of towns in post-Roman Britain must in
part reflect economic change; but it was also caused by the disappearance
of a town-based aristocracy and a town-based secular and ecclesiastical
administration. 6
ii. the general picture
Very broadly, the evidence currently available suggests that the focus of
intensive, specialized and sophisticated economic life shifted gradually,
between the fifth and the seventh century, further and further southwards
and eastwards. In the next few pages we will review this evidence briefly,
starting with two extreme case studies: Britain, in the far north-west, and,
at the other end of the empire, the provinces of the Near East and Egypt.
These surveys are necessarily done with a very broad brush and ignore
much detail and local variation, a point I shall return to later.
Britain
There is some debate about whether the economic decline of Britain
started within the fourth century itself (and therefore before the arrival of
the Saxons). But most scholars would agree that, at least in the early fourth
century, the province of Britain was flourishing, with a rich villa economy
in the countryside, and a network of towns which included not only administrative
capitals (civitates), but also secondary production and marketing
centres whose prosperity depended primarily on economic activity. Copper
coins are frequently found in excavation and were clearly in widespread use,
and the province had a number of specialized potting industries, producing
standardized high-quality products, and capable of distributing them
even over long distances (see Fig. 12).
By the end of the fifth century (at the vest latest) all this economic
sophistication had disappeared. There were no towns, no villas and no
coins. Specialized production and long-distance exchange were almost
entirely restricted to very high-value goods which were produced as much
to mark status as for their functional purpose, and which travelled perhaps
5 For the state and coinage: Hendy, Studies. For coins in commercial use: Millar (1981) 72–4; and the
useful overview in Greene (1986) 44–57 and 61–3.
6 See Durliat (1990a) for an extreme view of the essentially ‘artificial’ nature of Roman cities.
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