Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the extent of the change 361
instance, the appearance of new trading networks, and new towns, in both
the North Sea area (as at Hamwic, Dorestad and Hedeby) and the western
Mediterranean (as at Venice).
iii. the extent of the change
Except in the Near East, the changes outlined above were remarkable.The
phenomenon we are looking at is not a simple shrinkage, as if the economy
of the seventh century were essentially similar to that of the fourth, but on
a more restricted scale. Rather, there was a remarkable qualitative change
in economic life, with whole areas of specialization and exchange disappearing
and, in some regions, even very basic technology apparently
ceasing to exist.
For example, in Britain a number of skills entirely disappeared, to be
reintroduced from the continent only in the seventh and eighth century.
Some of these, such as the art of building in mortared brick or stone, were
perhaps particularly associated with Roman fashions of display, and so may
have been peculiarly sensitive to political and cultural change. But at least
one skill that disappeared, the art of making pottery on the wheel, is a very
basic technique that speeds up considerably the production of goodquality
pottery. It is hard to understand how such a simple tool as the
potter’s wheel could disappear, but presumably individual potters in the
fifth and sixth century found the demand for pots was so low (because
markets were so localized and so small in scale) that it was not worthwhile
continuing its use (or borrowing it again from the continent).
The scale and impact of change was dramatic, as can be seen if it is
placed in a broad historical perspective. Post-Roman Britain, of the fifth
and sixth century, retained almost nothing of the sophistications of Roman
economic life and, although this is a fact that is initially hard to credit, even
sank to an economic level well below that reached in the pre-Roman Iron
Age. In the pre-Roman period, southern Britain was importing quantities
of Gallic wine and pottery, and sustained a number of native potting industries
(some of them producing wheel-turned wares) whose products were
distributed quite widely. It also had the beginnings of towns, some of
which (like Hengistbury) were clearly dependent for their existence on
commerce, as well as on their defensive and political importance; and it had
a silver coinage, produced in such quantities that it was almost certainly
used for economic as well as political transactions. 24
Post-Roman Britain of the fifth and sixth century had none of these
things, either in Anglo-Saxon or in British areas, with the single exception
of a small-scale trade in Mediterranean pottery and wine amphorae that
24 Iron Age Britain: see, for example, Cunliffe (1978) 157–9, 299–300 and 337–42.
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