Abstract
A hundred years ago Henri Pirenne delivered his seminal lectures on the medieval city in the USA. In the aftermath of the late antique collapse of Mediterranean Sea commerce, Pirenne pinpointed North Sea traders as agents that led to the origins of the Carolingian revolution which eventually put in place new towns. With the publication of major archaeological reports about Comacchio and Oegstgeest - early medieval centres on the Adriatic Sea and North Sea respectively - this article considers key tropes of Pirenne’s narrative. In ranging between the end of Antiquity and its so-called temple society and the rise of the Merovingian and Carolingian North Sea, the article reviews the preliminary stages during which the divergence between the Mediterranean regions and north-west Europe was repaired.
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