Introduction: reading the tenth century

Abstract

This book covers a period in European history best described as the long tenth century, stretching from the 890s through to around 1020/30. It explains a contrast between the Latin west and the courtcentred cultures of Byzantium and Islam. Some kinds of material remains have escaped historians' general neglect of non-written sources, most notably those traditionally studied by art historians: painting, sculpture, goldsmithery and ivorywork, architecture. The post-Carolingian core of Europe retained a residual sense of pan-Frankishness long after kingdoms, had started to develop their own sense of identity. It is significant, therefore, that Italian and Spanish historians have been heavily influenced in recent years by the concerns of French medievalists. The chapter also discusses the anomalous historiographical traditions of Byzantine history and European Islamic history. For Americans whose secondary or primary ethnicity is eastern, central or southern European, they are not even the most important ones.