Qualifying Mediterranean connectivity: Byzantium and the Franks during the seventh century

Abstract

In the last two decades, historians researching the seventh century ce have increasingly emphasized mobility, communications and connectivity across the Mediterranean world that supposedly included close contacts between the Franks and Byzantium. These studies, however, rely often on optimistic, maximum interpretations of the comparatively sparse source base, and have not always precisely distinguished between different forms of mobility and connectivity. This article argues that a closer examination of the actual cultural and political consequences of mobility and contact between Byzantium and Gaul is required, and that the possibility of discontinuity and disintegration should not be disregarded. In our reading of the sources, we deliberately adopt a sceptical, methodologically cautious minimal position: the textual sources can be interpreted as showing that, while individual, sporadic contacts across the Mediterranean continued to exist, there was no established, continuous practice of communications between Byzantium and Gaul.