The Impact of the Horse and Silk Trade on the Economies of T'ang China and the Uighur Empire: On the Importance of International Commerce in the Early Middle Ages

Abstract

With a few notable exceptions, economic historians dealing with the Early Middle Ages (circa 625-840 A.D. )) in Europe and Asia have agreed that international commerce consisted almost exclusively of a low-volume luxury trade affecting the upper class alone. 2) Accordingly, they consider the economies of individual states to have been essentially independent of other national economies. This view thus denies any real importance to early medieval international trade via both land and sea routes. 3)