This book looks at the fall and persistence of empires from the perspective of the powers that replaced them, and compares several cases between China and the West in the first millennium CE with surprisingly similar beginnings and different outcomes.
Author(s): Walter Pohl, Veronika Wieser
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 456
City: Leiden
Contents
Preface
Figures
Contributors
Introduction: The Emergence of New Polities in the Shadows of Empire
1 Comparing Empires: Problems and Approaches
2 Global Pitfalls and Perspectives
3 The Post-Roman West
4 The Carolingian Empire and Its Dissolution
5 Byzantium
6 The Caliphate
7 China
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
Electronic Publications
Part 1 The Later Roman Empire and the Post-Roman Kingdoms in the West
1 When Did the West Roman Empire Fall?
2 The Role of Peoples in the Emergence of the Post-Roman Kingdoms
1 ‘Barbarians’ and Ethnicity
2 Lines of Transition
2.1 Conditions in the Western Empire
2.2 Conditions in Barbarian Lands
2.3 The Transformation of the Roman Army
2.4 An Empire without Alternatives?
2.5 From Roman Religion to Christianity
2.6 The Emergence of Barbarian Kingdoms on Roman Territory
2.7 Christianity and the Integration of Barbarians
2.8 The Role of ‘the People’
2.9 The Kingdom: Dynasty and Territory
2.10 Long-Term Consequences
3 Conclusion
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
3 In the Shadow of the Roman Empire: Layers of Legitimacy and Strategies
Part 2 The Carolingian Empire and the Emerging Polities in Its Northern and Eastern Periphery
4 When the Bavarians Became Bavarian
1 Introduction
2 From the Bavarians in the North to the Bavarians in the East: The Changing Orientation of the Bavarian Ducatus from the Ostrogothic to the Merovingian Period
3 Double Continuities: The Mobilization of a Frankish Identity under the Early Carolingians
4 Bavarian Double Continuities and the Making of the Bavarians in the Carolingian Period
5 The Deposition of Tassilo III and the End of the Bavarian Ducatus
6 The Politics of Empire and the Framing of Ethnicity in the Carolingian World
7 Conclusion
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
5 Peripheral Polities North of the Carolingian Realm: The Regnum Danorum
1 Scandinavia and Empire: A Prelude
2 Scandinavia and Empire: The Ninth-Century Regnum Danorum
3 Scandinavia and Empire: An Aftermath
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
Electronic Publications
Part 3 Byzantium and Its Peripheral Powers
6 The Lagoons as a Distant Mirror: Constantinople, Venice and the Italian Romania
1 Eastern Rome, Western Romans
2 Sweet Names, Rough Faces
3 Sailing to Byzantium
4 Out of the Shadows
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
7 Countering Byzantium’s Shadow: Contrarianism among the Bulgars, Rus and Germans
Part 4 Between Byzantium and the Islamic World
8 Early Medieval Armenia between Empires (Fourth–Eleventh Century CE): Dynamics and Continuities
9 Strategies of Legitimation in the Shadow of Empires: Byzantine‒Turkish
1 Anatolia – A Contested Periphery at the Crossroads of Empires
2 Disintegration of Imperial Structures and Regionalization of Power
3 From Tribal Chiefs to Territorial Lords
4 Authority, Dynasty, Legitimacy
5 Conclusions
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
Part 5 The Abbasid Caliphate and the Formation of New Dynasties
10 Communication between Centre and Periphery in the Early Fourth/Tenth-Century Abbasid Empire
1 The Reign of the Caliph al-Muqtadir
2 Means of Communication
3 Conclusions
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
11 Local and Imperial Rule: Examples from Fārs (9th–10th Centuries)
1 The Province of Fārs
2 Noble Families
3 ‘Revolts’ from the Ninth Century Onward
4 Kurds
5 The Coming of the Būyids: al-Nawbandajānī
6 The Fasānjus Clan
7 Conclusion: Provincial Nobles in Fārs in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
Electronic Publications
Part 6 Medieval China and the Foreign Dynasties
12 The Huai Frontier and the Ethnicization of Difference in Early Medieval China
1 Framing Ethnicity
2 Northern Conceptions of the South
3 Southern Conceptions of the North
4 Conclusion
Printed Sources
Secondary Works
Electronic Publications
13 ‘Cultural China’ from the Eleventh Century: Legitimacy, Metanarrative and Historiography
1 ‘Cultural China’ in Chinese History and Historiography
2 The ‘Legitimacy Question’ in/for Neo-Confucianism
3 Forging a New Political Identity: From Geography to Culture
4 Toward a Metanarrative in Chinese Historiography
Primary Sources
Secondary Works
14 In the Shadows of Empires: The Tuyuhun and Khitans in Late Antiquity
1 Introduction
2 The Tuyuhun
3 The Khitans
4 Conclusion
Primary Sources
Secondary Works
15 Post-imperial Polities: Concluding Observations
Index
