Light Weight Solidi and Byzantine Trade During the Sixth and Seventh Centuries

The commercial relations of Byzantium with the West during the early mediaeval period have been the subject of many historical studies such as those of Henri Pirenne and Alfons Dopsch. As the older view of a catastrophic break in the stream of civilization during the period of the barbarian invasions was relegated to the history of historiography, the importance of the economic changes of the early Middle Ages assumed greater and greater significance. It is, of course, true that most of the scholars who have attempted discussions of the history of this period have made some use of the numismatic material available to them, but they have in no sense exhausted the information that may be derived from that source. In the study of the early Middles Ages numismatics has been used largely as illustrative material to support conclusions based primarily upon the literary sources. The archaeological and numismatic studies have therefore not served their true function as ancillary sciences of history. Many reasons for this situation are immediately evident, if a summary perusal is made of the secondary literature in those fields and the training of most mediaevalists is considered.