![]() He pays special attention to the Hanseatic League, which flourished as a trading cartel for several centuries. ![]() We get a skewed version of the early Middle Ages from Bede’s Church History of the English People, which Pye characterizes as a “Saxon account of Saxon triumphs, a Christian treatise.” Bede’s vision predominates in our perception of the period because it has few if any contemporary competing narratives.Pye credits northern Europeans with resuscitating trade after the barbarian invasions. Instead of one- dimensional, rapacious marauders, they appear to have learned to co-exist with the Irish and the English. Pye’s view of Europe from 700 to 1700 differs from what most of us learned as the “Dark Ages,” where “we imagine human invention and perversity and will were suspended for centuries.” Instead, he sees the influx of people from north of the old Roman Empire as a good thing in that the interlopers “spread the idea of being free and having rights.” Pye paints a more nuanced picture of the Vikings than we are used to. ![]() He wants to move the center of gravity of European history northward, to the North Sea to be precise. ![]() Michael Pye is an English journalist who thinks the Mediterranean Sea has gotten too much attention in various histories of Europe. ![]()
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