preliminary remarks 13
symbiotic relationship between state power and trade beyond the lands
under Mongol rule.
the scholar who has written most memorably on the subject, in work
which has long counted as a classic of historiography, was henri pirenne.
Whether or not we agree with the thesis that Islamic expansion caused
the cessation of commerce in the Merovingian state, his conclusion that
the end of long-distance trade caused the decline of the first Frankish
dynasty has become a model of historical reasoning.
In his view, after the death of Dagobert I in 639 the reduced flow of
material goods to the central power shifted the balance of forces between
the monarch and the aristocracy, as so often happens. While trade flour-
ished and kept the royal exchequer well-supplied, the king had enough
resources to maintain a personal guard (trustis) which could keep the
lay and ecclesiastical grandees in check. once customs receipts began to
drop in the latter half of the eighth century, the nobility wrung ever more
extensive privileges from the king, and anarchy became widespread.38
pirenne considered that by the nature of things, trade held a crucial posi-
tion in the Merovingian state economy, above other sources of income,
including the land tax.39
the same dependence between central authority and trade which
pirenne demonstrated in the case of the Frankish Merovingian kingdom
can also be found, not just in those states which we are accustomed to
call merchant republics, above all Venice and Genoa, but in many other
states which in the Middle ages profited so much from trade revenues
that they tied their fortunes irrevocably to the ups and downs of trade
fluctuations.
the ability to profit from such an advantage depended, above all, on
a given state’s position on the trade routes, which were more or less
intensively used from one epoch to the next in response to geographic,
economic and political changes in the region and world-wide. the role
of intermediary proved to be unusually profitable, and was reserved to a
lucky few. I will mention only two cases to give an idea of their character-
istic features, though a long series of further examples might be cited.
38 pirenne, Mahomet, pp. 167, 170–173.
39 Ibid., pp. 172–173: “Que ces ressources dépendissent surtout des péages sur la cir-
culation commerciale, c’est ce dont on ne peut douter. La perception en était infiniment
plus facile que celle de l’impôt foncier et ne provoquait guère de résistance. [.. .] pourtant
l’impôt foncier s’est certainement conservé à côté du tonlieu, mais en rapportant de moins
en moins.”