A CHANGED WORLDsecondary centres including Jerusalem, Amman, Resafa, Tiberias, Jerash
and Scythopolis.^56
Change and continuity in the eastIt is certainly true that the emphasis on late antique continuity into the Islamic
period in recent scholarship, with the ‘break’ usually seen as coinciding with
the end of the Umayyads and removal of the capital to Baghdad in the eighth
century, depends heavily on a concentration by late antique scholars on the
eastern Mediterranean. Here too, however, deep changes came as a result of
the Arab conquests, even if the conquests themselves left less trace on the
archaeological record than previously assumed. The conquests also brought
very serious consequences for the Byzantine state, and while Constantinople
managed to escape being taken by the Avars and Persians and by the Arabs,
it was dramatically diminished as a city by the eighth century. Even before
that, the late seventh-century government went through very difficult times.
Neither cultural nor economic explanations are in themselves sufficient to
explain the changes that were taking place in the period; we must also bring
in political and military factors, even while recognizing that the sixth to eighth
centuries were a time of intense intellectual and religious ferment. I have ear-
lier referred to this process as a ‘redefinition of knowledge’,^57 and indeed such
was the acknowledged or unacknowledged goal of many Christian contem-
poraries. However, it is worth remembering that the need for such a redefi-
nition arose from a situation of change, conflict and uncertainty in all parts
of the Mediterranean world. Reactions were very diverse. One recent con-
tribution refers to the sixth and seventh centuries as having ‘witnessed the
most protracted, detailed and fiercely contested debate on personhood and
anthropology in human history – certainly in the history of the ancient world –
as Christian, Jewish and ultimately Muslim monotheisms fought to define the
various “orthodox” versions of their beliefs about God, man and the uni-
verse.’^58 The only way that the general history of this extraordinarily crucial
period can truly be approached – including the issue of the ‘end of antiquity’ –
is by rejecting an insistence on one factor over the others (economic over
cultural history, for instance) and attempting instead to bring these different
approaches together. That said, while this chapter has indeed been largely
about the east, the Conclusion will address some of the wider (and contested)
issues about the Mediterranean world in late antiquity.