Emporium (early medieval)

Hedeby reconstructed

An emporium (plural: emporia) was one of the trading settlements that emerged in Northwestern Europe in the 6th to the 7th centuries and persisted into the 9th century. Also known in English as wics , they were characterised by their peripheral locations, usually on the shore at the edge of a kingdom, their lack of infrastructure (containing no churches) and their short-lived nature. By 1000, the emporia had been replaced by the revival of European towns. Examples include Dorestad, Quentovic, Gipeswic, Hamwic, and Lundenwic (for which see Anglo-Saxon London) at the North Sea, as well as Haithabu, Jumne and Truso on the Baltic Sea. Their role in the economic history of Western Europe remains debated^{[ how? ]}. Their most famous exponent has been the British archaeologist Richard Hodges.

See also

• -wich town

References

• Anderton (Mike) (ed.). Anglo-Saxon Trading Centres: Beyond the Emporia. Cruithne Press. Glasgow. 1999.
• Crabtree (Pamela J.) (ed.). Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. New York. 2013. 448p.
• Hill (D.), Cowie (R.) (eds.). Wics: The Early Medieval Trading Centres of Northern Europe. Sheffield. 2001
• Hodges (Richard). Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne. 2001.
• Hodges (Richard). Dark Age Economics, Origins of Towns and Trade AD 600–1000. Duckworth. London. 1989. 230p.
• Loveluck, Christopher (2013). Northwest Europe in the early Middle Ages, c. AD 600-1150: a comparative archaeology. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-1-139-79472-5.
• Loveluck, Christopher (2007). Rural Settlement, Lifestyles and Social Change in the Later First Millennium AD at Flixborough, Lincolnshire. Oxbow Books. ISBN   978-1-84217-256-8.
• Sherman (Heidi Michelle). Barbarians Come to Market: The Emporia of Western Eurasia from 500 BC to AD 1000 (PhD dissertation). ProQuest. Ann Arbor. 2008. 369p.
• Valante (Mary A.). Vikings in Ireland, Settlement, Trade and Urbanisation. Four Courts Press. Dublin. 2008. 216 pp.
• Verhulst (Adriaan E.). "Emporium", in Lexikon des Mittelalters, III, München - Stuttgart, [1977]-1999, klm. 1897–1898. (online bekeken)
• Verhulst (Adriaan E.). The Rise of Cities in North–West Europe. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 1999. 174p.