9 Quotes by Henri Pirenne

L'Islam a rompu l'unité méditerranéenne que les invasions germaniques avaient laissé subsister.C'est là le fait le plus essentiel qui se soit passé dans l'histoire européenne depuis les guerres puniques. C'est la fin de la tradition antique. C'est le commencement du Moyen  Age, au moment même où l'Europe était en voie de se byzantiniser.

The cause of the break with the tradition of antiquity was the rapid and unexpected advance of Islam. The result of this advance was the final separation of East from West, and the end of the Mediterranean unity.

The Germanic invasions destroyed neither the Mediterranean unity of the ancient world, nor what may be regarded as the truly essential features of the Roman culture as it still existed in the 5th century, at a time when there was no longer an Emperor in the West.

The Germanic invasions in the West could not and did not in any way alter this state of affairs.

The Western Mediterranean, having become a Musulman lake, was no longer the thoroughfare of commerce and of thought which it had always been.

There happened in the Middle Ages what has happened so often since then. Those who were the beneficiaries of the established order were bent on defending it, not so much, perhaps, because it guaranteed their interests, as because it seemed to them indispensable to the preservation of society.

If I were an antiquarian, I would have eyes only for old stuff, but I am a historian. Therefore, I love life.

The economic basis of the State did not correspond with the administrative character which Charlemagne had endeavoured to preserve. The economy of the State was based upon the great domain without commercial outlets. The landowners had no need of security, since they did not engage in commerce. Such a form of property is perfectly consistent with anarchy. Those who owned the soil had no need of the king.

One thing is certain – that there was an active circulation of money. We must repudiate the idea that the people of the Merovingian epoch lived under a system of natural economy.