Lack of technological progress in late Roman Empire

[Carlton Bach]

I've recently began reading about the medeival economy, and I can hardly believe what I am reading. Trade had almost completely collapsed, and almost the entire population of Europe lived on self sufficient farms.

I do agree with the disaster theory of the Dark Ages, but there is a problem with this particular perspective, and it lies in the definition of 'Europe'. When we speak of Roman 'Europe', we think above all of Italy, of Greece and Illyricum, Spain, but still mostly of Gaul, a small chunk of Germany and England. For kost of Roman Europe, a monetised, urbanised culture prevailed, though many in it also lived on self-sufficient farms. Early Medieval europe, to our minds, is primarily England, France, Germany, also Scandinavia, Poland, Bohemia and, as a kind of advanced periphery, Italy. The overlap with 'Roman' Europe is slight, and it comprises mostly those areas where the catastrophe had been at its worst - Britain, Germany, Gaul. Italy, Spain, even Southern France retained much more of Roman civilisation, not to mention Byzantine Greece and Illyricum, but these areas lie outside our focus, while the still primitive Northern and Eastern European territories now come into focus. That creates a much greater sense of discontinuity, In fact, if you compare finds from the same areass, you get a much better idea of how different areas were affected. I wonder how that works out in different places - Italy had a fairly bad time, and Gaul was awful, but when I checked the finds from Feddersen Wierde (Germanic, 1-3c AD) and Elisenhof (6-9 c AD) in North Germany, I got a sense of technological progress and rising wealth. Nonetheless, the conventional view compares Roman Capua or Pompeii not with Aghlabid Palermo or Byzantine Salerno, but with Saxon Elisenhof. And yes, that looks pretty awful.