Project information
Connected Communities in early medieval Europe (COCO)

The traditional picture is that, after the collapse of the Roman state in western Europe, a united and interconnected Europe disintegrated into a fragmented continent divided into a series of ethnic kingdoms. This image was created by the writers of the Late Roman Empire and the early Middle Ages. Their gloomy perspective still determines much of what is thought about this post-Roman ‘migration period’. Yet these writers belonged to what we would call today the top one percent of the population, writing in the interests of this one percent. There is another early medieval Europe too: that of the ninety-nine percent. It is present but neglected, although clearly visible in the archaeological record. These early medieval Europeans are seen in their burials, of which huge numbers have been excavated across the continent. The staggering number of objects recovered from the graves show a highly connected world; we suggest that any rural dweller was never more than five or six handshakes removed from any other. The early medieval world must have been a period of creativity, connectivity, innovation and mobility. This project will make visible how these connections were created and maintained, and will analyse them to create a new image of early medieval Europe. The essence of this project proposal is to analyse what was shared in early medieval Europe rather than what separated. We boldly suggest that these connections were as crucial to the post-Roman development of Europe as the heroic deeds of kings, aristocrats, bishops and saints as recorded in the written sources. We will analyse specific material categories and their distribution over Europe, using intensive scientific analyses to establish their origins and modes of circulation. We will investigate how and why ideas, such as modes of care for the dead, came to be shared across Europe, and the ways that different kinds of ‘meeting places’ facilitated the exchange of objects and ideas.