Rethinking the Structure of the Early Medieval Economy
Chris Wickham
The early medieval economy tends to be studied in two ways. first, which one 
could call the “production model”, focuses on organisation of agriculture, 
including intensity exploitation dependent peasants. second, 
the “distribution exchange, particularly study 
best-documented goods imported into any given region, and routes 
merchants. These are long-established interpretative traditions, 
latter case has been further impetus recent decades by archaeological 
discoveries. They have curiously little structural linkage, however. It is not that 
they none; Adriaan Verhulst’s last book, his excellent overview current 
approaches Carolingian economy, certainly discusses both. But how they 
link together properly theorised, even Verhulst.1