Riflessioni sulle economie dei secoli X e XI: Palermo e Roma a confronto

In this essay, the economies of Rome and Palermo in the 10th-11th centuries are dealt with using archaeological sources and in a comparative way. These centuries are characterized by important social and economic transformations, which however have often been seen teleologically as the harbingers of the great economic growth of the "long thirteenth century". In the same chronological context, the relations between the Islamic and Christian world and their respective economies have been interpreted above all in terms of holy war or plunder, almost never in terms of possible commercial exchanges or in any case characterized by peaceful and regular relations. In any case, the comparison between the two different socio-economic systems is particularly interesting if we consider that, on the one hand, in many parts of Christian Europe this is the moment in which the great strengthening of local powers begins; on the other hand, that in the Islamic areas of the western Mediterranean this is the phase of the strengthening of state systems, such as those of the Omayyads of al-Andalus and of the Fatimids between Egypt and a part of North Africa. This chronological phase is therefore interesting to look at medieval economies not so much through the contrast between growth or stagnation, but rather to understand the mechanisms of operation and the main driving forces.