Milton V. Anastos
Constantinople and Rome
A Survey of the Relations between the Byzantine and the Roman Churches.
M. Anastos, Aspects of the Mind of Byzantium (Political Theory, Theology, and Ecclesiastical Relations with the See of Rome), Ashgate Publications, Variorum Collected Studies Series, 2001. ISBN: 0 86078 840 7.
15. Relevance of the Arab conquests
But the breach, when it occurred, came about as a result of the developments outlined above or to be discussed below, not on account of an alleged interruption of communication between East and West brought about by Arab control of the Mediterranean.(144) It was once believed, and vigorously argued by Pirenne, that the Arab invasions of the seventh century, which severed Syria, Palestine, and North Africa (including Egypt) from the Byzantine Empire, not only cut off Western Europe from commercial and cultural contact with the Greeks but also were responsible, among other things, for the rise of feudalism in the West and the estrangement of Rome from Constantinople. As time goes on, however, it becomes increasingly apparent that this thesis is untenable and should be abandoned. Trade, as well as missions of all kinds, diplomatic and ecclesiastical, continued to move from the Greeks to the Latins, and the phaenomena Pirenne sought to explain by his famous thesis can be accounted for more satisfactorily in other ways.
NOTES
144. - Henri Pirenne, Mahomet et Charlemagne (Paris-Brussels, 1937); Congar, Nine hundred years after (cited in note 1 above), 19 ff, 107; Α. F Havighurst, The Pirenne thesis: Analysis, criticism, and revision (Boston, 1958); François L. Ganshof "Quelques aspects principaux de la vie économique dans la monarchie franque au VIIe siècle," Settimane di studio, 5, 1 (1958), 93; ibid., 5, 2 (1958), 79Ι ff.; Ρaul Lemerle, "Les repercussions de la crise de l'empire d'Orient au VIIe siècle sur les pays d'Occident," ibid, 5, 2, 713-31; Α. Riising, "The fate of Henri Pirenne's theses on the consequences of Islamic expansion," CIMed, 13 (1952), 87-130; D. C. Dennelt, "Pirenne and Muhammad," Speculum, 23 (1948), 165-90; Dölger, "Europas Gestaltung," 359 ff.; R. S. Lopez, "Mohammed and Charlemagne: Α revision," Speculum, 18 (1943), 14-38; L. Lambrecht, "Les thèses de Henri Pirenne," Βyzantion, 14 (1939), 513-36; Η. Laurent, "Les traveaux de Μ. Η. Pirenne," ibid., 7 (1932), 495-509; Εva Patzelt, Die frankische Kultur und der Islam (Veröffentlichungen des Seminars für Wirtschafts und Kulturgeschichte, 4 [Vienna, 1932]).
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