An emporium (plural: emporia) was one of the trading settlements that emerged in

Northwestern Europe Northwestern Europe, or Northwest Europe, is a loosely defined subregion of Europe, overlapping Northern and Western Europe. The region can be defined both geographically and ethnographically. Geographic definitions Geographically, North ...

in the 6th to the 7th centuries and persisted into the 9th century. Also known in English as wics, they were characterised by their peripheral locations, usually on the shore at the edge of a kingdom, their lack of infrastructure (containing no churches) and their short-lived nature. By 1000, the emporia had been replaced by the revival of European towns. Examples include Dorestad,

Quentovic Quentovic was a Frankish emporium in the Early Middle Ages that was located on the European continent close to the English Channel. The town no longer exists, but it was thought to have been situated near the mouth of the Canche River in what i ...

, Gipeswic, Hamwic, and Lundenwic (for which see

Anglo-Saxon London The history of Anglo-Saxon London relates to the history of the city of London during the Anglo-Saxon period, in the 7th to 11th centuries. Romano-British ''Londinium'' had been abandoned in the late 5th century, although the London Wall rem ...

) at the North Sea, as well as

Haithabu Hedeby (, Old Norse ''Heiðabýr'', German ''Haithabu'') was an important Danish Viking Age (8th to the 11th centuries) trading settlement near the southern end of the Jutland Peninsula, now in the Schleswig-Flensburg district of Schleswig-Hols ...

Jumne Wolin ( Polish pronouciation: ; formerly german: Wollin) is a town in northwestern Poland, situated on the southern tip of the Wolin island off the Baltic coast of the historic region of Western Pomerania. The island lies at the edge of the strait ...

and

Truso Truso was a Viking Age port of trade (emporium) set up by the Scandinavians at the banks of the Nogat delta branch of the Vistula River, close to a bay (the modern Drużno lake), where it emptied into the shallow and brackish Vistula Lagoon. This ...

on the Baltic Sea. Their role in the economic history of

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

remains debated. Their most famous exponent has been the British archaeologist Richard Hodges.

References

* Anderton (Mike) (ed.). Anglo-Saxon Trading Centres: Beyond the Emporia. Cruithne Press. Glasgow. 1999. * Crabtree (Pamela J.) (ed.). Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. New York. 2013. 448p. * Hill (D.), Cowie (R.) (eds.). Wics: The Early Medieval Trading Centres of Northern Europe. Sheffield. 2001 * Hodges (Richard). 'Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne'. 2001. * Hodges (Richard). Dark Age Economics, Origins of Towns and Trade AD 600–1000. Duckworth. London. 1989. 230p. * Loveluck (Christopher). Northwest Europe in the Early Middle Ages, c. AD 600–1150: A Comparative Archeology. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 2013. 488p. * Loveluck (Christopher). Rural settlement, lifestyles and social change in the later first millennium AD: Anglo–Saxon in its wider context. Excavations at Flixborough Volume 4. Oxbow Books. Oxford. 2007. 194p. * Sherman (Heidi Michelle). Barbarians Come to Market: The Emporia of Western Eurasia from 500 BC to AD 1000 (PhD Dissertation). ProQuest. Ann Arbor. 2008. 369p. * Valante (Mary A.). Vikings in Ireland, Settlement, Trade and Urbanisation. Four Courts Press. Dublin. 2008. 216p. * Verhulst (Adriaan E.). 'Emporium', in ''Lexikon des Mittelalters'', III, München - Stuttgart, 9771999, klm. 1897–1898. (online bekeken) * Verhulst (Adriaan E.). The Rise of Cities in North–West Europe. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 1999. 174p. Medieval society Early Middle Ages {{middleages-stub

See also

References