The Wiles Lectures 2021 were given by Professor Chris Wickham, on the topic:

'Rethinking the Commercial Revolution of the 11th and 12th-Century Mediterranean'

The lectures were given on 27-30 October 2021

The idea that there was a revolution in commerce in the central middle ages has been around for over a century, and it has been associated with the trading activities of ships from the major Italian ports since at least the 1950s. These lectures will question that. Italian ships were, beyond doubt, more active in the Mediterranean after 1100 than they ever had been before. But economic development around the sea was not led by sea traffic; rather, it was led by growth in economic complexity inside the regions around the sea. These lectures will look at, in turn, new work on Egypt, Byzantium, Islamic Spain, Sicily and northern Italy, to see how economic development worked in each, and how far it linked to the changing activities of merchants on the sea.  

Chris Wickham is Chichele Professor of Medieval History (Emeritus) at the University of Oxford and a fellow of All Souls' College. He has worked on a range of topics in medieval history: detailed rural/regional analyses in an Annales tradition, and also urban histories, of Italy up to the early thirteenth century; comparative history, of socio-economic and socio-political patterns, particularly in late Antiquity and the early middle ages, but later on as well; socio-legal history; the study of social memory in Europe and more widely; and the interface between history and archaeology. His current research focusses on the Mediterranean in a long eleventh century and the development of exchange/commercial patterns in that period, from Spain to Egypt.

 

Lecture 1	Grand narratives and Egyptian realities	Wed. 27 Oct. 5pm. Emeleus Lecture Theatre (Lanyon Building)
Lecture 2	The central and the tangential: Islamic/Norman Sicily and Islamic Spain	Thurs. 28 Oct. 5pm. Emeleus Lecture Theatre (Lanyon Building)
Lecture 3	The paradox of northern Italy	Fri. 29 Oct. 5pm. Emeleus Lecture Theatre (Lanyon Building)
Lecture 4	The underpinnings of Mediterranean trade, 1000-1200	Sat. 30 Oct. 11am. Emeleus Lecture Theatre (Lanyon Building)