Handelsgut, Geschenke, Subsidien. Zu den Vermittlungsfaktoren ostmediterraner und orientalischer Objekte im Merowingerreich

Abstract

Long distant contacts of the early Middle Ages, which can be identifi ed well  according to certain imports, are usually seen as an expression of an in most  cases unspecifi ed trade. The fi nds analysed within the following contribution,  whose origin can be located between South Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean  and which came to the Merovingian Empire via Italy and the coast in southern  Gaul, represent a variety of objects and materials. For their transport different  mechanisms of distribution must be taken into account. After presenting the  respective objects, their provenance and their regional distribution as well as  alternative explanations for their transport into the Frankish Kingdom, the  processes of exchange which took place in the early Middle Ages shall be  conceptualised and differentiated more exactly with the help of a model deriving  from economic anthropology. The aim is to obtain an overall picture that could  satisfy the presumable complex system of distribution of this time period.