of the west, 518-568 -- Constantinople, Persia and the Arabs -- Decadent and do-nothing kings -- The re-creating of Britain -- The Lombard achievement, c. 540-712 -- The sundering of East and West -- Monks and missionaries -- Towards a new western Empire, 714-800 -- The new Constantine -- Frontier societies: Christian Spain, 711-1037 -- 'The dissension of kings' -- 'The desolation of the pagans' -- The Ottonian Age.

"This new edition of Roger Collins's classic textbook history of early medieval Europe is fully updated and revised to take account of the latest scholarship. The author provides a synoptic, yet detailed, account of the centuries during which Europe changed from being an abstract geographical expression into a new, culturally coherent, if politically divided, entity. It examines how the social, economic and cultural structures of Antiquity were replaced by their medieval equivalents, and it also seeks to define the European context by looking at those external forces - such as the nomadic confederacies of Central Asia and the Islamic empire of the Arabs - which helped to shape it through conflict."--Jacket.