This is an illustrated study of towns and trade in the age of Charlemagne, in the Debates in Archaeology series, which analyses urban continuity and discontinuity in Europe during the Dark Ages. It examines the important continuing discussion of the rebirth of urbanism in Carolingian Europe. Drawing upon new archaeological evidence from southern and northern Europe, Richard Hodges looks at the end of towns in Roman antiquity, the phenomenon of the Dark Age emporium, and the hotly disputed mechanisms which led to the inception of market towns during the age of Charlemagne. He focusses particularly on recently excavated evidence from the Mediterranean, as well as from England.

Richard Hodges, OBE, is Professor and Director of the Institute of World Archaeology, University of East Anglia, UK, and Director of the Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, USA. He is the editor of the Debates in Archaeology series; and his publications include Dark Age Economics, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne, Goodbye to the Vikings and (as co-author) Villa to Village, all published by Bloomsbury.