８・９世紀アフロ西ユーラシア世界におけるカロリング朝フランク王国

Western early medieval history has largely failed to absorb the shift from Eurocentrism to Global History. While economic history has settled on the position that the Frankish Kingdom was at the western margin of an economic world centered in Baghdad, political history has lagged behind and continues to overestimate the importance of Charlemagne and the Frankish Kingdom. There, Charlemagne is praised as a “global player” and the Frankish Kingdom is described as a major force comparable to the Byzantine Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate and the Emirate of Cordoba.
In this article, I trace the history of the Charlemagne aggrandizing narrative, focusing on the exchange of envoys between Charlemagne and Harun al-Rasid. to reconsider the importance of the Frankish Kingdom at its time. My analysis revealed an asymmetry in how they perceived their relationship. While for the Abbasid Caliphate, the exchange of envoys with Franks likely held little significance, the Franks were greatly impressed by the gifts of the Caliph and the relationship mythicized the event in the successive generations. The gap in considerations made clear that the traditional historical picture, which presented Charlemagne and al-Rashid as negotiating on an equal footing, needs to be revised. Finally, I also contended that correcting the traditional Western-centered historical pictures is the responsibility of Early Medievalists who study the Western Europe.