2 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Chris Wickham's 2009 survey of Europe from 400 to 1000 AD — the Penguin History of Europe volume covering the Early Middle Ages — arguing that the collapse of the Roman state was the central event of early medieval history and tracing how different societies responded to it.
Peter Brown's 1971 landmark study that established 'Late Antiquity' as a distinct historical period — arguing against Gibbon that the transformation from Rome to medieval Europe was a creative cultural achievement rather than simply a decline — focusing on the rise of Christianity, Neoplatonism, and new forms of holy man and religious authority.