Cast bronze vessels in the 6th-9th centuries. Production centres, circulation and use in ecclesiastical and secular contexts

Abstract

The issues raised by the re-examination of the liturgical set found at Morbello (prov. Alessandria / I) can be better understood in the wider framework of the production and circulation of cast bronze vessels in the early medieval Mediterranean and Central Europe areas. New typological proposals, refined dating and thorough distribution analysis prove suitable research tools to provide a renewed survey on early medieval trade among different Western territories: here, new production centres seem to have emerged, while the extent of the contacts with the Eastern Mediterranean appears weaker than traditionally assumed. These results mirror the major economic and political transformations underwent by Western Europe and the Mediterranean basin throughout the 7th and 8th centuries, according to a trend also attested by other categories of archaeological finds.