Introduction
In 1921, the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne postulated a theory concerning the emergence of towns and trade during the medieval period. Known as Pirenne's Thesis, it challenged the prevailing notion of previous historians such as Petrarch, Niccolo Machiavelli, Edward Gibbon, and others who believed that Germanic influences ended medieval urbanization and subsequently terminated any significant trade between areas of development circa 476 A.D. Instead, Pirenne argued that Muslim forces precipitated the decline of the medieval city in the seventh century. …
