Studying people on the move in the early medieval Mediterranean has suggested certain patterns and even quantities of movement. In western Europe, communications seem to have been stirring a new after the long contraction that had culminated in the aftermath of the Justinianic plagues. That those movements concern 669 individuals and can be followed across source materials which are more or less independent strengthens the cumulative power of their testimony. But the method is novel, and the results may appear surprising.

The movement of things will add further, independent layers of evidence to the movement of people. A few of the relatively small number of objects that survive from the early Middle Ages have already been studied for the light they shed on patterns of movement and, it has been thought, patterns of trade. The most justifiably celebrated is the transition from papyrus to parchment in the Merovingian royal writing office (Ch. 3.1). Like some others, this one rewards further scrutiny (Ch. 24.2), particularly if we go beyond observing presence or absence to question the shifting cultural meaning of exotic objects, as well as the transport system which delivered it. Others still are pretty much neglected. Such survivors from the shipwreck of time testify to further series of long-distance movements in this era reputed so poor in source material. In circumstances of preservation, moreover, their testimony owes nothing to the evidence on the movements of people.