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Chapter Eight - Sites of Intersection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2026

Søren Michael Sindbæk
Affiliation:
Aarhus University, Denmark
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Summary

This chapter focuses on the entanglement between people within sites. Analysing evidence for specialized crafts in emporia, it asks why craftspeople went there, and how they contributed to make these places into hubs of particular social networks. It issues from the key observation that crafting activities in emporia were not only dependent on far-flung networks with other locations, but also on entangled webs of people and processes within the immediate community. The need for access to raw materials, opportunities for learning, markets and, perhaps more than anything, the need for collaboration between specialized artisans, was a decisive incentive for strangers to congregate at specific sites. Craft workers in emporia were dependent on these different elements to practise their trade. As a by-product, their work was able to bridge social relationships, which contributed to the social capital of an otherwise inconsistent community. Such interactions thus gave an unprecedented prominence to weak social ties in the intersections of roles and personhood in individuals, and, more broadly, at the level of the assemblage.

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  • Sites of Intersection
  • Søren Michael Sindbæk, Aarhus University, Denmark
  • Book: The Social Networks of Early Medieval Trading Emporia
  • Online publication: 08 August 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009691888.009
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  • Sites of Intersection
  • Søren Michael Sindbæk, Aarhus University, Denmark
  • Book: The Social Networks of Early Medieval Trading Emporia
  • Online publication: 08 August 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009691888.009
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Sites of Intersection
  • Søren Michael Sindbæk, Aarhus University, Denmark
  • Book: The Social Networks of Early Medieval Trading Emporia
  • Online publication: 08 August 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009691888.009
Available formats
×