Feudal estates, monasteries, castles and fortresses dominated the European landscape, but none of these could be labeled as towns or cities.
He believed that at this point in time the only European settlements not purely agricultural were those of the ruling noble classes or those of the Church. Pirenne maintained that between the ninth and tenth centuries, the only real trade occurring in Europe was at a local level, long distance commerce having all but disappeared as a result of Muslim domination in the Mediterranean. In a series of lectures presented during the early 20 th century, Belgian historian Henri Pirenneput forth his understanding of the development of cities in Medieval Europe, an understanding based upon the decline and subsequent rise of commercial activity.
