Europe in the High Middle Ages

Author: William Chester Jordan
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0140166645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
With a lucid and clear narrative style William Chester Jordan has turned his considerable talents to composing a standard textbook of the opening centuries of the second millennium in Europe. He brings this period of dramatic social, political, economic, cultural, religious and military change, alive to the general reader. Jordan presents the early Medieval period as a lost world, far removed from our current age, which had risen from the smoking rubble of the Roman Empire, but from which we are cut off by the great plagues and famines that ended it. Broad in scope, punctuated with impressive detail, and highly accessible, Jordan's book is set to occupy a central place in university courses of the medieval period.

Central Europe in the High Middle Ages

Author: Nora Berend
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521781566
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 549

Book Description
A groundbreaking comparative history of the formation of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland, from their origins in the eleventh century.

The Penguin History of Europe

Author: J. Roberts
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141925094
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 752

Book Description
Comprehensive in its scope and brilliantly readable, this is a superb follow-up to the author's bestselling Penguin History of the World. Beginning with prehistory and the early civilizations of the Aegean, The Penguin History of Europe traces the development of European identity in its many guises, through the age of Christendom, the Middle Ages, early Modern history and the old European order.

Framing the Early Middle Ages

Author: Chris Wickham
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019162263X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1019

Book Description
The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country. In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham combines documentary and archaeological evidence to create a comparative history of the period 400-800. His analysis embraces each of the regions of the late Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt. The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These give only a partial picture of the period, but they frame and explain other developments. Earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions. This book takes all different developments as typical, and aims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it.

The Central Middle Ages

Author: Daniel Power
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199253110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Daniel Power traces the history of Europe in the central Middle Ages (950-1320), an age of far-reaching change for the continent. Seven contributors consider the history of this period from a variety of perspectives, including political, social, economic, religious and intellectual history.

Medieval Europe

Author: Chris Wickham
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300222211
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 495

Book Description
A spirited history of the changes that transformed Europe during the 1,000-year span of the Middle Ages: “A dazzling race through a complex millennium.”—Publishers Weekly The millennium between the breakup of the western Roman Empire and the Reformation was a long and hugely transformative period—one not easily chronicled within the scope of a few hundred pages. Yet distinguished historian Chris Wickham has taken up the challenge in this landmark book, and he succeeds in producing the most riveting account of medieval Europe in a generation. Tracking the entire sweep of the Middle Ages across Europe, Wickham focuses on important changes century by century, including such pivotal crises and moments as the fall of the western Roman Empire, Charlemagne’s reforms, the feudal revolution, the challenge of heresy, the destruction of the Byzantine Empire, the rebuilding of late medieval states, and the appalling devastation of the Black Death. He provides illuminating vignettes that underscore how shifting social, economic, and political circumstances affected individual lives and international events—and offers both a new conception of Europe’s medieval period and a provocative revision of exactly how and why the Middle Ages matter. “Far-ranging, fluent, and thoughtful—of considerable interest to students of history writ large, and not just of Europe.”—Kirkus Reviews, (starred review) Includes maps and illustrations

Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250

Author: Florin Curta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521815398
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
This book is an authoritative survey of the history of southeastern Europe from 500 to 1250.

Northwest Europe in the Early Middle Ages, c.AD 600–1150

Author: Christopher Loveluck
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110747082X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 490

Book Description
Christopher Loveluck's study explores the transformation of Northwest Europe (primarily Britain, France and Belgium) from the era of the first post-Roman 'European Union' under the Carolingian Frankish kings to the so-called 'feudal' age, between c.AD 600 and 1150. During these centuries radical changes occurred in the organisation of the rural world. Towns and complex communities of artisans and merchant-traders emerged and networks of contact between northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle and Far East were redefined, with long-lasting consequences into the present day. Loveluck provides the most comprehensive comparative analysis of the rural and urban archaeological remains in this area for twenty-five years. Supported by evidence from architecture, relics, manuscript illuminations and texts, this book explains how the power and intentions of elites were confronted by the aspirations and actions of the diverse rural peasantry, artisans and merchants, producing both intended and unforeseen social changes.

Knighthood and Society in the High Middle Ages

Author: David Crouch
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9462701709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
In popular imagination few phenomena are as strongly associated with medieval society as knighthood and chivalry. At the same time, and due to a long tradition of differing national perspectives and ideological assumptions, few phenomena have continued to be the object of so much academic debate. In this volume leading scholars explore various aspects of knightly identity, taking into account both commonalities and particularities across Western Europe. Knighthood and Society in the High Middle Ages addresses how, between the eleventh and the early thirteenth centuries, knighthood evolved from a set of skills and a lifestyle that was typical of an emerging elite habitus, into the basis of a consciously expressed and idealised chivalric code of conduct. Chivalry, then, appears in this volume as the result of a process of noble identity formation, in which some five key factors are distinguished: knightly practices, lineage, crusading memories, gender roles, and chivalric didactics.

Disability in Medieval Europe

Author: Irina Metzler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134217382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 535

Book Description
This impressive volume presents a thorough examination of all aspects of physical impairment and disability in medieval Europe. Examining a popular era that is of great interest to many historians and researchers, Irene Metzler presents a theoretical framework of disability and explores key areas such as: medieval theoretical concepts theology and natural philosophy notions of the physical body medical theory and practice. Bringing into play the modern day implications of medieval thought on the issue, this is a fascinating and informative addition to the research studies of medieval history, history of medicine and disability studies scholars the English-speaking world over.