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

Sexuality in Medieval Europe

Author: Ruth Mazo Karras
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000859274
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Now in its fourth edition, Sexuality in Medieval Europe provides a lively account of a society whose attitudes toward sexuality both were ancestral to, and differed from, contemporary ones. The volume is structured not by types of sexual interactions or deviance, but to reflect the difference in gendered experiences when sex is seen as an act one person does to another. Sexual activity, within and outside of marriage, as well as sexual inactivity, had different meanings based on gender, social status, religious affiliation, and more. This book considers these iterations of medieval sexuality in its effort to show there was no single medieval attitude towards sexuality. With an emphasis on Christian Western Europe over the entire course of the Middle Ages, it also includes comparative material on neighboring cultures at the time. Alongside being reworked for further clarity and readability, the fourth edition offers substantial new material on trans scholarship and methodological attempts to recoup a trans past; changes in the treatment of sex work and its terminology; and new material on Byzantine and Muslim culture. Sexuality in Medieval Europe is an essential resource for all those who study medieval history, medieval culture, and the history of sexuality in Europe.

A History of Medieval Europe

Author: R.H.C. Davis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317867890
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Book Description
R.C. Davis provided the classic account of the European medieval world; equipping generations of undergraduate and ‘A’ level students with sufficient grasp of the period to debate diverse historical perspectives and reputations. His book has been important grounding for both modernists required to take a course in medieval history, and those who seek to specialise in the medieval period. In updating this classic work to a third edition, the additional author now enables students to see history in action; the diverse viewpoints and important research that has been undertaken since Davis’ second edition, and progressed historical understanding. Each of Davis original chapters now concludes with a ‘new directions and developments’ section by Professor RI Moore, Emeritus of Newcastle University. A key work updated in a method that both enhances subject understanding and sets important research in its wider context. A vital resource, now up-to-date for generations of historians to come.

Books of Knowledge in Late Medieval Europe

Author: Pavlina Cermanova
Publisher:
ISBN: 9782503594637
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
This book provides a series of studies concerning unique medieval texts that can be defined as 'books of knowledge', such as medieval chronicles, bestiaries, or catechetic handbooks. Thus far, scholarship of intellectual history has focused on concepts of knowledge to describe a specific community, or to delimit intellectuals in society. However, the specific textual tool for the transmission of knowledge has been missing. Besides oral tradition, books and other written texts were the only sources of knowledge, and they were thus invaluable in efforts to receive or transfer knowledge. That is one reason why texts that proclaim to introduce a specific field of expertise or promise to present a summary of wisdom were so popular. These texts discussed cosmology, theology, philosophy, the natural sciences, history, and other fields. They often did so in an accessible way to maintain the potential to also attract a non-specialised public. The basic form was usually a narrative, chronologically or thematically structured, and clearly ordered to appeal to readers. Books of this kind could be disseminated in dozens or even hundreds of copies, and were often available (by translation or adaptation) in various languages, including the vernacular. In exploring these widely-disseminated and highly popular texts that offered a precise segment of knowledge that could be accessed by readers outside the intellectual and social elite, this volume intends to introduce books of knowledge as a new category within the study of medieval literacy.

Settlement Change Across Medieval Europe

Author: Niall Brady
Publisher: Ruralia
ISBN: 9789088908064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Book Description
Innovations, transmissions and transformations had profound spatial, economic and social impacts on the environments, landscapes and habitats evident at micro- and macro-levels. This volume explores how these changes affected how land was worked, how it was organized, and the nature of buildings and rural complexes.

The Middle Ages

Author: Jeffrey L. Singman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781454909057
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
We consider the Middle Ages barbaric, yet the period furnished some of our most enduring icons, including King Arthur's Round Table, knights in shining armor, and the idealized noblewoman. In this vivid history of the time, the medieval world comes to life in all its rich daily experience. Find out what people's beds were like, how often they washed, what they wore, what they cooked, how they worked, how they entertained themselves, how they wed, and what life was like in a medieval village, castle, or monastery. Contemporary artworks and documents further illuminate this fascinating historical era.

Life in a Medieval City

Author: Frances Gies
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062016679
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Book Description
From acclaimed historians Frances and Joseph Gies comes the reissue of their classic book on day-to-day life in medieval cities, which was a source for George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series. Evoking every aspect of city life in the Middle Ages, Life in a Medieval City depicts in detail what it was like to live in a prosperous city of Northwest Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The year is 1250 CE and the city is Troyes, capital of the county of Champagne and site of two of the cycle Champagne Fairs—the “Hot Fair” in August and the “Cold Fair” in December. European civilization has emerged from the Dark Ages and is in the midst of a commercial revolution. Merchants and money men from all over Europe gather at Troyes to buy, sell, borrow, and lend, creating a bustling market center typical of the feudal era. As the Gieses take us through the day-to-day life of burghers, we learn the customs and habits of lords and serfs, how financial transactions were conducted, how medieval cities were governed, and what life was really like for a wide range of people. For serious students of the medieval era and anyone wishing to learn more about this fascinating period, Life in a Medieval City remains a timeless work of popular medieval scholarship.

Women, Family, and Society in Medieval Europe

Author: David Herlihy
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571810243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Book Description
Until his untimely death in 1991, David Herlihy, Professor of History at Brown University, was one of the most prolific and best-known American historians of the European Middle Ages. Author of books on the history of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, Herlihy published, in 1978, his best-known work in collaboration with Christine Klapisch-Zuber, Les Toscans et leurs familles (Translated into English in 1985, and Italian in 1988). For the last dozen or so years of his life, Herlihy launched a series of ambitious projects, on the history ofwomen and the family, and on the collective behavior of social groups in medieval Europe. While he completed two important books - on the family (1985) and on women's work (1991) - he did not find the time to bring these other major projects to a conclusion. This volume contains essays he wrote after 1978. They convey a sense of the enormous intellectual energy and great erudition that characterized David Herlihy's scholarly career. They also chart a remarkable historian's intellectual trajectory, as he searched for new and better ways of asking a set of simple and basic questions about the history of the family, the institution within which the vast majority of Europeans spent so much of their lives. Because of his qualities as a scholar and a teacher, during his relatively brief career Herlihy was honored with Presidencies of the four major scholarly associations with which he was affiliated: the Catholic Historical Association, the Medieval Academy of America, the Renaissance Society of America,and the American Historical Association.

Life in Medieval Europe

Author: Danièle Cybulskie
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526733463
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
“A lovely, witty treasure trove of a book, spilling over with historical gems . . . a very human history: sometimes weird, always wonderful.” —Dan Jones, New York Times-bestselling author Have you ever found yourself watching a show or reading a novel and wondering what life was really like in the Middle Ages? What did people actually eat? Were they really filthy? And did they ever get to marry for love? In Life in Medieval Europe: Fact and Fiction, you’ll find fast and fun answers to all your secret questions, from eating and drinking to sex and love. Find out whether people bathed, what they did when they got sick, and what actually happened to people accused of crimes. Learn about medieval table manners, tournaments, and toothpaste, and find out if people really did poop in the moat. “To say that this book was fun to read would be an understatement. Cybulskie’s knowledge radiates in every page of this short book . . . It was educational and entertaining all at the same time. Simply a wonderful resource for novice medievalists and writers of historical fiction and nonfiction alike.” —Adventures of a Tudor Nerd “All in all, this is an excellent book to put to bed many of the myths surrounding medieval existence that persist in the popular imagination. Easy to read and well worth the time to read it. I highly recommend this book if you want to get a mostly unbiased view of medieval life.” —Battles and Book Reviews

The Bright Ages

Author: Matthew Gabriele
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062980912
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
"The beauty and levity that Perry and Gabriele have captured in this book are what I think will help it to become a standard text for general audiences for years to come….The Bright Ages is a rare thing—a nuanced historical work that almost anyone can enjoy reading.”—Slate "Incandescent and ultimately intoxicating." —The Boston Globe A lively and magisterial popular history that refutes common misperceptions of the European Middle Ages, showing the beauty and communion that flourished alongside the dark brutality—a brilliant reflection of humanity itself. The word “medieval” conjures images of the “Dark Ages”—centuries of ignorance, superstition, stasis, savagery, and poor hygiene. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. The Bright Ages takes us through ten centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them. We look with fresh eyes on the Fall of Rome, Charlemagne, the Vikings, the Crusades, and the Black Death, but also to the multi-religious experience of Iberia, the rise of Byzantium, and the genius of Hildegard and the power of queens. We begin under a blanket of golden stars constructed by an empress with Germanic, Roman, Spanish, Byzantine, and Christian bloodlines and end nearly 1,000 years later with the poet Dante—inspired by that same twinkling celestial canopy—writing an epic saga of heaven and hell that endures as a masterpiece of literature today. The Bright Ages reminds us just how permeable our manmade borders have always been and of what possible worlds the past has always made available to us. The Middle Ages may have been a world “lit only by fire” but it was one whose torches illuminated the magnificent rose windows of cathedrals, even as they stoked the pyres of accused heretics. The Bright Ages contains an 8-page color insert.