Description
Book SynopsisThe Penguin History of Europe series... is one of contemporary publishing's great projects.--New Statesman It was an age of hope and possibility, of accomplishment and expansion. Europe's High Middle Ages spanned the Crusades, the building of Chartres Cathedral, Dante's Inferno, and Thomas Aquinas. Buoyant, confident, creative, the era seemed to be flowering into a true renaissance-until the disastrous fourteenth century rained catastrophe in the form of plagues, famine, and war.
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Europe in the High Middle Ages, William Chester Jordan paints a vivid, teeming landscape that captures this lost age in all its glory and complexity. Here are the great popes who revived the power of the Church against the secular princes; the writers and thinkers who paved the way for the Renaissance; the warriors who stemmed the Islamic tide in Spain and surged into Palestine; and the humbler estates, those who found new hope and prosperity until the long ni
Trade ReviewThe Penguin History of Europe series ... is one of contemporary publishing's great projects New Statesman With five volumes now out, the Penguin History of Europe series ... is shaping up to be the best general account available, superseding all previous ones Economist
Table of ContentsPart I Europe in the 11th century: Christendom in the year 1000; Mediterranean Europe; Northmen, Celts and Anglo-Saxons; Francia/France; central Europe. Part II The Renaissance of the 12th century: the investiture controversy; the first crusade; the world of learning; cultural innovations of the 12th century - vernacular literature and architecture; political power and its contexts I; political power and its contexts II. Part III The 13th century: social structures; the Pontificate of Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran Council; learning; the kingdoms of the north; Baltic and central Europe; the Gothic world; southern Europe. Part IV Christendom in the early 14th century: famine and plague; political and social violence; the church in crisis.
