Europe In The High Middle Ages: The Penguin History Of Europe

Description

The Penguin History of Europe Ser. No. III.
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.

Author description

William Chester Jordan, Professor of History at Princeton University and the author of THE GREAT FAMINE.

Table of contents

Part 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.