Europe in the High Middle Ages

Description

“The 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. 

In 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 night of the 1300s. From high to low, from dramatic events to social structures, Jordan’s account brings to life this fascinating age. Part of the Penguin History of Europe series, edited by David Cannadine.Europe in the High Middle AgesList of Illustrations
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Notes on Names
Prologue

Part I: Europe in the Eleventh Century
1. Christendom in the Year 1000
2. Mediterranean Europe
3. Northmen, Celts and Anglo-Saxons
4. Francia/France
5. Central Europe

Part II: The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century
6. The Investiture Controversy
7. The First Crusade
8. The World of Learning
9. Cultural Innovations of the Twelfth Century: Vernacular Literature and Architecture
10. Political Power and Its Contexts I
11. Political Power and Its Contexts II

Part III: The Thirteenth Century
12. Social Structures
13. The Pontificate of Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran Council
14. Learning
15. The Kingdoms of the North
16. Baltic and Central Europe
17. The Gothic World
18. Southern Europe

Part IV: Christendom in the Early Fourteenth Century
19. Famine and Plague
20. Political and Social Violence
21. The Church in Crisis

Epilogue
Appendix: Genealogical Tables
References
Suggested Reading
Index

William Chester Jordan is Professor of History at Princeton University and the author of The Great Famine.GB

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