Medieval Europe 400-1500

Description

First published 1987 by Pearson Education Limited. "Medieval Europe 400-1500" is the first volume of a major new three-part illustrated history of Europe from the collapse of the Roman Empire to modern times, written for upper school, college and university students, and for the general reader The two authors, H. G. Koenigsberger and Asa Briggs, have collaborated closely on the planning of the sequence, the second of which, "Early Modern Europe 1500-1789", is again by Professor Koenigsberger, and the third, "Modern Europe 1789-1980", by Lord Briggs. Medieval Europe launches the enterprise in fine style. H. G. Koenigsberger's rich and absorbing account starts with the disintegration of the western Roman Empire, which had been centred on the Mediterranean, and traces across the millennium of the Middle Ages the gradual crystallization of a new and distinctive European identity in the lands to the north of it. This development is comprehensible only when it is seen in its relation both to Europe's neighbours, and also to the Europeans' perception of their own past as deeply rooted in the earlier civilization of Greece and Rome. Professor Koenigsberger therefore sets his account in the broader context of the Islamic, Byzantine and Central Asian worlds; and he also explores the successive renaissances' by which the Europeans sought to recapture and renew the traditions, values and achievements of their classical inheritance. It is a crowded, compelling story, and it has a splendidly lucid and readable guide in Professor Koenigsberger. In his pages the early history of modern Europe comes vividly to life in all its social, political, economic and cultural manifestations. He depicts a society divided in its allegiances and attitudes, and often violent and crude, yet also uniquely creative and dynamic. The thousand-year development he surveys here starts in disintegration and disorder; but by its end the Europeans were set to impose their rule, and much of their value system, on the rest of the world. How they did so, and to what effect, is one of the themes of the succeeding volume. List of maps viii List of plates x Acknowledgements xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1. The End of the Ancient World and the Beginning of the Middle Ages, 400-700 9 The Roman Empire in AD 400 9 The resources of the Roman Empire 12 Theories of the fall of the Roman Empire in the west 21 The German barbarians 23 The division of the Roman Empire 24 The first sack of Rome 25 Attila and the empire of the Huns 28 The German kingdoms in the Roman Empire 29 The end of the Roman Empire in the west 30 The Ostrogoths in Italy 31 The Roman Empire in the east: Justinian 31 The reconquest of the western Mediterranean 36 Byzantium and Persia 38 The barbarian successor states 40 The christianization of the Empire 50 The visual arts 60 Conclusions 64 Chapter 2. The Carolingian Empire and the Invasions of Europe, 700-1000 67 The climate 67 Population and settlements 68 Family structure and settlements 69 Agricultural yields and mortality rates 72 Economic structure 73 The kingdom of the Franks 80 Charlemagne (768-814) 82 Britain and England 89 The Vikings 93 The Danish Empire 98 The development of feudalism 98 New principalities in the west 102 Germany 102 Eastern Europe 106 Islam and the Arab conquests 110 Byzantium 117 Ecclesiastical organization and monasticism 124 The Carolingian Renaissance 126 Conclusion 133 Chapter 3. The Recovery of the West, the Crusades and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, 1000-1200 136 The first Christian millennium 136 The European kingdoms in the eleventh century 148 Central and eastern Europe 159 The Church and the papacy in the eleventh century 164 Western Europe in the twelfth century 168 Empire and papacy in the twelfth century 172 Russia 175 The Islamic world 179 Byzantium 180 The western counter-offensive 184 The intellectual Renaissance of the eleventh and twelfth centuries 197 Conclusion: Europe in 1200 210 Chapter 4. The High Middle Ages, 1200-1340 213 The climate 213 Population 213 Agricultural expansion 215 Manufactures: the craft guilds 221 Capitalism and new techniques in trade 225 Royal government 229 The decline of internationalism 230 Conquests 230 Governments: law and community 232 Papacy, empire and state 234 Religious life 243 The fourth crusade and the fall of Byzantium 251 The Mongol invasions 262 Intellectual life, literature and art 269 Conclusion 278 Chapter 5. The Later Middle Ages: Transalpine Europe, 1340-1500 281 The Black Death 1348-50 281 Agriculture: the end of serfdom 284 Towns and trade 291 The European kingdoms 299 Central, eastern and northern Europe 315 The papacy at Avignon 324 New forms of religious life 328 Catholic Europe and the outside world 333 Byzantium and the Ottoman Turks 336 Conclusion 340 Chapter 6. Medieval City Culture: Central Europe, Italy and the Renaissance, 1300-1500 343 The cities of the Later Middle Ages 343 The Renaissance: intellectual life 362 Music from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance 379 Conclusion 385 Index 388