This book is a collection of 39 essays by distinguished historians on a wide variety of medieval topics. The material is presented in roughly chronological order, and within each period the essays are grouped around a particular theme (eg, "Feudal Society," "Women and Family"). Classic and contemporary essays and authors are included to present many different approaches to medieval history.
Note on the Fifth Edition
Preface
Chapter 1: The End of the Ancient World
General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, Edward Gibbon
The Decay of Ancient Civilization, Michael Rostovtzeff
The Impact of Christianity, Peter Brown
Chapter 2: The Making of Europe
Muhammad and Charlemagne, Henri Pirenne
Pirenne and Muhammad, Daniel C. Dennet
Merovingian Society, Patrick Geary
Charlemagne and the Roman Church, Christopher Dawson
Chapter 3: Feudal Society: Problems and Approaches
Kinship and Lordship, Marc Bloch
Feudalism in Western Europe, Joseph R. Strayer
The Tyranny of a Construct, Elizabeth A. R. Brown
Chapter 4: Economic Life and Social Change
Manorial Economies, Georges Duby
On The Evidence of Growth of Population in the West, Leopold Genicot
The Origins of the Medieval Town Patriciate, A.B. Hibbert
The Expansion of Europe, Robert Bartlett
Chapter 5: Humanism and "Renaissance" In the Twelfth Century
The Humanism of the Twelfth Century, David Knowles
Medieval Humanism, R.W. Southern
Renaissance or Proto-Renaissance, Eva Matthews Sanford
Chapter 6: Women and Family
Courtly Love, C.S. Lewis
Peasant Life, Barbara Hanawalt
Women and Children, Christiane Klapisch-Zubber
Fast, Feast, and Flesh: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Caroline Walker Bynum
Chapter 7: Spiritual and Temporal Power
The Hierocratic Doctrine, Walter Ullmann
The Duality of Medieval Society, R.W. and A.J. Carlyle
The Papal Revolution, Harold J. Berman
Chapter 8: The Medieval State; Sovereignty, Constitutionalism, Representation
The Emergence of the State, Gaines Post
Church Law and Constitutional Thought, Brian Tierney
Medieval Institutions: Islam and the West, Antony Black
A Fourteenth-Century Parliament, George L. Haskins
Chapter 9: God, Nature, and Art
The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis, Lynn White, Jr.
The Mirror of Nature, Emile Male
Thomas Aquinas: Reason and Revelation, Etienne Gilson
Popular Religion, Robert Fossier
Chapter 10: On the Margin: Vagabonds, Outcasts, and Jews
Marginal People, Bronislaw Geremek
The Decline of Medieval Jewry, Jeremy Cohen
The Black Death and the Jews, Philip Ziegler
Chapter 11: Problems of Late Medieval Society
Parents and Children, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
Land and Population, M.M. Postan
The Closing of the Medieval Frontier, Archibald R. Lewis
Cities and Social Classes, Edith Ennen
Religion and Revolution, Norman Cohn
