The Penguin History Of Medieval Europe

'The most accessible, up-to-date introduction to its subject ... does full justice to the multifarious forces at work in high gothic Europe' Daily Telegraph The years from AD 1000 to the beginning of the fourteenth century were the most formative period in European history: a time of intense social, political, cultural and religious change. In this definitive work one of the world's leading medievalists explores a confident, dynamic age, far removed from our own. 'Jordan writes elegantly and ironically, giving the reader a broad but not dumbed-down view of medieval society and its complexities. A splendid start to Penguin's History of Europe series and a first-rate work in its own right' Kirkus Reviews 'The Penguin History of Europe series is one of contemporary publishing's great projects' New Statesman

Tribal wars, the Crusades, the growth of trade and the shifting patterns of community life as villages grew into towns and towns into sizeable cities. Papal Victories-100 years war and Christendom.

This is a fascinating, three-dimensional picture of the politics, society and religion of medieval Europe, the age that had as its great theme the unity of Christendom. Maurice Keen examines tribal wars, the Crusades, the growth of trade and the shifting patterns of community life as villages grew into towns and towns into sizeable cities. He explores how Papal victories, by blurring the distinction between temporal and spiritual matters, eventually undermined the spiritual authority of the Church. And he discusses how the Hundred Years War escalated from a feudal dispute into a full-scale national conflict, until, by the mid-fifteenth century, changing economic and social conditions had transformed the unity of Christendom into merely a pious phrase.

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. Broad in scope, punctuated with impressive detail, and highly accessible, Jordan's book is set to occupy a central place in university courses of the medieval period.

Describes the medieval monuments, trade and town life, religion, secular power, and the intellectual atmosphere of the Middle Ages in Europe.

Comprehensive in its scope and brilliantly readable, this is a superb follow-up to the author's bestselling Penguin History of the World. Beginning with prehistory and the early civilizations of the Aegean, The Penguin History of Europe traces the development of European identity in its many guises, through the age of Christendom, the Middle Ages, early Modern history and the old European order.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Medieval World traces the development of peoples, cultures, and faiths between the coming of the barbarian invasions in the fourth century and the first voyages to the New World in the sixteenth. This colorful atlas illustrates the sweeping changes from the fall of the Roman Empire to the birth of Islam, the rise of Christianity, and the role of Judaism across Europe. Packed with vivid maps and photographs, this atlas is a perfect guide to Europe and its neighbors in the Middle Ages.