When Timothy Reuter accepted the invitation to contribute one of the chapters in this volume, he wrote, ‘I find the impossible task of summarizing the political development of 370 years almost irresistible.’ As the editors of the other volumes in this series have acknowledged, writing a short collaborative history of Europe poses many challenges. All seven contributors to this volume would nevertheless agree with the late Professor Reuter that the difficulties of capturing the essence of the period are outweighed by the intellectual satisfaction of such an exercise. For me as editor, it has been a privilege to have the opportunity to bring together the work of six outstanding scholars whose chapters comprise the main part of this book.
In common with the early medieval volume of the Short Oxford History of Europe edited by Rosamond McKitterick, five chapters in the present collection examine the social, economic, political, religious, and intellectual and cultural history of (mainly western) Europe in the chosen period. The sixth chapter approaches the history of Europe’s relations with the wider world by focusing upon by far the most important aspect of that topic between 950 and 1320, namely the expansion of Latin Christendom at the expense of its Greek Orthodox, Muslim, and pagan neighbours. Such a division of labour requires justification: a decade and a half after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in the aftermath of the admission of most of east-central Europe into the European Union, it may seem perverse that the first five chapters of this volume appear to perpetuate the divisions of the Cold War, which for much of the twentieth century encouraged the view of the eastern half of Europe as ‘other’. Yet, since the shift in the relationship between western Europe and the rest of the continent between the mid-tenth and early fourteenth centuries was so dramatic and since it varied so greatly in its dynamics, nature, and outcome, the absorption of northern and east-central Europe and much of the Mediterranean littoral into Latin Christendom in the central Middle Ages surely justifies special treatment. As in the early medieval volume, military history has not been discussed in a separate chapter, since the aristocracy of the central Middle Ages was heavily militarized (although by the end of the period its warrior character was declining in some parts of Europe). It is also inevitable that some other topics—music and visual arts, to take two obvious examples—and some regions of the continent have not been discussed in the detail that they deserve. It is nevertheless hoped that the reader will find the following chapters and accompanying apparatus an informative and thought-provoking introduction to a fascinating period.
In general, dates given for monarchs and bishops are for their reigns or pontificates; for others, dates of birth and death are given (where known). For names, it is difficult to apply a single standard for the whole Continent and period (Comnenus or Komnenus? William, Guillaume or Guglielmo?), but standardization has been attempted where possible. Quotations from primary sources have usually been taken from widely available English translations. In common with most volumes in this series, no illustrations have been included. (An asterisk indicates an entry in the Glossary.)
I wish to express my gratitude to the authors of the six main chapters for their participation in this project, to Catherine Holmes and Julian Haseldine, both of whom kindly read the whole draft and made many penetrating comments, and to my medievalist colleagues at the University of Sheffield for answering numerous queries.
Tim Blanning’s encouragement in his capacity as series editor proved invaluable. I wish to thank Fiona Kinnear of Oxford University Press for her assistance in the project’s early stages, and her successor Matthew Cotton for his guidance and considerable patience as the book neared completion. The miniature of the ‘three orders’ on the front cover is reproduced with the kind permission of the British Library from the L’Ymage dou Monde of Gautier de Metz (Sloane MS 2435, fo. 85r). I am also indebted to the hundreds of Sheffield undergraduates who have taken my course ‘Europe in the Central Middle Ages’ in its various guises since 1996; the experience of teaching them assisted me greatly when I came to write the introduction and conclusion, and I dedicate those sections to them.
As noted above, Timothy Reuter agreed to write Chapter 3 of this book. His untimely death in 2002 deprived medieval scholarship of one of its most imaginative and knowledgeable practitioners. On Professor Reuter’s own recommendation shortly before his death, Bjorn Weiler kindly agreed to write this chapter instead; he thereby earned the lasting gratitude of the editor and of everyone else involved in the publication of the present work.
Daniel Power Sheffield November 2004
World History
