The Middle Ages /

This very important book purportedly surveys the European medieval period (roughly 500-1500 CE). General readers or lower-level undergraduates should postpone (but not indefinitely) its reading. The author (Univ. of Frankfurt, Germany) assumes his readers' familiarity with, for example, the basics of the feudal and manorial systems, the assarting movements, and the technological changes all occurring alongside the topics on which he focuses. These include the interactions between peoples, the development of religious doctrines and chiliastic thought, the growth of jurisprudence, and a detailed exposition of political theory and history (especially the church/state and empire/kingdom conflicts). All of these foci undergird, convincingly, the argument that this millennium witnessed the growth of reason (and science), secularism, and globalization. The book's epilogue--"The Dark Middle Ages?"--is a closely argued (and stirring) clarion call to see medieval men and women as the dynamic, inquisitive (and flawed) human beings they were. Given the book's publisher, there are more typographical errors than one would expect. But this, as well as the somewhat skewed nature of the "survey," cannot detract from a masterful synthesis that forces modern readers to rethink the erroneous suppositions about this period. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Robert T. Ingoglia, Caldwell University

This beautifully written and well-translated overview of the period between 500 and 1500 C.E. examines concepts and perceptions rather than kings and battles. Fried, professor of medieval history at the University of Frankfurt, begins with Boethius, whose work bridged classical and late antiquity. The development of new attitudes toward liberty and the beginnings of the division between church and state are described with a lucidity that is rare in historical overviews. Fried considers Jews, Muslims, and women as integral parts of society. He also addresses the development of natural science in the 13th century, noting that its monastic adherents had no problem with trying to discover how God's creation worked. The politics of absolutism are presented in the context of the nature of governance and the rise of the power of commerce. As Fried reaches the plague years of the 14th and 15th centuries and the Renaissance, he analyzes the "eruption of the supernatural into the real world" through new modes in art and the rise of witch hunts. Fried's conclusion that the "Middle Ages... crossed seamlessly over into a similarly constituted Early Modern period" is aimed at dispelling the myth of a "dark" age between antiquity and modernity. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A revisionist study of the medieval era as representing a process of consolidation and transformation that eventually yielded the Renaissance.Thanks to what German medieval scholar Fried calls the cultural prejudices of such Enlightenment thinkers as Immanuel Kant, the Middle Ages got a bad rap as a "childish and grotesque" era when, in reality, it was a period of enormous learning, democratization and secularization. The collapse of Rome spurred the migration of peoples, especially German-speaking, and the gradual consolidation in Europe of the Goths, Franks and Lombards. The meeting of the barbarians, who were devoted to the oral tradition, with the highly literate ancient culture of the Greeks and Romans, instigated "intensive learning processes" and the urge on the part of the invaders to emulate the civilization they had conquered. Fried sees a gradual progression toward a culture of reason, beginning with Boethius' translation of Aristotle's Organon and his own Consolation of Philosophy, moving through the highly educated Pope Gregory the Great (who ruled from 590 to 604) and his educational texts at the Byzantine court in Constantinople, and on to the emergence of Charlemagne and the Frankish kingdom via military conquest and Christian religious culture. Indeed, Charlemagne's hunger for knowledge encouraged literacy and the copying of ancient, especially Latin, texts, further unifying the West. Fried tracks the importance of the Irish itinerant clergy in spreading faith and literacy (especially grammar), the inciting of the Crusades against the regrouping Islamic forces, and the first social contract forged between monarchy and aristocracy, ratified by Charles the Bald in the ninth century. The crackdown on heretical sects (e.g., the Cathars) during a period of intense papal schism helped along the evolution of the elaborate jurisprudential system. Overall, the Middle Ages brought freedom, Fried argues in this passionate but intensely scholarly book (translated from the German), and the desire to know the wider world. A dense, often ponderous work from a deeply erudite scholar. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.