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  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The New Cambridge Medieval History
  • Cited by 6
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2008
Print publication year:
1999
Online ISBN:
9781139055734
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521362894
Subjects:
Area Studies, European History 1000-1450, British History: General Interest, History, European Studies
Collection:
Cambridge Histories - British & European History
Series:
The New Cambridge Medieval History (5)
Information

Book description

The fifth volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History brings together studies of the political, religious, social and economic history of the whole of Europe and of the Mediterranean world between about 1198 and 1300. Comprehensive coverage of the developments in western Europe is balanced by attention to the east of Europe, including the Byzantine world, and the Islamic lands in Spain, north Africa and the Levant. Thematic articles look at the fine arts, the vernacular, communications and other aspects of a period in which the frontiers of Latin Christendom were expanding vigorously outwards; and attention is paid to the frontier societies that emerged in Spain, the Baltic and the Mediterranean islands.

Reviews

‘This volume is a monumental achievement for which the editor and his contributors deserve thanks. The bibliographies, maps and index are excellent, and the frontispiece of the golden Augustalis coin of Frederick II is stunning.’

Source: The Times Literary Supplement

‘… this is a solid achievement of lasting value.’

Source: Journal of Ecclesiastical History

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Contents

Page 1 of 3

Contents
  • (a) - Nobles and knights
    pp 11-25
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The aristocracy of thirteenth-century Europe defined itself by its self-conscious adherence to a European-wide set of common cultural values and assumptions embodied in the cult of chivalric knighthood. By emphasising qualities of loyalty, generosity, military prowess and courtly style as constituent elements in true nobility, chivalry facilitated the incorporation of the chevaliers into the ranks of an aristocracy to which many had not been born. The legal unity of the French nobility was the product of royal fiscal and judicial policy. By 1300, the chevaliers of France were securely a part of the nobility, and their privileged legal status was increasingly seen as heritable even by their undubbed descendants. The absence of a legally privileged nobility from thirteenth-century England is conventionally seen as a sign of the overwhelming power of the English crown. Among the knights and squires, stability was somewhat less than it was among the greatest families.
  • (b) - Urban society
    pp 26-37
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The line between urban and rural society, the small town and the big village, is a fine one and traditionally depends on whether or not a majority of the population supported itself other than by fishing, farming or tending herds. The principal theme of thirteenth-century urban society is the challenge of population growth, perhaps the most decisive changes in urban society reflect what responses were made to the problems of growth. The concept of urban citizenship was as yet a hazy notion, but in places where the city was the state, being a citizen conferred advantages. The political and economic freedom was an ambiguous benefit to half of urban society: women. Urban society offered some single women new opportunities, either through religious experimentation or the burgeoning wage economy, to live in ways not completely shaped by men. Widows were in the best position to take advantage of all this, but poor women remained the most desperate members of urban society.
  • (c) - Rural society
    pp 38-49
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In the thirteenth century, the rural societies of the Byzantine empire and the Islamic countries apparently underwent less obvious transformations than those in the west. For some historians, the increase in the rural population brought only misery to the villages, accompanied by a widespread decrease in landholding. Rural societies were strongly aware of the need to defend their cohesive character, and this was something that had to be maintained at all costs, despite the tensions which already existed or were about to erupt in these village micro-societies. The decline of serfdom is very noticeable in numerous areas in the west, but it can now be seen that the thirteenth century did not see the end of serfdom. Social transformation was more profound and happened much faster in those rural regions rendered prosperous through the widespread sale of rural products. In the thirteenth century, the number of areas under the jurisdiction of a single seigneurie became rare in the overpopulated regions.
  • 2 - Commerce and communications
    pp 50-70
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The thirteenth century has been called, in economic terms, the autumn of the Middle Ages. Communication and commerce were part and parcel of medieval life, in spite of the arduous nature of travel. The Middle Ages witnessed the continued use of Roman road systems and the addition of many secondary routes creating a dense network across western Europe. Professional transporters handled a portion of medieval overland- and river-based trade. Such transporters worked the Champagne fairs and all towns feeding into them. Medieval towns were the sites par excellence of international trade, and of much regional traffic as well. The growth of international trade in the commercial revolution of the eleventh century was underpinned by the existence of recording methods sufficient to permit complex business transactions at a distance. The phenomenon of the medieval fair represents the best laboratory for the study of commerce and communications in thirteenth-century Europe.
  • 3 - The vernacular
    pp 71-83
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The rise of the vernaculars of Europe towards their thirteenth-century maturity in relation to Latin as the language of international religion, was far from being a uniform or steady process in terms of time and place. The adaptation of the Latin alphabet for writing in Old Irish seems to have taken place about 600 and a strong vernacular literary tradition developed beside the monastic Latin one. The Carolingian reform of Latin pronunciation of the liturgy was extended to Spain beyond Catalonia by the Council of Burgos in 1080, when the 'Mozarabic' liturgy which had existed since Visigothic times was replaced by the standard Roman form. The progress of the vernaculars as written and literary languages depended greatly on political circumstance. For most of the Middle Ages the attitude of the Church to the vernaculars was a tolerant and even encouraging one.
  • 4 - Art and architecture
    pp 84-106
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The visual culture of thirteenth-century western Europe saw the refinement and spread of the Gothic style throughout much of north-west Europe, and in this sense it consolidated and extended the substantial achievements of the twelfth. Since the late eleventh century, northwestern Europe had experienced what some analysts have called a 'building boom' which benefited monastic establishments and the expanding cities. Though the thirteenth century saw enormous regional variations in the way the great church was conceived, the period was in other ways marked by increasing standardisation. Between 1100 and 1300 urban cathedral churches throughout western Europe became highly centralised buildings, integrating beneath one roof religious practices previously dispersed across the complex of cathedral buildings. In tandem with these changes, the thirteenth century witnessed transformations in the bases of art production and patronage. The concentration of courtly culture at major centres of power like Paris and London served further to galvanise the importance of the urban artistic economy.
  • 5 - The papacy
    pp 105-163
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The papacy was a unique sort of monarchy in that it claimed jurisdiction in both spiritual and temporal affairs. This chapter discusses a characteristic feature of thirteenth-century papal government: the use of general councils as a major instrument of policy. There were three of them: Lateran IV (1215); Lyons I (1245); Lyons II (1274). Between the accession of Innocent III in January 1198 and the death of Boniface VIII in October 1303, eighteen popes ruled the Church. Popes were elected to succeed St Peter. They were heirs to all that authority which Christ had assigned to the leader of the Apostles when he appointed him as head of his newly founded Church. Innocent III was no mere theorist of papal leadership. He was also its leading thirteenth-century exponent. Innocent IV was very much Gregory IX's man. He had served in his curia throughout his working life by rising steadily through the ranks of the papal judiciary,.
  • 6 - The Albigensian Crusade and heresy
    pp 164-181
  • View abstract

    Summary

    When Raymond learned of Peter of Castelnau's murder, Innocent launched a crusade against Toulouse, offering participants the same indulgence as those who went to the Holy Land. Although this war became known as the Albigensian Crusade, because Albi had been the first centre of Catharism in southern France, it was not designed to deal directly with heresy. Raymond of Toulouse had meanwhile sought a reconciliation with the pope, and undertook to carry out Innocent's wishes and to make reparations to the Church. The independence of Toulouse jeopardised the work of the crusade, for Cathar perfecti and faidit knights from the Trencavel lands sought asylum there and waited for a favourable opportunity to return to their homes. The Cathars were at first resilient in the face of persecution. After the Peace of Paris, the perfecti had resumed lay dress and their communities had dispersed.
  • 7 - The Church and the laity
    pp 182-203
  • View abstract

    Summary

    There was an enormous effort to make the religious beliefs and practices of the faithful conform more to the demands of Christianity, as Christianity was defined by the Catholic Church. The Church first made an effort to reinforce the prestige of the ordinary priests, who, especially in the countryside, were barely distinguishable from the ordinary faithful, either because of their way of life or even because of their religious knowledge. In the twelfth century, it was accepted that, under certain conditions, the laity and even women could speak in public about religious questions or matters related to the life of the Church. In the thirteenth century, the Church made a great effort to educate the faithful in their religion. It is commonly accepted that towards 1270, they had a better knowledge of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity than they did a hundred years earlier.
  • 8 - The Church and the Jews
    pp 204-219
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Throughout the Middle Ages, the policies of the Church towards the Jews rested on a set of consistently enunciated principles. These principles referred to Christian salvation, the promotion of the Church as both a spiritual and a worldly institution and to the Jews ultimately Christian soteriological role. The achievement of order and equilibrium typified the thirteenth-century Church's formal stance toward the Jews. It did so even in the face of what came to be viewed as enormous provocations, namely, those associated, first, with the contents of the Talmud, and, second, with the wooing back to Judaism of converts to Christianity. By the thirteenth century, Christians began studying Hebrew, better to know the Bible, often instructed by rabbis. Thomas's discussion of the Jews in his Summa theologica is predicated on the idea that Jews are an indispensable block in the seamless scholastic building fabric of society and its ideals.
  • 9 - The religious Orders
    pp 220-255
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Around 1230, one of the greatest figures of the Reformation, the bishop of Acre, Jacques de Vitry, taking stock of the changes that had occurred to Christianity throughout the preceding decades, made the following observation: 'Three types of religious life already existed: the hermits, the monks and the canons. Towards the end of this period was added a fourth institution, the beauty of a new religious Order and the sanctity of a new Rule. The difficulties of the great monastic and canonical institutions should not overshadow the appearance of new, often successful, forms of religious life, with ambitions that were both more precise and more concrete. In 1252, the University of Paris therefore declared that no member of a religious Order could subsequently hold a Chair. During the thirteenth century, the religious influence of the Mendicant Orders was felt above all in the cities.
  • 10 - The universities and scholasticism
    pp 256-278
  • View abstract

    Summary

    During the twelfth century, most countries of the west had experienced a true 'scholastic revolution'. It was around 1200 that the first universities were born in the west. The two most ancient universities were in Bologna and Paris: throughout the course of the Middle Ages, these were to remain the most important, serving as models for all subsequent establishments. The first universities initially appeared as communities, as is clearly indicated by the terms used to distinguish them from the outset: universitas. The goals the universities set for themselves were at first very concrete, deriving from the increasing number of students and their unique conditions of existence. The institutional strengthening of the Universities of Paris and Oxford was also a result of the appearance of the first colleges, which were seen in Paris towards the end of the twelfth century. The social and political success of the universities in the thirteenth century cannot be separated from their exceptional intellectual success.
  • 11 - The Capetians from the death of Philip II to Philip IV
    pp 277-313
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter describes the reign of several Capetian rulers namely, Louis VIII, Blanche of Castile, Louis IX, Philip III, and Philip IV. When he came to the throne in 1223, Louis VIII was confronted immediately with the need to secure the western territories which his father Philip Augustus had conquered from the English and to decide on a course of action with regard to the failing Albigensian Crusade. By 1231, Blanche of Castile and Louis had blocked a rapprochement between the Lusignan family and the English, stabilised the situation in Languedoc with the help of the cardinal-legate, deflected two major baronial coalitions bent on changing the nature of the regency and put down a Breton rebellion that had English support. The country over which Philip IV and his officials ruled was entering a period of economic difficulties, exacerbated if not necessarily caused by the steady growth of population over the last two centuries.
  • 12 - The Plantagenet kings
    pp 314-357
  • View abstract

    Summary

    King Richard I died outside the castle of Chalus-Chabrol in the Limousin on 7 April 1199. There were two candidates for the succession: his younger brother, John, and his nephew Arthur of Brittany, who was the protege of Philip Augustus. King Philip himself, under the Treaty of Le Goulet, accepted his succession to Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine, the dominions which the Plantagenets held as fiefs from the crown of France. Normandy was both the most valuable part of the Plantagenet continental empire and the most vulnerable, hence the absolute priority Philip Augustus attached to its conquest. While John, on the continent, succumbed to a monarch of his own size, in Britain he triumphed over inferior kings and princes. Noking of England came to the throne in a more desperate situation than Henry III. Yet, within a year, Louis had left the country, peace had been proclaimed and Henry was universally acknowledged as king.
  • 13 - The kingdom of Burgundy, the lands of the house of Savoy and adjacent territories
    pp 358-374
  • View abstract

    Summary

    By the thirteenth century 'kingdom of Burgundy' had become common to apply the term 'Burgundy' only to the northern part, and to refer to the regions from the Viennois southward as the kingdom of Arles. The plan to reconstitute a kingdom of Arles on behalf of the house of Savoy vanished with the death of Frederick II in 1250. There were four major principalities and several important independent baronies in the Burgundy-Arles region, but they differed greatly both in extent and in character. The county of Burgundy in the thirteenth century consisted essentially of the territory bounded by the Saone on the west, the Juras on the east, Lorraine to the north and the land of Bresse to the south. The alliance between the house of Savoy and the Chalon-Meran served to defend the Franche-Comte from the power of the dukes of Burgundy during the 1270s and 1280s.
  • (a) - Welfs, Hohenstaufen and Habsburgs
    pp 375-404
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter deals with the demise of the Hohenstaufen, the so-called 'nterregnum', and also with the complex impact on kingship of the territorial principalities of Germany. The Hohenstaufen had at their disposal the duchy of Swabia, widely dispersed crown lands and the important force of the imperial ministeriales, as well as the endorsement of a majority of the German princes and prelates. The Hohenstaufen party was reconciled by the betrothal of Philip's eldest daughter to Otto, who also announced his willingness to avenge the murder of his former rival. Definite measures were first taken by King Philip II Augustus of France, who set about convincing the pope of the need to revive Frederick's candidacy. Albrecht of Habsburg, the only surviving heir of King Rudolf, had none of his father's popularity but instead a reputation for ruthlessness and want of moderation. The German thirteenth century was an age of rapid political and social change, a true period of transition.
  • (b) - Flanders
    pp 405-416
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Under Count Philip of Alsace, Flanders had become one of the mightiest and most progressive principalities of western Europe. In 1191, the power relations between Flanders and France had been reversed: the king now constantly undermined the counts' power. The highest governmental organ, the count's curia, showed a clear tendency towards professionalisation. Since the first half of the eleventh century, the county of Flanders had been subdivided into castellanies, chatellenies, districts under the control of the viscounts residing in a central borough. The Flemish nobility was primarily determined by birth; free status, vassalage, the ownership of allodia and the possession of seigneurial rights were further but not essential characteristics. The continuous population growth increased pressure on the land as a response to the high demand for agrarian products. The intensive use of the land is only one aspect of the highly developed Flemish economy. After northern Italy, Flanders was the earliest and most densely urbanised area of medieval Europe.
  • (a) - Northern Italy: The maritime republics
    pp 417-446
  • View abstract

    Summary

    At the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the economies of the three major Italian maritime republics were flourishing. In the east the three republics competed on a relatively even footing; however, the Pisan presence in Byzantium was more restricted than that of Genoa and Venice. Both Genoa and Pisa allied with Emperor Henry VI in his invasion of Sicily in 1194. Venice remained neutral but did not suffer for that. Across the Mediterranean the three republics competed for shares of the wealth that maritime commerce could provide. In the west competition for market share had already brought Pisa and Genoa to war. At home all three republics engaged in extensive building programmes which both enhanced their physical aspects and improved their public infrastructures. In central Europe the second half of the century saw the trade of Venice with the growth areas of southern Germany and Bohemia across the Alps expand dramatically.
  • (b) - Sardinia and Corsica from the mid-twelfth to the early fourteenth century
    pp 447-457
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Around the middle of the twelfth century Sardinia was still divided into four small kingdoms, also known as judgeships. In 1187 the marquis of Massa, Guglielmo, burst on the scene in Sardinia; he was the head of one of the four branches of the Obertenghi clan and was supported by the commune of Pisa. Corsica, unlike Sardinia, had maintained since the Lombard and Carolingian eras fairly close and constant contact with the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian cities. The reconstruction of the social and economic evolution of Sardinia in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is difficult, in view of the scarcity of sources. Immediately after the middle of the thirteenth century major events took place in Sardinia. The judge of Cagliari, Chiano di Massa, hoping to extract himself from Pisan control, came to an agreement with Genoa, bringing his lands within the Genoese sphere.
  • (c) - The rise of the signori
    pp 458-478
  • View abstract

    Summary

    During the thirteenth century, political life in the city-states of northern Italy began to be dominated by a new breed of political and military leaders, often described as tyrants or despots. By 1300 most cities of northern Italy were under signorial rule. The concept of the signori as tyrannical despots seems to have become current among English historians during the nineteenth century. 'Tyranny' of course has a pedigree as a concept of political analysis that 'despot' lacks. Aristotle elaborated a wide range of tyrannical political actions and strategies. The most notorious of the early 'tyrants', whom later lords were often alleged to imitate, was Ezzelino da Romano. Like the da Romano, the Pallavicino were a typical baronial family, established in the region between Parma and Piacenza, where they held vast territories. Despite the best efforts of the signori themselves, they have been remembered, not for their illustrious achievements, but for their cruelties.
  • (d) - Florence
    pp 479-497
  • View abstract

    Summary

    In the thirteenth century, Florence emerged as the leading commercial and banking centr e of western Europe. The acquisition of Capraia on the Arno, and the seizure of Montemurlo by Florence's ally, Count Guido Guerra, provoked hostilities with Pistoia. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, Florence appears to have had only one merchant guild, the Arte della Calimala, made up of those who dealt in this commodity, though there were also some craft corporations. From being a small town, dominated by an exclusive, clannish and combative aristocracy, Florence was turning into a city, considerable numbers of whose inhabitants, represented in the artisan and merchant corporations, were gaining in wealth and aspiring to a share of political power. In 1273, during the pope's visit to Florence, peace was ceremonially made between the city's Guelfs and Ghibellines in accordance with this planned pacification.

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