The making of Europe: conquest, colonization, and cultural change, 950-1350

Review One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1993 "The most stimulating and well-written reassessment of medieval Europe that has appeared for many years."--Eric Christiansen, The New York Review of Books "Bartlett amasses a wealth of documentation and, unlike other authors, he weaves a rich tapestry of colourful incidents, personalities, and contemporary comment.... A masterful survey of the forces that shaped the West."--Theodore K. Rabb, The Times Literary Supplement "An absolutely first-rate book.... Bartlett has elucidated the making not only of Europe but of our own country and of the modern world as a whole."--Roger Draper, The New Leader "Essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the problems of Europe today."--Keith Thomas, Guardian The Making of Europe is an important book. . . . This excellent discussion of medieval colonial expansion is much overdue. . . . [It] goes a long way toward understanding what is meant by the European mindset and sheds some light on why this mindset spread into the far corners of the globe."--Madelyn B. Dick, History: Reviews of New Books . . . a useful and illuminating book, marked by breadth of outlook, impressive erudition, and a convincing discussion of the principal forces contributing to the "making of Europe" between the tenth and the fourteenth centuries."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. About the Author Robert Bartlett is Professor of Medieval History at St Andrews University "From our twentieth-century perspective, we tend to think of the Europe of the past as a colonizer, a series of empires that conquered lands beyond their borders and forced European cultural values on other peoples. This provocative book shows that Europe in the Middle Ages was as much a product of a process of conquest and colonization as it was later a colonizer." "Robert Bartlett concentrates on the establishment of states by conquest and the peopling of distant countries by immigrants along the peripheries of the European continent. He asks what developments in language, law, belief, and habit accompanied warfare and settlement, as he explores the formation of racially mixed societies on the edges of Europe and the ideological justification for aggressive expansion." "This fascinating account shows how the expansionary power of this civilization sprang from its centers, even if it may be seen most starkly at its edges. Hence the theme is not only colonial conquest and settlement, the moving edge, but also the formation of an increasingly homogeneous society that by the end of the Middle Ages lay poised to enter a yet more expansionary phase of its history: one whose consequences are still around us."--Jacket. A wave of internal conquest, settlement and economic growth in Europe during High Middle Ages transformed it from a world of small separate communities into a network of powerful kingdoms. This book shows how Europe was itself a product of colonization, as much as it was later a colonizer, and what this did to shape the continent and the world. This work illuminates four centuries of medieval history, from the expansion of Latin Christendom, from its base in France, Western Germany and North-Central Italy into the European outskirts, at a time of rising population, economic growth and dynamic cultural change Whatever else may have been expanding in the High Middle Ages, there is no doubt about the widening bounds of Latin Christendom, that area of Christendom that recognized papal authority and celebrated the Latin liturgy.