The Evolution of the Medieval World: Society, Government & Thought in Europe, 312-1500

No matter how much I wish there was a book that gave a panoptic discourse on the Middle Ages, I just don't think there is one out there. However, David Nicholas' The Evolution of the Medieval World: Society, Government & Thought in Europe, 312-1500 comes pretty close.

The topic of medieval Europe is a huge one. This book weighs in at around 500 pages and gives a good overview of some 1200 years of history of a whole continent – no mean feat. But when you think about the task Nicholas set for himself, 500 pages is not a lot space - just think how many thousands of pages Will Durant wrote on the same topic – but he uses his pen economically.

There are four parts to the book. The first chronicles the waning days and fall of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity. It also covers people that, from my experience, get short shrift from historians when they write general histories for laypeople like me, namely the Celts and German tribes in the north and the Byzantines and Muslims in the east. All too often histories of medieval Europe forget these groups and make it out that the only things of note that were done by Anglo-Saxons and the French. France and England all the way.

I think that, to the popular mind, darkness descended on Europe after Rome fell. It was like one minute you had civilization and the next it was some kind of Hobbesian milieu. One thing I learned recently was that, if you went to Constantinople between 476 and 1453, the year it fell to the Ottoman Empire, and talked to its citizens, they'd tell describe themselves as Romans. They thought of themselves as citizens of the Roman Empire long after Rome succumbed to barbarians. Of the fall of Western half of the Roman Empire, Nicholas says, "The fall of Rome is legend; the reality was mutation."

This is probably the first book I've read which really lays out how Roman culture, institutions, etc. survived after 476 in Western Europe. People still used Latin, for instance. Roman roads, aqueducts, and other infrastructure continued to be used. Many of those vias became major trade routes. Roman law also held prominence for a long, long time. Germanic peoples had the concept of "personality of the law" which meant that defendants were judged by the laws of their ethnic group. And so Romans continued to be dealt with under Roman law even though their ruler was some Teutonic fella.

Nicholas divides medieval times into three phases: Early (700-920), High (920-1270), and Late (1270-1500). He does a good job of alternating chapters that have those seemingly never-ending lists of kings and popes that most people hate with chapters that deal with how people lived their lives during that time and institutions other than monarchies and the Church. For example, in high school I was taught about the feudal system but it wasn't this monolithic entity to be found everywhere in Europe and was not the same at different periods in time. Vassalage was hereditary at some place and points in time but not others. Some owed their lords crops or money while others owed military service. Or some combination. There were vassals who couldn't leave the land without the lord's permission but others didn't have this restriction. And the Germanic people didn't really have a feudal system as we think of it in, say, France.

In the chapter entitled "The Intellectual Awakening of Medieval Europe", we learn about the arts. There are the epics like The Song of Roland and Arthurian romances, but we also discover that Duke William IX of Aquitaine "wrote some of the most sexually explicit poetry in any language before the twentieth century." Who'd a-thunk it? Plus poetry from a bisexual knight named Marcabru survives. And how about this stanza from "Monk of Montaudon" by an anonymous author:

And I like to stretch out in summertime
Along the banks of a river or brook
When the fields are green and the flowers ripe
And the birds are piping their little peeps
And my girls friends sneaks up on the sly
And gives it to me one time quick.

A section on music shows the development of genres such as the organum style and the motet. I always associated the lute with the Middle Ages but apparently it was never used outside of Muslim Spain until the Renaissance. I found the the short section on drama very interesting. Most plays involved reenacting scenes from the Bible but, according to Nicholas, the English were ahead of the folks on the continent. I thought this method of staging the plays was really neat: "They were performed in processions of carts, each of which contained a separate scene, and the carts were then arranged in the order appropriate for the drama." The idea of using carts instead of a stage rang a bell with me. Someone here in Madison ought to revive this dramaturgical device.

At the risk of continuing for a few more pages of the neat stuff I learned by reading this book, I'll stop here and leave you with a few notes that have to do with the writing and organization of the book. First there's the issue of maps. There are many of them included at the end of the book but there were times when Nicholas mentioned a city that appeared on none of them. This usually happened when I was reading sections on commerce and trade and those on battles. Some port city would be noted as a major hub for wool or spices or whatever yet none of the maps included had it on them. Or there would be a decisive battle just outside of a town but I found that I had no clue where this town was and the maps were of no help. And so I usually had to settle for knowing in what region these places were.

One thing that would have been nice is if the book had illustrations. Yeah, I suppose this would have made the already lengthy tome even longer and much more expensive but I'd have like to have had some pictures showing the parts of churches, for instance, when Nicholas discussed the changes in the architecture of them over the years. And I think it just helps to understand the period if you have illustrations of what buildings looked like, the clothing of the time, the tools, et al. If so-and-so was a famous painter, it'd be nice to see an example of his work. But this book seems to me to be more of a concise general reference work aimed at college students as opposed to a colorful, eye-catching volume for the layreader. Nicholas gets bonus points from me for including a suggested list of books for further reading at the end of each chapter.

Lastly I want to say that I really appreciated how Nicholas punctuated the book with short asides as to how historians know things. In addition to things like poems and the works of chroniclers that have survived the years, medieval bureaucracies are a gold mine for historians as they have bequeathed us tax records. How many people lived in an area? What were their vocations? Check the tax rolls. Where did cities import goods from? Check the tax rolls. Tax collectors were despised then just as the IRS is now. However, they probably experience a lot more violence that IRS agents do. Yet we should be thankful for the medieval tax man for much of the knowledge we have about life back in those times.

As I said above, I think that The Evolution of the Medieval Worldwas probably meant as a one-stop shop for students of medieval history. However, regular schmoes like me with an interest in the subject will also get a lot out of it.