R.C. Davis provided the classic account of the European medieval world; equipping generations of undergraduate and ‘A’ level students with sufficient grasp of the period to debate diverse historical perspectives and reputations. His book has been important grounding for both modernists required to take a course in medieval history, and those who seek to specialise in the medieval period.In updating this classic work to a third edition, the additional author now enables students...

Barbara H. Rosenwein's bestselling survey text continues to stand out by integrating the history of three medieval civilizations (European, Byzantine, and Islamic) in a lively narrative that is complemented beautifully by full-color plates, maps, and genealogies. The fourth edition begins with an essay entitled "Why the Middle Ages Matter Today," and the book now covers East Central Europe in some depth. New plates have been added along with a new "Seeing the Middle Ages" feature. The sect...

The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000-1714 is a fascinating and accessible survey that places the medieval Crusades in their European context, and examines, for the first time, their impact on European expansion.Taking a unique approach that focuses on the motivation behind the Crusades, John France chronologically examines the whole crusading movement, from the development of a ‘crusading impulse’ in the eleventh century through to an examination of...

This new and considerably expanded edition of The Crusades, 1095-1204 couples vivid narrative with a clear and accessible analysis of the key ideas that prompted the conquest and settlement of the Holy Land between the First and the Fourth Crusade.This edition now covers the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, along with greater coverage of the Muslim response to the Crusades from the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 to Saladin’s leadership of the counter-crusade, c...

The tenth century dawned in violence and disorder. Charlemagne's empire was in ruins, most of Spain had been claimed by Moorish invaders, and even the papacy in Rome was embroiled in petty, provincial conflicts. To many historians, it was a prime example of the ignorance and uncertainty of the Dark Ages. Yet according to historian Paul Collins, the story of the tenth century is the story of our culture's birth, of the emergence of our civilization into the light of day.The Birt...

The Christian Roman Empire and the Foundation of the Teutonic Kingdoms, by illustrious historian J.B. Bury, chronicles the 3rd through 7th centuries A.D.

All the stories about Princes and Princesses in this book are true stories out of old books of history. There are some children who make life difficult by saying, first that stories about fairies are true, and that they like fairies; and next that they do not like true stories about real people, who lived long ago. I am quite ready to grant that there really are such things as fairies, because, though I never saw a fairy, any more than I have seen the little animals which lecturers call mo...

A military history of the campaigns of Stilicho, the army general who became one of the most powerful men in the Western Roman Empire.Flavius Stilicho lived in one of the most turbulent periods in European history. The Western Empire was finally giving way under pressure from external threats, especially from Germanic tribes crossing the Rhine and Danube, as well as from seemingly ever-present internal revolts and rebellions.Ian Hughes explains how a Vandal (...

THE catastrophe of the fall of Rome, with all that its fall signified to the fifth century, came very near to accomplishment in the third. There was a long period when it seemed as though nothing could save the Empire. Her prestige sank to the vanishing point. Her armies had forgotten what it was to win a victory over a foreign enemy. Her Emperors were worthless and incapable. On every side the frontiers were being pierced and the barriers were giving way...

*Includes Table of ContentsBurys The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western Empire is an expansive history of the Dark Ages. Curated by the famous historian J.B. Bury, The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western Empire chronicles the history of the former Western Roman Empire, and Eastern Empire from the 6th to 9th centuries A.D. A table of contents is included for easier navigation through the over 640 pages.

The century whose early years witnessed the death of Pope Gregory the Great, and the establishment of something like peaceful relations between the Empire and the Lombards in Italy, was one of a strangely mingled character. As far as Western Europe was concerned (perhaps we might say as far as the Aryan races were concerned) it was, on the whole, monotonous, uneventful, unimportant; but the changes wrought during its course in the regions of the East, the immense spiritual revolution which...

In the gradual transformation of the old world of classical antiquity into the world with which the statesmen of today must deal, no man played a greater part than Charles the Great, King of the Franks and Emperor of Rome. The sharp lines of demarcation which we often draw between period and period, and which are useful as helps to memory, have not for the most part had any real existence in history, for in the world of men, as in the development of the material universe, it is true that u...