Carol Lansing is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on medieval Italian politics, society, and culture. Previous publications include The Florentine Magnates: Lineage and Faction in a Medieval Commune (1991), Power and Purity: Cathar Heresy in Medieval Italy (1998) and Passion and Order: Restraint of Grief in the Medieval Italian Communes (2008).

Edward D. English is Executive Director of Medieval Studies and Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is finishing the first of two volumes on the society and politics of Siena in the fourteenth century. His other publications include Enterprise and Liability in Sienese Banking, 1230-1350 (1988) and The Encyclopedia of the Medieval World, 2 volumes (2005).

Drawing on the expertise of 26 distinguished scholars, this important volume covers the major issues in the study of medieval Europe, highlighting the significant impact the time period had on cultural forms and institutions central to European identity.
* Examines changing approaches to the study of medieval Europe, its periodization, and central themes
* Includes coverage of important questions such as identity and the self, sexuality and gender, emotionality and ethnicity, as well as more traditional topics such as economic and demographic expansion; kingship; and the rise of the West
* Explores Europe's understanding of the wider world to place the study of the medieval society in a global context

Notes on Contributors viii
PART I THE MIDDLE AGES 1
1 The Idea of a Middle Ages 3
Edward D. English and Carol Lansing
PART II EARLY MEDIEVAL FOUNDATIONS 7
2 Economies and Societies in Early Medieval Western Europe 9
Matthew Innes
3 Politics and Power 36
Hans Hummer
4 Religious Culture and the Power of Tradition in the Early Medieval West 67
Yitzhak Hen
PART III POPULATIONS AND THE ECONOMY 87
5 Economic Takeoff and the Rise of Markets 89
James Paul Masschaele
6 Rural Families in Medieval Europe 111
Phillipp R. Schofield
7 Marriage in Medieval Latin Christendom 130
Martha Howell
8 Gender and Sexuality 161
John Arnold
9 Society, Elite Families, and Politics in Late Medieval Italian Cities 185
Edward D. English
PART IV RELIGIOUS CULTURE 209
10 New Religious Movements and Reform 211
Maureen C. Miller
11 Monastic and Mendicant Communities 231
Constance H. Berman
12 Hospitals in the Middle Ages 257
James W. Brodman
13 Popular Belief and Heresy 276
Carol Lansing
14 Jews in the Middle Ages 293
Kenneth R. Stow
15 Muslims in Medieval Europe 313
Olivia Remie Constable
PART V POLITICS AND POWER 333
16 Conflict Resolution and Legal Systems 335
Thomas Kuehn
17 Medieval Rulers and Political Ideology 354
Robert W. Dyson
18 Papal Monarchy 372
Andreas Meyer
19 Urban Historical Geography and the Writing of Late Medieval Urban History 397
Teofilo F. Ruiz
20 Bureaucracy and Literacy 413
Richard Britnell
21 The Practice of War 435
Clifford J. Rogers
22 Expansion and the Crusades 455
Christopher Tyerman
PART VI TECHNOLOGIES AND CULTURE 475
23 Romanesque and Gothic Church Architecture 477
Stephen Murray
24 Aristocratic Culture: Kinship, Chivalry, and Court Culture 500
Richard E. Barton
25 Philosophy and Humanism 525
Stephen Gersh
26 Philosophy and Theology in the Universities 544
Philipp W. Rosemann
PART VII THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES 561
27 Medieval Europe in World History 563
R. I. Moore
Index 581